Sea turtle nesting grounds

It has been some time since anything has been posted to the blog. Since it is summer in the northern hemisphere a search for sea turtle beaches might be a worth while highlight to a summer vacation. First up let me tell you that sea turtle eggs hatch in the warm sands of only a few of the beaches in the world. Here is a list of some of them:

• the Brunswick Islands  North Carolina
• south west Florida coast
• north coast of Australia
• South Pardre Island - Texas

Almost all of them are located next to warm shallow ocean areas.

Watching sea turtles hatch is a night time activity. Conservation groups like to educate and help the general public learn and observe the nightly hatching events that take place a few months each year. You can view a video of sea turtles hatching in North Carolina at this website.

Generally no added light is allowed in the area of the hatching so keep your flashlights at home. A good idea would be to choose a night when the moon is bright enough to allow viewing of the event under natural night time light.

Enjoy the summer and remember to not harm the coastal wildlife. Take photos and memories with you and leave everything else alone.

Encounter with sperm whale

It has been awhile since I last posted so I thought it would be nice to post a video. Below you will find a video of a sperm whale

Unusual number of whale and dolphin deaths in the last few days

There is an alarming number of whales and dolphins that have died in the last week or so. They have either been beached or found floating near the shorelines.

85 dolphins have beached themselves near Cape Cod on Jan. 25, 2012

Several whale beachings - list to linked stories

• Ocean City Finback whale
• FT. PIERCE, Florida
• Cape Lookout National Seashore
• Washington Coast
• New Zealand's South Island
  
• New Zealand's Golden Bay
  

So what is going on? There have been several message boards that are discussing the events but none of them have a marine biologist chiming in yet. Just lay people with opinions that range from "so what" to "it is the end of the world" and "something to do with 2012"

Dolphins and whales playing with each other

Below is a video showing a interaction between dolphins and whales that are not aggressive towards each other.

Getting close to the sea

So you really love the ocean. The sea, the waves and the tide pools call to you. You want to live near the ocean (or already do) and have a career that involves working either on, in or next to the ocean. How many careers can you think of? Here is what I can think of:

• Marine biologist
• Fisherman
• Tour guide
• Captain or crew of a ship
• Underwater welder
• Worker on an oil rig
• Pro Surfer
• Teacher - lessons in swimming, surfing, boating, fishing ect
• Entrepreneur (para-sailing, helicopter rides, charter boat ect)
• Scuba diver 
• Navy personnel
• Hotel owner
• Resort owner or worker

I bet you can think of at least a dozen more. My husband actually pursued a career as an underwater welder. He became a certified welder first using all kinds of welding equipment then when he got to the part of training for the underwater part he ran out of finances to get the scuba equipment. Unfortunately the school required him to buy his own equipment, they did not rent it out. So he ended his quest for underwater welding but stayed on land and was a welder for many many years.

SHARK WEEK FOR GRANDMA

Guest post written by my buddy Royce Heath

I visited http://www.directstartv.com/ this morning and scheduled an appointment for my grandmother to upgrade her television package. She recently went out to Best Buy and ended up buying an awesome new LED television. It was a big leap from the television that she had before. She had a big screen clunkly television for the last fifteen years. It was cool when she bought it, but the technology has changed so much that she needed to catch up. She was absolutely amazed when we went shopping with how thing the television screen was. She also just couldn’t believe that we got the television just mounted on the wall. I know that she is really going to love it when she gets that HD service put in next week and it shows up really well on the television screen. Now, when her favorite time of the year, “Shark Week”, comes on she will be able to watch it in full HD like never before. With the size of her new television, I’m sure that we will feel like we are swimming with the sharks!