Help, Help!!! Human Debree tossed in by Hurricanes Threatened to Drown Me and Reef Criters at Turneffe Atoll, Belize

The disappearing beach at one of the mangrove islands
 on Turneffe Atoll,
the largest Atoll in the second largest coral reef in the world

Last year's hurricanes dumped plastic trash  on the beaches of Turneffe Atoll. At one of its islands, pictured above, I saw a plastic baby doll and a pair of  goose barnacle covered flip flops amazingly within a foot of each other.

Last year's hurricanes were the strongest recorded sucking away the sand in the atoll's beaches. The roots of palms were exposed. Some trees fell or will fall in the next hurricane. Some red mangrove trees also were lost reducing the distance between the shore and interior brackish water ponds where crocodiles mate and live.  all along the narrow strip of sand new mangrove shoots poked above the sand. They grow remarkably fast to become the lung of the reef and the most protective plant of the fragile reef. But as remarkable as they are, will they stand a chance if these storms and higher tides are more frequent and pull more sand away from the shore?



I am looking with binoculars across the pond at crocodiles. My granddaughter is in foreground.
Behind me are the black mangroves with roots in the brackish water beginning to be stressed.
Also the distance between the pond and the reef shore is half what it was in 2016.

 Without dry roots the black mangrove trees started dieing.  Not only that the sea level has risen in recent years according to Turneffe Flats Lodge. The atoll is 30 miles long and 18 miles wide at the widest point. The whole system is threatened  including Turneffe Flats Fishing Lodge and Ecotourist Resort.  When we were there for one week the place looked in fine shape. They said within a few weeks after the storms the owners built a new dock, fixed the wood buildings, replaced some of the sand and planted red mangrove trees.  The owners were still in the process of building a much stronger two story cement structure partly to increase the number of client rental rooms and partly for their new home.

Me in my 180 degree snorkeling mask.
The mask worked fine when on the surface
but near the end of snorkeling I attempted to dive down.  The  mask started to fill with water.
To make the water flow out I simply looked down and lost track of the group resulting in an interesting  but unpleasant experience.  I became a little separated from the group.

My sympathy for all critters of the reef was made greater after this unpleasant experience.  The currents around the atoll created a trash line about a hundred yards from open ocean with higher waves.  I swam through the trash accidentally when I was left behind and didn't look up enough to see where I was going. I was fascinated by a big jelly fish. I was pulled a little off course by an increasingly stronger current on my way to the boat pulling me closer and closer to the colder ocean. Then I got to experience first hand how fish and critters could be trapped surrounded by plastic bags,  broken floating sea weed and the little box jelly fish I feared.  I told myself not to panic, but just go with the flow gradually shifting directions towards the boat.  When I was parallel to the starboard of the boat, I  made a right turn and started swimming hard towards the boat.  My plan was to  pass the boat and go around the anchor rope and head back for the ladder near the aft on the port side of the boat.  Making headway was difficult.  My daughter saw me and thought I was lost and came around to me and tugged at my hand to get me to turn towards the stern instead.

 I welcomed our role reversal and am so grateful my daughter is so wonderfully caring.

What is being done and can be done?

A big part of being able to experience being on a remote atoll is consumption of energy like petroleum. To reduce the amount needed, some have tried wind and solar power. But unfortunately there isn't a good way to protect  the delicate machinery from high tides and winds of hurricanes. At least a method hasn't been invented yet.

There is a little house on the tip of one of the mangrove islands where adventurous people come to stay without electricity, or a supply of water or any food other than what they can collect, catch or gather - survival tourism anyone?

Turneffe Flats had their own green house where they grew herbs, onions and peppers. Many of their foods were purchased from organic Mennonite farmers from the mainland of Belize.

Our adventure guide, Abel Coe, wants to educate Belize school children to value their natural resources by taking them out in the morning to help pick up the trash and then take them snorkeling in the afternoon. I hope he is supported in his mission.

