Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, the beginning of school, the kickoff of the football season and, where I grew up, the last day of the year that it was acceptable to wear white (go figure). Read more
The Society for Science and the Public, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing scientific news, emails me with weekly updates. Read more
Last week, in about 7 feet of water, I swam over a reef wall and found myself in the middle of a dozen jacks, a new species to me, each bearing yellow, dashlike marks on their sides. Read more
Craig and I don’t often snorkel side by side. He thinks that swimming fast in deep water is best, because that’s where the big jacks, sharks and manta rays hang out. I, however, like to float quietly in a few feet of water. Not only do some astonishing creatures live there, but I get to see them up close and take their pictures. Read more
I’ve always wondered where home was for kolea. Is it Alaska, where for about three months the Pacific golden plovers build nests, raise chicks and “forget” their winter partnerships with humans? Read more
I had the blues last week. Our little dog, Lucy, died, and the storm spoiled my usual stress reliever of snorkeling. Nor did I feel like walking the beach. Besides when it drizzled, Lucy and I walked there for years. Going alone made me miss her even more. Read more
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A Kentucky man emailed that he was doing research on nightmare weke and wondered whether I knew of recent cases here. Because I hadn’t written about this odd illness, also called hallucinatory fish poisoning, for years, I wondered, too. Read more
A reader emailed that he has “coral empathy fatigue” from so many reports about bleaching. It happens. A person can take only so much bad news. Read more
One of the joys of snorkeling or beach walking in Australia is finding marine animals new to me. It’s also frustrating because being on my sailboat, I often don’t have internetaccess or the right books on board to look up what I’ve found. Read more
News reports about the demise of the Great Barrier Reef are so pervasive that before I left Hawaii to sail there, several people asked me why I wanted to go. Read more
Where fishing is prohibited here in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, I can describe the animals in one word: big. Read more
While sailing north through the reefs and islands of Great Barrier Reef National Park, our routine is to sail in the morning, choose one of the nearly endless protected island anchorages, stop there for the night and explore. Read more
Craig and I are back in Australia to collect our 37-foot ketch, Honu, and explore more of the Great Barrier Reef. Read more
While snorkeling last week I thought I saw a remora stuck to the belly of a big turtle. Read more
North Carolina politicians recently passed a law that requires people in public buildings and schools to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender at birth. When an NPR reporter asked the Rev. Alex McFarland, a North Carolina evangelist, why he supports this legislation, he replied, “This is an issue of natural law … and natural law is the recognition that there are males and females.” Read more
Because it seems that wedgetail triggerfish are having a banner year, last week I swam in a straight line and counted them. In only a few minutes, I saw 12. Read more
Whenever I peek in a cave I pass during one of my favorite snorkeling routes, the Dr. Seuss book title, “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” starts worming through my brain. Even though I can only see flashes of scarlet in the dark little space, I know there’s at least one or two fish in there and they’re red. And that narrows the identity down to one of three red cave dwellers in Hawaii: soldierfish, squirrelfish or bigeyes. Read more
After reading about my experiences at Midway, home of the largest albatross colony in the world, Mililani resident Jim May emailed me excerpts of letters his great-grandfather Edward May wrote. Edward was the paymaster aboard the USS Lackawanna when its captain claimed possession of Midway for the U.S. in 1867. Read more
Last week I visited the cutest albatross chicks in the world, balls of down so bottom-heavy they look like beanbag toys. Read more
On a beach last week, Molokai reader Robert Maughan found a shell he describes as a 2-1/2-by-2-1/2-inch coral-urchin-barnacle. “Never seen the likes,” Maughan wrote. He sent two photos, and I had never seen the likes, either. But I recognized the shape and soon found the answer. Maughan had found the shell of Coronula diadema, a barnacle species that grows only on humpback whales. Read more
In 2014 I heard that a monk seal hospital opened on Hawaii island’s Kona Coast. I didn’t know any more about it until a year later when I picked up a friend returning from Midway Atoll. His seatmates on the plane had been two monk seal pups found at Pearl and Hermes Atoll in Papahanau- mokuakea National Marine Monument. Read more
