exploring the oceans

The Oystercatchers of Gwaii Haanas
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The Oystercatchers of Gwaii Haanas

Hail Brave Hearts

The great wild is calling,  An adventures awaits.  Dutifully we don our apparel for yet another great holiday in Canada.  It’s summertime, and the sun shines gloriously on long days of warmth and outdoor activity. Canoes and kayaks entice us into the waters of lakes and rivers.  The iconic Canadian transportation system, lures us into the paths of our history.  Build your canoes, build your kayaks, follow in the steps of legendary people who navigated the waters this way.

The great wild calls us to develop the skills of history makers who charted the seas, mapped the coastlines and stamped the approval of the ownership of this land.  This is ours.

The great lands of the Haida, tucked away in the northern islands, north of Vancouver Island.  Isolated and rare, a gem of discovery.  This land is our land, protected by a great nation of peoples, the Haida people of Haida Gwaii and the Gwaii Haanas National Park.  It belongs to them and their stories fill the islands.

We arrive by plane, for the trip of a lifetime, into the land of the Haidas.  Remote and alive, the area fills with eagles.  The ocean is calm and the days are warm.  We’ve packed for a week long kayak adventure into Gwaii Haanas.  This area is a paradise of wilderness ocean adventure.

Seagulls meet us, reminding us that God is here.  In the call of the birds, we clearly hear Gods name.  Seals bask on the rocks and a river otter swims past.  An Oyster Catcher stops us.  His antics catch our attention as he jumps around on the rock in a aa unusual dance.  His five chicks huddle close together in the nest and his mate slumber close by.  He is a father and proudly shows off the nest.  A thirteen year old bird, whose making a noise that sounds like Barack.  We name him Barack then, pleased that he’s shown us his fine family

Black Oystercatcher Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Our luck with the weather holds for this trip.  There are seven of us on this  July excursion, with a guided kayaking and camping company.  The Pacific is mainly calm and peaceful towards us as humpback whales surface and feed in our sights.  One comes close to us.  It’s a pleasure.  The wildlife sightings are superb, with black bear, dolphins, orcas and sea lion to add to our list.  The bird life is unusual to us as well.  Ancient Murrelet,  seagulls, falcons, puffins, rhinoceros beaked birds and red footed pigeon guillemot to add to  our list.  It’s a list of some rare bird and animals  in an area filled with ocean life.

Then, there’s, the people.  We visit the Haida of the ancient totem poles.  to see for ourselves the carvings of great masters and to hear their stories.  A far flung people, out in islands in a remote Pacific location.  An area of impressive beauty molding a nation of seafaring people, who live from the sea.  The builders of ocean going canoes paddling the great seas.  A people of unique culture, surviving in an area of wildlife wealth.  The ocean provides.

This was a dream holiday in our great land.  So much to be proud of, so much to enjoy.  The land and the people, the ocean and the wildlife.  A place of unusual prosperity.

parks.canada.ca › pn-np › bcGwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine …

The sun shines brightly on Haida Gwaii and the warm summer breeze encourages outdoor adventure.  This was a wonderful, unique  holiday in Canada’s superb wilderness backyard.  We congratulate ourselves for this choice of adventure.    We’ll be back

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

August 27, 2023

My Master
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My Master

Hail Brave Hearts

 

The world is changing, washing itself away.  The oceans are rising, eating into the shoreline, seeping into the forest and meadows, changing the land.  The water table is rising, salt water is creeping into the soil, changing the habitat.  Some ecosystems are failing, forested areas now becoming ghosts of the land. The ecological integrity of these areas is in such peril that the trees succumb to salt water infiltration and die.  The Earth is the master, retaking it’s land.

The global warming, with ice sheets breaking off from Arctic ice flows, crashing powerfully into the oceans.  The water table has risen significantly in the past several decades.  New species of sharks have been discovered.  The  oceans are changing and providing for more water for more ocean life.  Seeping itself inland, the salt water is claiming it’s territory.  Once thriving forested areas, home to many land dwelling creatures, succumb to the tide of destructive salt that washes it’s way into the soil and ruins the land for the native species that dwell there.  The new legacy of our world is water.

Water, the life source of our planet.  Without this we all will surely die.  Now, this very life source is lurking too close and consuming areas that were inhabited by beautiful land dwelling creatures.  The rising water table is salt water, which is good for the ocean dwellers, but no so for us.  But how do we stop the tides?  In so many ways, water is better than sand.  In every way.  Water is a life sustaining force that protects the natural elements that depend upon it.  Water is essential.