The owners of Turneffe Flats are trying to make Turneffe Atoll a Belize National Monument and Nature Preserve. A portion of the money we paid for staying at the fishing resort went to ecology efforts. They do not use micro-wave and other high powered appliances. use solar pannels to heat shower water. Limit hours of air conditioning. They also recycle black water, and collect rain water, use salt water in their infinity pool among other eco friendly practices..

Surge, a marine biologist, and the dive guide is promoting ecology world foundations.
Call to scientific inventors: design equipment for atoll dwellers to convert plastic to fuel. Anyone, can you make a small island friendly machine to convert algae to biofuel?

Brainstorming anyone for more ideas!




nature heals

I am in the mood for beauty-- not words. In fact for the next few blogs, that's all there will be. 

The first photos are from Western Oregon.

one of those months-- and it's not over yet

This was one of those months and by month, I mean June, which is a month I generally look forward to its arrival. And, I am not even talking about what went wrong in the nation. Just my own little corner. 

We had summery days, the Solstice, nights that don't begin until 9:30, flowers-- what's not to like? Well in terms of its weather there was nothing not to like. It was lovely (although we could use more rain), but in terms of other things... Well, it wasn't bad exactly (I am saying that because it's not yet over and don't want it to prove to me it is bad). It was filled with inconveniences that were unplanned. Let me count the ways.

Minor glitch-- coffeemaker's automatic feature stopped working, which meant it might or might not make the coffee and it might or might not keep it warm beyond a few seconds. Replacing it solved that problem for awhile. We do seem to go through coffeemakers pretty fast. 

In our area, June is the month ranchers get in their winter's supply of hay. That meant almost every grower, who we know, had some glitch in their equipment, including us. Our loader tractor needed to be repaired after which Ranch Boss made the annual drives down to the fields with the hay trailer to load the 800 lb. bales, bring them back here where they are stacked and await time to move them into the barns. The tractor in the field did the job but had steering that left a lot to be desired. 

There is a rush attached to this kind of farm event, and this year, it came at a very inconvenient time-- two of our grandchildren arrived just as it did for a two week visit at our small ranch or with their cousins.

Acquiring the grandchildren required driving an 8+ hours round trip, which at our ages is not fun but having them here at least once every summer, that is important to us. We had a few plans for their visit, some of which fell through, but still it was good overall for us, and we hope for them. 

A few days after their arrival, I walked into the main bathroom, the one they use, to find water flowing from the toilet water closet and reaching the hall. Ranch Boss was not there as he was picking up another hay load-- water water everywhere. I won't go in to the details, but a disastrous crack in that water closet meant there was no fixing it. That meant, as soon as the hay was in, removing said toilet, going to town, picking out a new one (they are pretty neat these days), and Ranch Boss installing it.

Back to the grandkid visit-- one local cousin got sick and that reworked when they would spend two nights with them. About the time we were going to pick them up, I wasn't feeling well, so they stayed there an extra night. 

Ranch Boss is also Techie Boss, and he had to get all his lab equipment from town where it had been more or less being stored since he no longer had a project there. That put the hay trailer into use again and required several loads. That was bad timing with wanting quality time with grandkids, but no choice again as the area it had been stored was being re-rented.

Hay and techie movement was complicated by our farm gate's automatic opener turning un-automatic. The first one of these had lasted 10 years. This one not even two, and I think we've replaced it one more time than he does. At any rate, instead of a remote opening the gate, it's currently closed with a chain and someone has to get out of the truck to open the gate and close it after passing through. This gate is the one that keeps the sheep from the highway; so it's not an option to use anytime we drive out. 

I won't even get into the problems that arrived with the last book being published June 21st. Let's just say we learned some things about that, which will hopefully save the problems recurring.

The next in the Arizona historical series  (of which I have written two with one to go) has been getting some reworking in my head as I get to know the next hero and the characters from the third story. I do this all the hard way as I sit out under the trees, look up at the birds and work out plots and characters. 

