For decades, Mr. Watson and his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have rammed, sabotaged, shot water canons at and thrown stink bombs on whalers and commercial fishing vessels. The Ady Gil, the high-tech speedboat he sought to deploy against Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean this winter, may have been his most expensive loss so far at sea but his has been a career filled with dangerous mishaps and financial losses – both for his crews and for the boats he’s targeted.

In a press release Wednesday, he said while the loss of the Gil, which he said was worth $2 million, was a heavy blow, he’d happily trade it to save the life of one whale. While more whales are likely to be successfully harpooned by the Japanese fleet this season thanks to the loss of the ship and the diversion of other resources its caused, his extreme views on the matter were captured in a war of words between Watson and Greenpeace in 2008. Greenpeace, which opposes the use of violence in its campaigns because it says its conservation views are more effectively spread into policy levels by constructive engagement, was singled out by Watson as “Yellowpeace.”

That year, Greenpeace criticized Watson and his tactics as “morally wrong” and counter-productive because “If there’s one way to harden Japanese public opinion and ensure whaling continues, it’s to use violent tactics against their fleet.” Watson responded by appearing to compare the plight of the whales to that of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. “It was this kind of attitude by Jewish leaders in the Warsaw ghetto that resulted in the Holocaust. The leaders begged the people to not resist and to allow the Germans and the Poles to save them,” he wrote, defending his tactics.

The jury is still out on who caused Wednesday’s collision. Watson’s group says they were deliberately rammed; the Japanese say the Gil steered into them. A view of the video shows some merit to both claims, though typically larger vessels are expected to make every effort to steer away from smaller ones on the high seas, and the Japanese were clearly well-aware of their proximity to the Gill, given that they were directing water canon fire at it before, during and after the collision.

But they certainly had cause to be concerned about the Sea Shepherd vessels activities, since the group has a record of aggressively targeting whalers for ramming, and worse.

What are the group’s tactics?
In a 2007 New Yorker article, Watson claimed his group has successfully sunk 10 ships in port. The New Yorker reporter said that claim was hard to verify, and all they were certain of was that the group had successfully sunk two ships in port and had tried and failed to scuttle two others.
One of Watson’s older ships used to carry a tally of sunk whalers on its side in the fashion of a fighter ace, and among the sinkings the group took credit for was that of the Sierra, an unlicensed whaler. In 1979, Watson rammed the ship and damaged it at sea, and it limped into port. Limpet mines were later attached to its hull and brought it down.

Watson proudly defended his claim of 10 ships sunk on his website, saying “we rammed (1979) and we sunk (1980) the pirate whaler Sierra in Portugal, the whalers Isba I and Isba II in Spain in 1980, the Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7 in Iceland in 1986, the Nybraena in 1992, the Senet in 1994 and the Morild in 1998, all in Norway.” Though there have been no more recent sunken ships, the video below is of a Sea Shepherd attempt on a Japanese whaler in 2008.

found on seashepherd.org

A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea or lake. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, waves or cobblestones. The particles of which the beach is composed can sometimes instead have biological origins, such as shell fragments or coralline algae fragments.
Wild beaches are beaches which do not have lifeguards or trappings of modernity nearby, such as resorts and hotels. They are sometimes called undeclared, undeveloped, undefined, or undiscovered beaches. Wild beaches can be valued for their untouched beauty and preserved nature. They are most commonly found in less developed areas such as Puerto Rico, Thailand or Indonesia.
Beaches often occur along coastal areas where wave or current action deposits and reworks sediments.

photography by Mike Le
found on photofool.com

After decades of protection, you might think that the world’s whale population is safe.
You would be wrong, at least in part.
According to the WWF wildlife charity, seven out of the 13 great whale species are still endangered or vulnerable.
Commercial whaling is one of the challenges they face, with an estimated 1,000 whales a year killed for the market, says the WWF.
Other hazards include toxic contamination and the effects of climate change.
But a more recent danger has arisen, in the form of collisions with ships.

Doubling of death rates
Nowhere is this phenomenon clearer than in the Mediterranean.
It is now estimated that around 20% of whales found dead in the Mediterranean had collided with a ship.
About 20% of whales found dead in the Mediterranean had collided with ships
When you consider that vessels weighing more than 100 tons cross the Mediterranean around 220,000 times each year, it becomes a little easier to understand why.
This stretch of water has become the maritime equivalent of London’s Piccadilly Circus, without the traffic lights.