The tides of the oceans swell and claim more coastal land.  The lakes and rivers rise and claim more shoreline for themselves.  Island nations are vanishing to the rising sea levels.  It’s a disaster to those who live in these lands.  So much is changing and so rapidly.  Environmental studies are showing an increasing loss of land, in a world where there has always been so much ocean to cross.  All of the experts, striving to control the loss of land, in a world without end.

https://apnews.com/article/7a8b498f60034a8eb960900e08f7b4b8  Ghost Forest along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

More conversations in regards to the receding glaciers, indicate  other theories for the fast vanishing ice.  Exhaust.  Vehicle traffic too close to the glaciers might be causing them to retreat.  Some glaciers in more remote areas are still intact, without noticeable change in their size or density.  Increasing numbers of boats in the Arctic regions, warming the oceans through exhaust.  There was a report last year, that with fewer boats travelling these waters due to the pandemic, there wasn’t any calving off of ice  and the northern ice shelves remained intact. The icebergs in some areas remained intact as well.  The water is these locations stayed cold.

Rising water temperatures is dangerous to many forms of sea life.  Sensitive creatures such as coral need  consistent water temperatures to survive.  With the loss of corals comes the loss of sea life which depends up on it.  Rising water temperatures in lakes is dangerous to cold loving animals and plants.  Heat from industry and travel, warming the water, spoiling the pristine in nature, supporting some life forms and killing off others.  The Earth is the master.  What mankind can’t resolve for itself, the Earth will decide.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

November 22, 2020

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The Mariana Trench

Hail Almighty Planet

The Earth sings to us from it’s ocean depths.  Songs of creation, of discovery, of challenge, of adventure, of conquest, of unimaginable, tantalizing delights.  The unknown, the unexplored, the difficult.  A challenge only for the most qualified, most skilled,  most ingenious and the brave.

Here is a delight, to capture the imagination of the mind of man.  A chance for a record, for a first, for a brilliant endevour.  Here, in the darkest depths of the ocean lies the undiscovered secrets of the Mariana Trench.

http://www.deepseachallenge.com/the-expedition/mariana-trench/

Oh fabulous planet, so exciting and unusual.  The exploration of the surface is still unfolding.  Thousands of years of human history and still, the planet offers more.  Again the great Earth inspires us to explore, again the great Earth temps us and tantalizes us.  Come, great human, into the depths of the dark waters.  Come great human, come to the ocean and explore.

This is a world for the curious.  Choose your adventure and pursue it. So much to see in the world around us, so much to do on the surface.  We stretch our bodies and thrill our minds.  We focus on adventure and pursue the great mysteries.  We strive to discover the secrets of the planet.  Oh, mysterious world, full of caves and space, mountains, and forest, oceans deep and endless sky.  The thrill of this lifetime is a world within our reach.  Yet still, the great planet surprises us.  Lifeforms in unusual places, defying the odds of possibility.  Cold and dark, deep and difficult, yet the light shines on something and it takes our breath away.

Something new for us, when we think we know it all.  Something still out there, still unexplored, still calling our name.

Mariana Trench | The Deepest & Most Unexplored Place On The Planet

The brilliant great planet, shows us another mystery.  We’ve conquered the seas, boats are part of our lives, we know the surface of the oceans, and much of what is inside.  Here, in the Pacific Ocean, is a new mystery.  A great crack in the ocean floor, deeper than the highest mountain.  It’s cold, dark depths await the mighty adventurer.  Oceanographers smile, with eager curiosity.  Space travel and Polar explorations are accomplished.  We go further into space, colder in the harshness of the polar icecaps,   higher to the tops of the worlds mountains, but what lies beneath the surface of the Earth is still a curious and an unexplored place.

Down beneath the surface of the Earth, down into the depths of the ocean floor.  Still, great human, a chance for discovery.  A skill testing area to ignite that flame of curiosity.  Still, oh great ones, the Earth presents itself with uniqueness and unusual areas.  New lifeforms, new beginnings, new creatures, new worlds.

The Earth, that awesome spinning globe, that speck of dust in a universe so vast.  To be here, in this life sustaining place, where mystery upon mystery upon mystery unfolds.  Oh lucky human, to be alive is such a wonderful world.  The great planet sustains us and keeps us, so very well.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

October 28, 2016