One change from it was when I realized I had to change the family's surname. For the third one, easy-- for the two already out, the work was all done by Word with me checking to make sure it didn't mix something up. I do love Word with how easy such changes are-- except of course, when it's not. 

I will say that it's convenient to write three of these books, before any come out. I had a great deal of freedom for everything except the first hero-- he had appeared in another book as to what he looked like and his age; but he was using a false name in that one, which he revealed in the first of this series. He had a good reason for the alias. So needing to change the surname was possible. I also discovered this family relates to a family in one of my contemporaries. Ancestry.com has nothing on me ;)

Despite the complications that made our grandchildren's time here maybe less fun for them, we enjoyed their visit-- even made it one day to the Coast Aquarium in Newport.

If the drive again to take them home (another 8+ hours) wasn't so much fun (there are sooooo many big trucks on the freeway), it was rewarding to see the joy on their mother's face when they returned, and she got them safely back in the nest after a little vacation on both sides. 

The weather has turned quite hot here-- like nearing 100ºF, which for our region is hotter than our usual, but the concern will be the potential of thunderstorms and fire danger. That though goes with the territory with country living. For the most part, we can decompress after Ranch Boss gets in that last trailer load of that equipment from town to here. Of course, there are still a few days left in June for something more to breakdown. *fingers crossed and knock on wood*

dreams are part of my night

Perhaps I have mentioned before that I write once a month for a writer's blog, Smart Girls Read Romance. There are fifteen writers, posting every two days. I was invited into their group this year. In some ways coming up with a topic for that blog is harder than for this one because I am trying to fit into a group that I didn't form. I don't want to disappoint the founding members. Adding to it, the group is aimed at readers as much or maybe more than writers.

So I came up with a topic for May, [dream power], wrote the blog, had fun with it, and then had a vivid dream that almost made me totally redo it. Instead, I decided to leave there what I had written and bring the new addition to dreams here--

I was invited to be part of an online discussion on dreams. The two women who were also part of it are celebrities, actresses, and well known. It seemed in the dream I was not me but was inside someone else. She was not much younger than the two women but was less famous. So the idea was we would discuss our dreams, maybe write about them and analyze their meanings. I was having a problem with my end of it, as although usually I dreamed interesting dreams, as soon as I was supposed to dream an interesting dream to discuss, I was remembering none of the dreams.

The most vivid sequence was me in the car with one of the women, sitting in the front seat beside the driver when the second famous woman came up and I quickly offered and moved to the backseat. So dreams were being discussed and I was looking at what they had written about theirs and feeling mine was not nearly so interesting when I had a good dream also.

The rest of the dream is lost to the vagaries of the mind. The gist of it though was about the very subject I had written about. Waking to consider it, made me think about why we get the dreams we do and even more so why are the ones in it who are? I didn't used to do this but lately sometimes celebrities are my characters. Yes, they are celebrities I've read about but often not my favorite or those I might be thinking about.

In some ways, I understood why these two women would have been in this dream. They are much in the news right now although I have yet see the series they filmed together. The reason I didn't use their names is one of them is not only famous but in some circles-- infamous. Wherever her name is mentioned some old white guy (they almost always are old white guys) is going to say something about her that is mean, ignorant (he knows only the truth he's been fed), and angry. Until that age of men die off, and she probably will go with them, this won't change. What I don't like about mentioning her name here isn't that I mind people saying something angry to me, but rather how easily I know readers can be distracted from the topic that I had in mind. Whenever I write one of these blogs, I have something I want to be its topic and why I wrote it. Any distraction to something that had little to do with it will lose that point.

Our dreams seem to me to be the mind playing with us. Sometimes what has seemed perfectly logical in a dream almost has me laughing when I wake and it made no sense at all. What appears in a dream can be whatever we have seen or read somewhere and juxtapositioned with something from years back. The whole thing is thrown into the pot that is the mind and brought back together in ways that can mystify me when I am awake. From where on earth did that come is a not uncommon thought as I wake.