One of the species particularly at risk is the fin whale.
A graceful colossus, measuring up to four meters (13 feet) in length, these creatures swim the Mediterranean’s blue waters in a number of areas, but often gather in pods in the northern region between Italy and France to feed.
One recent study published in 2006 by the Marine Pollution Bulletin estimated that there are around 3,500 fin whales in the Mediterranean.
But according to the same report, the numbers dying after collisions has doubled since the 1970s.
“They simply can’t get out of the way of the great cruise liners and other vessels,” says Marco Costantini, from the WWF in Italy.

‘Battering ram’
And the cruise line market has been growing fast. According to Cruise Industry News, in European waters alone, passenger numbers have risen from 3.7 million in 2007 to 4.5 million this year.
A further 16 large vessels are on order for the European market, each one capable of carrying at least 5,000 passengers and crew.
All that extra traffic is potentially bad news for the whales.
They simply can’t get out of the way of the great cruise liners and other vessels”
The biggest obstacle to them is what is known as the ship’s “bulb”, the protruding section of the bow.
Its purpose is to direct the waves around the ship to lessen their impact on it, giving passengers a smoother ride.
But when the ship is at sea this extension careers through the water, under the surface, like a huge battering ram.

The whales do not stand a chance.
Whales: 2 knots. Ships: 22 knots. It is not hard to guess who is going to come off worse.
But now, thanks to a unique venture between one cruise company, WWF, and a number of other technology firms, help is at hand.
Four vessels, including the Costa Pacifica, owned by Costa Cruises, one of the biggest operators in the business, have been fitted with a software system called Repcet.

Repcet allows ships to share real-time information on the location of the whales.
Once a ship spots a whale, the co-ordinates are entered into the system. They are sent, via a satellite connection, to a server in France.
The server then centralises the data and sends out an alert to equipped vessels that are likely to be affected.
The alerts are displayed on a dedicated screen located on the ship’s bridge and it all happens in seconds.
In addition to accurately positioning the whale sightings, the system calculates and displays the associated risk zones. These are displayed as grey circles on the screen.

‘Commercial sense’
The system allows alarms to be programmed in, helping crew members to anticipate potential encounters, thereby avoiding the necessity of continuously watching the mapping screen. Capt Pennisi says the new system is good for ships as well as whales
The area covered by Repcet is about 90,000 sq km.
Massimo Pennisi, the captain of the Costa Pacifica, says he sees a whale “about once a month”.
“This new tracking system works very well. We can adjust speed and direction immediately,” he says, adding that it is also useful for avoiding the giant metal containers that can fall off ships in storms.
“Hitting a whale or a container at a speed of 20-plus knots could be bad news for the ship, so Repcet makes commercial as well as environmental sense,” he adds.
To be truly effective many more vessels will need to join the project.
“It’s a start,” says Marco Costantini from WWF. “It’s also a new direction for a non-governmental organisation like ours to work so closely with the private sector in order to protect wildlife,” he says.

The idea is to eventually expand the system to be applied in any areas where collisions are a known issue, such as the North Atlantic, Japan, and the Canary Islands.
Conservation and commerce are sometimes rivals on the high seas, but now they are setting a common course for the mutual benefit of those both above and below the waves.

found on bbc.co.uk

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. Most places in the ocean usually experience two high tides and two low tides each day (semidiurnal tide), but some locations experience only one high and one low tide each day (diurnal tide). The times and amplitude of the tides at the coast are influenced by the alignment of the sun and moon, by the pattern of tides in the deep ocean and by the shape of the coastline and near-shore bathymetry.

Most coastal areas experience two high and two low tides per day. The gravitational effect of the moon on the surface of the earth is the same when it is directly overhead as when it is directly underfoot. The moon orbits the earth in the same direction the earth rotates on its axis, so it takes slightly more than a day—about 24 hours and 50 minutes—for the moon to return to the same location in the sky. During this time, it has passed overhead once and underfoot once, so in many places the period of strongest tidal forcing is 12 hours and 25 minutes. The high tides do not necessarily occur when the moon is overhead or underfoot, but the period of the forcing still determines the time between high tides.

