OCEAN Magazine - blue whale, Red Sea Reef, Roving the deep

14 I Am Come from the Sea

by Marlene Moon

16 By the Bay
by Diane Buccheri

20 Night River, East Saugus

by Tom Sheehan

22 The Blue Whale

by James Michael Dorsey

30 Sonnet to a Golden Urn

by John Thomas Clark

32 Roving the Deep Sea for Answers

by Cat Campbell

40 The Bluest Red, the Red Sea Reef

by Michelle Borinstein

46 Curtain Rising

by Christie Gorsline

52 Spring Secret

by Melba Milak

56 Ixchel, the 13th Part

by Derek Rowley

66 First Love
by Susan Biddy

68 New Day
by Diane Buccheri

Clear and fresh from winter’s cleansing chill, the ocean breathes again, loosening its tresses, dancing its salty froth in springtime’s winds.

The warming ocean waters spread out and soften. The ocean’s rhythmic rolling and crashing becomes less condensed, more varied, like a symphony tuning.

The waters rush and recede, flow and recede, come and go away.

My neighbor’s seagull friend too, has come and gone away. During spring he arrives from a long journey, standing outside her door on the deck railing, patient. Greeting him, she offers treats, which he gladly takes, secure in her close presence.

She talks and he bows his head, twists his neck with interest, steps side to side.

When she is away from home for a few hours he waits for her, alone, perched on the railing. When she leaves for a few days or more, he joins the seagull flock on the beach, just over the dune line, to return to his post upon her arrival.

As I walk over the dune, he swoops and swirls overhead, focus upon me, in tight circles and expansive ones, riding the currents of wind, weaving among his own, winding his way back to me, then suddenly flying swiftly away, beyond my sight.

He’s taken morsels from me on the deck, though at a greater, more cautious distance than with his most trusted friend, eyeing me sideways.

On windy days, not necessarily able to face into the wind as seagulls do on the beach, Jonathan side steps the railing quickly and quicker, never crossing his feet, keeping himself a-perch, intent upon their exchange. Less windy days, his seagull friends join him, collecting their treats too, but they move along and Jonathan stays.

This past fall, his vibrantly white chest and ash black neck feathers mottled into a gray mix. Alas, the season passed, once again, and Jonathan with it to a place unknown to us. For many springs he has come back from afar.

He comes back to the cleaned waters, the sea’s fresh pickings, greening sea oats, one among many of the flocks, again distinctly white and black, like the others.

Side stepping on the porch, intent upon his friend again –– yes? We await Jonathan’s arrival, his return an ordinary event, yet so extraordinary. The return a physical feat, the return a full delight, like the mid-morning sun alighting the salty splash.

Diane Buccheri, Publishing Editor

The largest creature ever to roam the earth is not an extinct dinosaur, but is alive and well today.

Usually, I photograph them from a 75-foot long powered catamaran, humbled to realize they are longer than my boat and their flukes are wider. They are the most difficult whale to photograph because of their size, and they do not expose much of their body. Seeing one silently gliding by I feel an overwhelming sense of their power.

Often curious, they have approached me within 20 yards on several occasions, a few rolling onto their side to have a good look at me while swimming by. I have watched them cruising at almost 20 knots to lunge feed, and travel for many miles without tiring. When they are feeding, their aroma carries for miles on the wind.

Balaenoptera musculus, more commonly known as the blue whale, swims in every ocean of the world, and despite man’s near hunting of it into extinction, is doing rather well, at least for the time being, though in dwindled numbers.

The blue whale is a warm blooded mammal, and just like humans, gives live birth and nurses its young, has hair, and breathes air.

. . . For the next three days we rocked at anchor in the sunshine; dolphins swam by and tuna leapt. I baked my first loaf of bread. We ate lobster for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I indulged in the luxury of bathing in the ocean and journaled:

Rolling waves lift me up for a view of the beach and drop me back into my private trough. Bubbles refract into little rainbows around me. I’m a child again and I splash with pleasure.

We explored the bay by dinghy then went ashore. The nearly deserted island is home to only a handful of Mexican military families. Climbing to the top of a hill I spied Nanook bobbing at anchor in the distance. We playfully mimicked the clack-clacking of a dozen albatross waddling through the dust and rocks and picked our way down a steep path cut by decades of footsteps that had tramped on the same narrow ruts.

That evening the vanishing sun made a spectacular show, sinking into the ocean and spilling a crimson path over the water. As she took her curtain call, the ocean turned to dark blue velvet and the early stars glowed in a purpling sky. Her diamond studded path rippled across the water, illuminating the cockpit and another lobster feast.

I hummed to a favorite tune, swirled wine in my glass, and thought about the change that would come with the sunrise. At first light we would head for mainland Mexico.

It creeps along the ocean floor deep beyond the reach of natural light. All around, marine “snow” comprised of particles of organic matter, drifts down to become food for the small bottom-dwelling creatures that in turn sustain larger invertebrates and fish.

What is this thing that makes its way in the deep sea where mysteries abound and secrets are reluctantly revealed? It is the benthic rover, a mobile physiology lab developed by scientists at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), located at Moss Landing, California, 20 miles north of Monterey. MBARI is a private, not-for-profit oceanographic research center founded in 1987 by David Packard of the Hewlett-Packard company.
The benthic rover (“benthic” pertains to the ocean floor) helps provide a more thorough understanding of the carbon cycle and its role at depths of 500 meters (1,600 feet) and beyond. MBARI scientists study carbon, a basic element in all organic molecules, in an effort to determine the details of supply and demand for food on the ocean bottom.

Scientists want to know if the carbon supply on the sea bottom meets the demand. The marine snow is a supply, but does it balance with the demand from benthic organisms?

Global warming. Climate change. Melting glaciers. Starving polar bears and penguins. Flowers blooming in winter’s air that ice and snow would otherwise blanket. Whether we have caused global warming or the coming climate change, possibly cataclysmic, is nature’s doing, we are consuming too many resources and leaving our waste to damage earth’s remaining resources.


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