Only on very rare occasions have I had a dream that answered a question I had during the day. (Part I of [Diablo Canyon] is one of those exceptions.) Usually my dreams seem to come from out of nowhere, and although I always look to see if there is meaning to them. Once in awhile there is. Because I like writing books with a kind of mystical element, a dream can help it be.

Dreams for me are generally relaxing and fun times (but not always). My dreams can be so vivid, I guard what I put into my mind during the day. I cannot even imagine watching something like the popular series Game of Thrones. Just reading about what goes on there is taking it as far as I want.

Mostly, I don't think I am in control of my dreams, which is a nice break for my brain where it's going all day long. I have done some lucid dreaming, but it's not the average. Lucid dreaming is where you realize you are dreaming and it's going somewhere you don't like or where you prefer a different direction and you take it over-- knowing you did it.

Sometimes I do a digital painting from a dream. The above image was one of those from some years back. I could not remotely tell you what that dream was but the little sketch looked like fun and it kind of says a lot about the kinds of dreams I often have-- full of images and who knows from where they have come.

To see if I had anything about that one, I went back through the journal I was keeping at that time-- not a dream journal but just general-- this is how I'm feeling and what I did. I came across some amazing dreams, which I had long since forgotten but didn't find that one.

Since in the background is a rustic cabin but the subject is a goldfish in a bowl, looking toward the open sea with waves crashing, I wonder if perhaps it was about feeling limited in my own options by what seemed like security. If so, it's no longer true of my life. It does illustrate one feature of all my dreams-- I dream in full Technicolor. The dream dictionary link has a place to explain what those colors might mean...

Whales and mankind

  The Green Man is a symbol of rebirth and of spring. The mythology is part of many ancient cultures but was only called the Green Man in the 20th century. In its various forms, it is a symbol of hope... and some of us need all the help we can get right now.

Pretty much, I assume that most who read this blog are well informed on climate change. They know the Antarctic is melting faster than experts had expected. They know the likelihood of an ocean rise of 10 feet is what most scientists assume will be the result. They also know that sea life is being much impacted by these changes. 

This year, since January, 1100 starving baby seals have been found on the California beaches. Some could be saved but many could not. This starvation is most likely due to their mothers having to leave them to go farther for food because the food supply is not where it always was.

Human climate is seeing changes of greater storms, less rain some places and more others. Colder some places and warmer others. In my part of Oregon, our rainfall hasn't been that much less, but the mountains got virtually no snow, which will impact rivers this summer. Our own farm may not be able to irrigate for long, but it's been because of heavy logging on the hills around us, which means the land holds less water when the rains do come. 

Mankind is responsible for a lot of what happens in nature because of our numbers and habits. Some of that can be changed-- some maybe not. So while humans argue over taking any responsibility, what do you imagine it's like for the intelligent mammals that live in the ocean. I am not so much thinking of the seals now as the dolphins and whales.

Into this mix of change coming, I learned of something that kind of blew me away. One of the writers, who I know through the Internet, was heading for Baja and a whaling experience. The idea is the tourists stay in shacks on the beach of the Sea of Cortez. They ride out to the sea on pangas operated by guides to interact with the whales. 

This place is known as a breeding grounds for whales. Since the 1970s, it's been known for something else-- a place the whales will come up to the humans in the boats and let them touch them.

"highlights of any trip to this "Mexican Galápagos": tickling implausibly friendly grey whales under the chin, listening to humpback whales singing their haunting, unearthly songs, and enjoying unforgettably close encounters with gargantuan blue whales." from Telegraph

When I first heard about this happening, I thought-- this can't be good. Animals should never trust humans that much. Almost every species of animal out there keeps its babies away from humans at any cost. And yet, these whales were not only letting their calves do this but encouraging it. The whales are not forced or chased. They make the decision, and many do just that. So what's up?

