Travel Theme Photo Challenge: Oceans

Ailsa over at Where’s My Backpack has come up with another great challenge and this time it is also meant to educate. World Ocean Day was June 8th. Learn more here at  worldoceansday.org . With so much knowledge about the environment we sometimes forget about the oceans. A few disturbing things I have recently learned about the ocean… I think it was on Discovery Channel or National Geographic that I learned about this problem with our oceans. Due to ocean currents there is a ‘garbage island’ floating about our earth. Water bottles, containers, drums, plastic rings and other human materials that have been lost at sea or discarded get picked up by currents and then have joined each other in one massive swirling unbiodegrable heap. How sad is that? It pollutes or waters and harms the wildlife that eat it or get entangled in it. You can read about it on Wikipedia under the Great Garbage Patch.

Another problem I have heard about is fishing nets. They are meant to catch fish, but due to their size and invisible nature under water boats, people and wildlife get caught in them. Just this weekend I was watching an episode of Ellen that aired in March about a whale that had a long net tangled on its tail. It took over 8 hours to free the whale. The net also contained other wildlife like sharks, seals and fish. It is a shame that in this day and age we cannot come up with a more humane way of catching fish. I guess it comes down to time and money; work the least amount of time and get the most product in the time you spend. I spoke before how my uncle and grandfather were fishermen. They had small boats and used lobster and crab traps for shellfish and simple hook and lines for larger fish. There were many hooks on a simple frame and within minutes, in a good fishing ground, the boat would be full and they would return to shore. Now big trawlers, mainly from other countries, come in with their large nets and over fish. The Grandbanks of Canada is no longer teeming with fish as it once was. The Canadian Government now puts quotas on our fishermen and licences are no longer available, only current ones can be bought and sold for big dollars. Is it fair that other countries are overfishing our waters and not thinking about the future and consequences of their actions? Is it fair that some Canadian lively hood is lost because someone else thinks they do not have to follow the laws? Doesn’t seem fair does it?

Well time to get off the soap box and share a photo! I have recently been to the China Sea and Gulf of Mexico, but no oceans… In the past I  have been to the Atlantic and Pacific, but those photos I always seem to want are in the pesky storage. I guess this summer I should start scanning some old images and making them digital! However, I did find this one of the Atlantic Ocean as we flew along the US coast on our way to Cuba. No waves or turquoise blues here, but a god’s eye view from above… enjoy 🙂

If you want to see more ocean pics, or participate check out this link for Where’sMyBackpack. We can always make room for one more 🙂