The sun also exerts on the earth a (less powerful) gravitational attraction which results in a secondary tidal effect. When the earth, moon and sun are approximately aligned, these two tidal effects reinforce one another (resulting in higher highs and lower lows). This alignment occurs approximately twice a month (at the full and new moon). These recurring extreme tides are termed spring tides. Tides with the smallest range are termed neap tides (occurring around the first and last quarter moons).
Tides vary on timescales ranging from hours to years due to numerous influences. To make accurate records, tide gauges at fixed stations measure the water level over time. Gauges ignore variations caused by waves with periods shorter than minutes. These data are compared to the reference (or datum) level usually called mean sea level.
While tides are usually the largest source of short-term sea-level fluctuations, sea levels are also subject to forces such as wind and barometric pressure changes, resulting in storm surges, especially in shallow seas and near coasts.
Tidal phenomena are not limited to the oceans, but can occur in other systems whenever a gravitational field that varies in time and space is present. For example, the solid part of the Earth is affected by tides.
found on wikipedia.org

States of emergency were declared in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland amid fears the Category 4 storm could become the most powerful hurricane in almost two decades.
Earl was expected to reach the eastern coastline in the early hours of this morning, battering North Carolina with high winds and heavy rains likely to cause dangerous floods.
More than 35,000 people were evacuated from the Hatteras and Ocracoke islands in Outer Banks as the strongest storm of the year descended on America’s east coast.

Forecasters warned that the potentially deadly storm could move north over the weekend, bringing chaos to America’s Labour Day holiday weekend and cancelling flights.
Millions of beachgoers and surfers who usually head for the beaches during the last weekend of the US summer season were told to keep a close watch on the hurricane’s development.
Warnings were in place up and down the east coast’s popular seaside resorts including Chesapeake Bay and Martha’s Vineyard, where Barack Obama and his family recently holidayed.
A hurricane watch, which means dangerous conditions are possible, was in effect as far north as Maine and the Canadian area of Nova Scotia.

Found on telegraph.co.uk

A ‘rogue wave’ is large, unexpected, and dangerous freak wave!
Rogue, freak, or killer waves have been part of marine folklore for centuries, but have only been accepted as a real phenomenon by scientists over the past few decades.

Rogues, called ‘extreme storm waves’ by scientists, are those waves which are greater than twice the size of surrounding waves, are very unpredictable, and often come unexpectedly from directions other than prevailing wind and waves.

Most reports of extreme storm waves say they look like “walls of water.” They are often steep-sided with unusually deep troughs.

Since these waves are uncommon, measurements and analysis of this phenomenon is extremely rare. Exactly how and when rogue waves form is still under investigation, but there are several known causes:
Constructive interference. Extreme waves often form because swells, while traveling across the ocean, do so at different speeds and directions. As these swells pass through one another, their crests, troughs, and lengths sometimes coincide and reinforce each other. This process can form unusually large, towering waves that quickly disappear. If the swells are travelling in the same direction, these mountainous waves may last for several minutes before subsiding.

Focusing of wave energy. When waves formed by a storm develop in a water current against the normal wave direction, an interaction can take place which results in a shortening of the wave frequency. This can cause the waves to dynamically join together, forming very big ‘rogue’ waves. The currents where these are sometimes seen are the Gulf Stream and Agulhas current. Extreme waves developed in this fashion tend to be longer lived.

A giant wave in the Bay of Biscayne, in an image published in Fall 1993 issue of Mariner’s Weather Log. Credit: NOAA

How high is the highest wave?

Cinemagoers will be familiar with the thrill of giant waves. But what most people don’t know is that the film The Poseidon Adventure is based on an incident involving the Queen Mary in WWII. The famous liner was hit by a giant ‘wall of water’ while she was carrying 15,000 American troops to Britain in 1942. The ship listed to an astonishing 52 degrees and almos capsized. More recently, The Perfect Storm will be familiar to most, providing an account of the sinking of the Andrea Gail south of Newfoundland in 1991.
Such giant waves are rare, and seldom recorded by reliable oceanographic instruments. However, on 1 January 1995 a sensor on a platform in the central North Sea recorded a giant 60ft high wave crest, so ‘freak’ waves are not just tall tails. Giant waves can have disastrous consequences even for the largest ships and offshore structures.
Such waves are thought to be very rare but just how rare? What physics drives such waves? Is a ‘wall of water’ plausible? How should engineers design structures to survive rare but potentially catastrophic events?