Pacific Gray Whales Sequel

After reading the experiences of my writing friend and seeing her videos and photos (definitely spend time with her link above), I was scratching my head. What is going on? Her father's cousin said that this all began with one man in the 1970s, a fisherman who said a whale came up to him and let him touch it. His community did not believe him. He took others out, and they saw for themselves. The whales chose to do this. They still choose to do this. 

What I am about to suggest will sound wacky to practical minded folk-- even though most know whales are the most intelligent in the sea and some think they are smarter than humans (and considering the cockeyed values of a lot of humans, that's not too hard to imagine). Here's what I wonder: what if the whales sense the changes in the oceans, the pollution, the feeding grounds being threatened? What if they understand that humans could help them if they would?

I know-- Bambi complex. Or is it? Do we not give animals enough credit for understanding what is happening? They are being threatened before we are by these abrupt climate changes. Can they sense this? Do we give them credit for realizing it and thinking what can they do about it? I know humans who believe they can communicate with whales and claim they very much can know and reason.

The Sea of Cortez, where the cows nurse their calves until they are strong enough to make the long migration to the Alaskan waters for feeding, provided a safe place. Maybe because of a reef, maybe for other reasons, the orcas, who would eat the babies, don't come into this breeding ground. They do though kill a lot of the young ones on their way north in places like Monterey Bay. If the reef is a factor in their safety here, then having humans supporting them has been a benefit. Many human governments need an economic reason to support any cause. The government of Mexico can see an economic benefit in the people coming down there on tours that aren't cheap. There is however, another benefit for the whales. The humans who do this are interacting with a wild creature in a way that educates the humans and makes them care about these mighty leviathans. 

Does it also give these humans a reason to support efforts to protect them, seeing them as kindred spirits? It will take that kind of love and a strong purpose as human actions are constantly making their lives more dangerous by examples like the one described in the following link. It will spoil more fisheries. It's a Mexican company but a subsidiary of an American one (no surprise that). What will it take to stop it? 

Ocean phosphate mining 

In our modern world, true love is the only thing that I can think of that can be more powerful than dollars! Some humans say we can't fix it all so why try to fix anything. Others say-- one step at a time and we can make a difference. That's my philosophy.

Finally, this is a link to a video made from that trip--  

Whale Trip 2015.

Definitely check it out as the music, seeing the whales interacting, ends this on an upbeat note. Maybe we can keep it that way! 

Yachats 5

Yachats 4

and one more

Yachats 3

Yachats 2

Yachats 1

Last week, at the beach, north a bit of Yachats, leads this week to a photo a day of the wonderful wave action (photos by Farm Boss or me as we interchange taking them with no record who took which).

Oregon Coast in storm

Right after Christmas, Farm Boss and I drove to the Oregon Coast to spend a couple of nights sharing a rental house with our long-time friends, Parapluie and her husband Fisherman. I think I have mentioned before that Fisherman and Farm Boss were friends before either she or I came along.

Through the years, we have done a lot of things together and nothing is better than a relaxing couple of days to talk, laugh, cook, eat, enjoy the beach, read, and watch a movie or so. This trip we got lucky with a perfect storm, lots of wind and some heavy rain but not so much of either as to knock out power or make the drive back home difficult-- well anymore than ever where it comes to Oregon. Photos are from the Seal Rock area to north as far as Neskowin.

The rocks below look pretty vacant, other than one resting gull, but enlarge the photo. With binoculars and knowing for what they were looking, everybody but me could see the Black Oystercatchers. On blind faith that a photo would let me see them, I shot the rock formation about where I was told they were supposed to be. When I had the photo, Parapluie pointed out their long legs and red bills. Finally I could begin to pick them out also. Talk about camouflage.

Incidentally Parapluie started a painting of oystercatchers while down there. Before she left, It looked like she had an interesting start on what is obviously a challenging subject

Beach week-end

We (Farm Boss, our kids, kids by marriage, and grandkids) had one of those week-ends at the Oregon Coast where the weather was all of what is possible over a three day span. It was a new moon which meant low tides. The weather forecast had predicted a rainy week-end; but when you have a reservation for a beach house, large enough for everybody, you go with it. Rather like the thing Rumsfeld said about you go to war with the army you have not the army you wish you had-- except in the case of going to the Coast, the army you take, when you have children ranging from 3 to 12, are things like DVDs, art supplies, books, and games. And frankly you could head down for a week-end predicted to be wonderful and have it suddenly turn stormy. It's just the ocean.



We arrived on Friday to what felt like gale force winds. The gulls were sitting it out except for a few hearty souls. At times the winds seemed to rock the beach house which sat out at the end of a spit, only the river and ocean were beyond. Dunes made for blowing sand that definitely discouraged time outside.

Still there is nothing quite like an ocean storm. They make the sea into a wondrous, turbulent, awesome place as the waves pound against the rocks. After an hour, the large windows were so covered in sand that it was as though someone frosted them . Getting up the driveway, because of all the layered sand, required four-wheel drive although we were expecting that part as the dunes had been destabilized during an earlier storm.


We woke Saturday expecting to have more rain as the forecast had been for 80% chance. Evidently all the wind, which they had not predicted, pushed through the rain because there was nary a breeze, and the grand kids were outside almost all day as they dug holes in the sand, built sand castles, climbed up and down dunes and generally did everything kids could possibly want to do at the beach.

Now it's not like I want to go racing up or down dunes, but it's rather satisfying to watch children pitting their strength against the elements. For the relief of adults, those dunes challenging the children were high enough to be a challenge but not that high.


The weather changed again Sunday for even more sunshine and about as warm as it often is during the summer. Somebody in our family had very good weather karma is all we could say about it. When you book a beach week-end, in advance, on the Central Oregon Coast, you really never know what you'll get. We got as good as it gets.
The seals were in the waves and on the banks. This little region, on the spit out of Waldport, where the Alsea River runs into the ocean, has a rich ecosystem. I looked on the beach for shells. Unfortunately most of the sand dollars were in pieces and likewise the razor clam shells. I am not sure who had been eating them as it doesn't seem seals could dig them out of the sand. A few starfish had been knocked off their rocks also.


For me it was a very good time with the family. Even better, all the cooking was done by somebody else which is fun mostly as a chance to taste different recipes. It's always good when it's our kids who are more into healthy, gourmet cooking than I am.


This was our second chance to all be together since the New Year and I hope we get many more in the coming year as it was a very enjoyable, low key time and fun to be with my grandchildren again for hearing what they are doing. There were good conversations with the kids, and enough time for everybody to have some alone time if they wanted it. There was time to just BE and that is my favorite kind of vacation.

I took soooo many photos that the only hard part is winnowing them down to something reasonable to store.

If I was wanting spring, and I was, I got it on the week-end. I brought home good memories, photos and one old shell that had been knocked off the rocks. Going to the beach after a storm is always a time to find treasures.

Gathering Energy

Basically I could stop writing this blog right here as John Muir said it all for me. It was on a sign at one of our stops west of Coos Bay along the Oregon Coast. But, of course, if I did that, I'd not have much of a blog and besides there is another point to how we gather energy. What interferes with the gathering.

Even before I went through a month of minor but irritating and energy depleting events-- ear infection, tooth breaking, dental visit, crown, crown not comfortable, tmj irritated by dentist visit, and finally add in sinus irritations due to all the weather pressure changes-- I was into thinking how I build energy within myself. Does what gives us peace emotionally also work for our bodies? Can we, as the eastern teachings would tell us, align our bodies in ways that lead to better physical health (and that doesn't mean avoid all illnesses)?