Within the last years a high number of large ships has been lost. The causes of accidents are in many cases believed to be ‘rogue waves’. These are individual waves of exceptional wave height or abnormal shape

It is well known that extreme waves often occur in areas were waves propagate into a strong opposing current. A well known example where many large ships have encountered difficulties is the Agulhas current outside South Africa. The strong current going south meets strong swell from storms in the Antarctic Ocean.

found on deathwaves.com

True oysters are members of the family Ostreidae. This family includes the edible oysters, which mainly belong to the genera Ostrea, Crassostrea, Ostreola and Saccostrea. Examples include the Belon oyster, Eastern oyster, Olympia oyster, Pacific oyster, Sydney rock oyster and the Wellfleet oyster.

Removing a pearl from an oyster.
Almost all shell-bearing molluscs can secrete pearls, yet most are not very valuable.
Pearl oysters are not closely related to true oysters, being members of a distinct family, the feathered oysters (Pteriidae). Both cultured pearls and natural pearls can be obtained from pearl oysters, though other molluscs, such as the freshwater mussels, also yield pearls of commercial value.
The largest pearl-bearing oyster is the marine Pinctada maxima, which is roughly the size of a dinner plate.

Not all individual oysters produce pearls naturally. In fact, in a harvest of three tons of oysters, only three to four oysters produce perfect pearls. Western Australia is currently the worlds largest cultivator of Pinctada maxima oysters.
In nature, pearl oysters produce natural pearls by covering a minute invading parasite with nacre, not by ingesting a grain of sand. Over the years, the irritating object is covered with enough layers of nacre to form what is known as a pearl. There are many different types, colours and shapes of pearl; these qualities depend on the natural pigment of the nacre, and the shape of the original irritant.

Pearl farmers can culture a pearl by placing a nucleus, usually a piece of polished mussel shell, inside the oyster. In three to six years, the oyster can produce a perfect pearl. These pearls are not as valuable as natural pearls, but look exactly the same. In fact, since the beginning of the 20th century, when several researchers discovered how to produce artificial pearls, the cultured pearl market has far outgrown the natural pearl market. Natural pearls have become increasingly scarce, and a necklace with only natural pearls can easily cost several hundred thousand US dollars.

Fishing from the wild
Oysters are harvested by simply gathering them from their beds. In very shallow waters they can be gathered by hand or with small rakes. In somewhat deeper water, long-handled rakes or oyster tongs are used to reach the beds. Patent tongs can be lowered on a line to reach beds that are too deep to reach directly. In all cases the task is the same: the oysterman scrapes oysters into a pile, and then scoops them up with the rake or tongs.
In some areas a scallop dredge is used. This is a toothed bar attached to a chain bag. The dredge is towed through an oyster bed by a boat, picking up the oysters in its path. While dredges collect oysters more quickly, they heavily damage the beds, and their use is highly restricted. Until 1965 Maryland limited dredging to sailboats, and even since that date motor boats can be used only on certain days of the week. These regulations prompted the development of specialized sailboats (the bugeye and later the skipjack) for dredging.

Oysters can also be collected by divers.
In any case, when the oysters are collected, they are sorted to eliminate dead animals, bycatch (unwanted catch), and debris. Then they are taken to market where they are either canned or sold live.

found on life.com
found on wikipedia.org

Thomas P. Peschak is the chief photographer of the Save our Seas Foundation. A former marine biologist, he has been a professional marine wildlife and underwater photojournalist for 10 years. He has won many awards including category wins in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Fuji Wildlife Photographer of the Year competitions as well as the Grand Prize (Portfolio) and Prix Jean et Maryse Chapeyroux  at the World Festival of Underwater Images 2007 and 2008.  He has photographed and written three critically acclaimed books – Currents of Contrast, South Africa’s Great White Shark and Wild Seas, Secret Shores of Africa.