Looking at energy purely from the emotional end, I think most can see how it helps us feel better when we are doing things that feel positive and not draining. We find it less able to do that when something is going wrong physically. That hurts pretty much trumps anything else and often it should as it is a bodily warning. Still if we are constantly submerged in what has gone wrong, it's hard to concentrate on what has gone right. There are times, January was a lot that way for me, where we just want to pull a blanket over our heads and say wake us when it's spring.

What I did instead was write down the kinds of things I do in a standard month and try to evaluate which ones built energy (physically and emotionally) and which ones sucked it out. It wasn't like I thought it would be possible to stop doing the depleting things. Some jobs must be done-- depleting or not.

After awhile I realized most of them can be both energy gathering and depleting depending partly on how I look at them and which part of them I am doing. Some things seem neutral as I go through the paces and not sure they add or detract. They simply must be done.

I think that slowing down to take deep breaths, more time letting myself think about something positive, even in a dentist chair or at the doctor's office, can make any of the less pleasant things more positive.

Studies have shown that meditation can lower blood pressure. What else can it do for the energy in our bodies, the stuff that is holding us together? Visualizations of say cancer cells being gobbled up by the body's defenses have also shown positive results in tests. There have been studies on prayer likewise helping people heal faster.

What if the reason these things work isn't because of a godly intervention but instead the body's response to what are all forms of meditation. If it makes us feel better emotionally to do certain things, how do we know it doesn't do the same thing on a cellular level?

Farm Boss has something he does and suggests I do when I am feeling stressed. Turn on the kitchen faucet until the temperature is hot but not too hot, and then hold my wrists under them. It is relaxing if it's not energy gathering, it would help avoid the tension that can block positive energy.

When things seem dark, I try to have as many positive things going on as possible which can be good books, movies, the right music, in my case perfect silence most often, conversations with friends, possible plans to improve things, and there are places I feel as though energy grows within me and leaves me clearer and cleaner feeling. Those places are not the same from time to time. Some aren't that close to visit when I need them, but I can draw up their memories.

Some think vortexes are energy hot spots which can be used for such purposes. Most people know about Sedona's claim for that. The thing is vortexes aren't in one place. They don't need an advertisement telling you where they are. Many are along energy lines which some call ley lines.

Yes, I know I just lost those leery of anything smacking of New Age, but there are strong energy places and whether we can measure them, whether someone is trying to sell them, we know them when we are there-- woo-woo person or not-- if we are open to what we are feeling.

For January finding such energy places led to more frequent trips to the ocean in many types of weather. Most were just for a drive as we live about 50 miles from the beach, but one was over night.

There have been studies on the positive impact of the ocean on people. Our Oregon coast has a higher than average population of divorced people because of its healing qualities, they think. They say there is a biological reason for that--the ions in the air. Same thing is true at waterfalls.

I think there is also an emotional reason for the coast impacting a person that way. It is so vast, always changing, and the power of the waves dwarfs our problems whatever they might be. It's never quite the same whenever I go.


These photos in January were taken near Yaquina Lighthouse. In the photo above, the light caught something unusual almost like an echo of the wave. You could think it happened because the camera moved but everything else is sharp. Farm Boss thought it was the mist rising off the breaking wave due to the temperature of the water and the air. That later led to fog all along the drive up the Coast. It does look like energy rising though doesn't it?





You think this seagull on the rock is gathering energy, meditating, or just enjoying that sunshine? He stood like that all the time we were there. If you can't see him, click on the photo to enlarge. It's one of the problems we have sometimes-- not a broad enough perspective to see what is really there.

The first of February-- 5-6th to be exact, we were again at the Coast. We took a lot of photos. The ocean which almost looked as though it was being seen in black and white, had spectacular waves. I realized later that the photos went well with music I liked. Finding such a combination is another way I gather energy.

If you click on the link, you can make the photos full screen and be sure you have your volume on to enjoy Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Rhapsody of Waves

Wave Action and seabirds

More ocean photos when the winter lighting was all for which, as a photographer, you could ask.