He is also widely published in magazines and newspapers including BBC Wildlife, Africa Geographic, Geo, Fathoms, Paris Match and many others. He is a dedicated conservation photographer and has driven many successful campaigns to combat abalone poaching, illegal shark fishing and create marine reserves. He is an associate fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

For further information and image galleries visit: www.thomaspeschak.com

SS America was an ocean liner built in 1940 for the United States Lines and designed by the noted naval architect William Francis Gibbs. She carried many names in the 54 years between her construction and her 1994 wrecking, as she served as the SS America (carrying this name three different times during her career), the USS West Point, the SS Australis, the SS Italis, the SS Noga, the SS Alferdoss, and the SS American Star. She served most notably in passenger service as the SS America, and as the Greek-flagged SS Australis for Chandris. In 1941, she carried two Nazi spies from the Duquesne Spy Ring in her crew: Erwin Wilhelm Siegler and Franz Joseph Stigler. Both men were charged by the FBI with espionage and sentenced to 10 years and 16 years’ imprisonment, respectively.

In February 1993, the ship was sold yet again, with the intention of being refitted to become a five-star hotel ship off Phuket, in Thailand. Drydocking at that time revealed that despite the years of neglect, her hull was still in remarkably good condition. In August she was renamed American Star, her propellers were removed and placed on the deck, the funnel and bridge were painted red, and ladders were welded to starboard. She left Greece on December 22, 1993 under tow, but the tow proved impossible due to the weather. She then returned to Greece for a few days until the weather calmed down. On New Year’s Eve 1993, American Star left Greece for the last time, towed by Ukrainian tugboat Neftegaz 67.
The one hundred day tow began; American Star and Neftegaz 67 entered a thunder storm in the Atlantic. The tow lines broke and six or more men were sent aboard American Star to reattach the emergency tow lines. This proved unsuccessful. Two other towboats were called to assist Neftegaz 67. On January 17, the crew aboard American Star was rescued by helicopter. The ship was left adrift. On January 18, the ship ran aground off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

photography by Donibane
found on darkroastedblend.com

Photograph by Paul A. Zahl

The transparent shells of tiny Cypridina hilgendorfii, found in the coastal waters and sands of Japan, hold a creature that emits a luminous blue substance when disturbed. During World War II, the Japanese harvested these creatures for soldiers to use when reading maps and messages at night.

found on nationalgeographic.com

Rising sea temperatures can harm the tiny plant life that forms the base of the oceans’ food chain as well as affect the diversity of marine life, two new studies have found.

Over the years, humans have affected the oceans by pollution and over-fishing and through habitat alteration caused by dredging and other activities. Less understood is the role of higher sea temperatures, which many scientists believe is linked to global climate change. Scientists estimate that the oceans have warmed a total of roughly half a degree Celsius on average over the past 100 years.

Researchers have long debated whether phytoplankton concentrations have increased or declined. The algae have flourished in many coastal areas because increased runoff from rivers brings nutrients that the algae gorge on. However, no one has properly assessed whether the global oceans are losing or gaining phytoplankton, which forms the base of the marine food chain, from crustaceans to fish and ultimately to humans.

Consistent satellite-based measurements exist only from 1997, so scientists at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada instead used data obtained with a simple oceanography device known as a Secchi. Used by scientists since the late 1800s, a Secchi is a disk lowered into the water to provide an estimate of water clarity and thus serves as a proxy measure of phytoplankton abundance.

By collating and analyzing about half a million Secchi observations, plus other direct measurements of algae, the Dalhousie team estimated that phytoplankton levels declined by about 1% of the global average each year from 1899 onward. The data are more reliable for recent decades, translating into a 40% decline in algae since 1950.

found on wallstreetjournal.com

The award-winning, five-star Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort is one of the most renowned vacation destinations in the South Pacific.
Located on the island of Vanua Levu on 17 acres of a coconut plantation, the accommodations overlook the peaceful waters of Savusavu Bay . The acclaimed resort is an international favorite for romance, honeymoons and weddings; water enthusiasts; and families, who want to combine heavenly surroundings and exceptional dining with an unsurpassed range of eco-friendly activities. Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort is the only resort that employs a full-time marine biologist to help visitors appreciate the underwater world of Fiji.

found on oceanchannel.com