Category Archives: Oceanography

Paradise Lost

[Sculpture from the MET. Photo is mine. Sadly, I failed to record the sculptor.]

No matter where you’re going it’s the wrong place.

~ ~Tobe Hooper

[BEFORE YOU CONTINUE: This blog post is not, in any way, an attempt to denigrate any staff, employees or anyone else who made every effort to make our short vacation enjoyable. Further, from Big Mama (that’s what her name tag read), to the housekeepers and food servers, they were more than helpful, friendly and eager to please. Any negative comments that follow are directed at the physical facility and the misrepresentations by the Travel Agency that apparently ran the raffle, that I won, that got us to the Bahamas. Think of this post as a kind of Yelp review.]

It’s a good thing I wasn’t even thinking about marijuana when I passed through Customs upon our arrival at Freeport in the Bahamas. I would never had made it through. But I wasn’t so I did. Once we stepped outside and into the warmth, I was very tempted to cross the taxi lane and peruse the souvenir booths. I had my eye on a “Tropical Shirt” or “Hawaiian Shirt” that had a color that made my eyes water. Your gaze needed to rest on the coconut trees to get any relief. Without even a chance to haggle the woman dropped the price to $25.00. I was sorely tempted, trust me. But I already own a respectable collection of those ‘retro’ shirts back home in New York. So I kindly declined and went back to where Mariam was guarding our luggage. I looked out at a few rusting sailboats and fishing boats. But before I knew it our taxi was pulling up to the curb. The taxi was loaded to capacity and we were off to our Resort hotel.

[Yet another stamp in my passport to brag about. Photo is mine.]

We stood for more time than I would have liked to get our room key. Then across the lobby to Big Mama’s desk. She was the concierge at the Taino Beach Resort & Club. I was handed the ferry schedule that would take us to Port Lucaya, where the shops and restaurants were located. We had a restaurant on the property but after being informed of the hours (11:00 am to 7:00 pm, with the last orders taken at 6:30. Lights were out at 7:00 pm.). I haven’t eaten dinner at 6:00 pm since the late ‘50’s, so it would mean stocking up on junk food from the hotel lobby to see me through the night. The hours the shop were somewhat unclear, because every time I went down to grab a bottle of fresh water, I was often met by darkness and locked doors.

But to return to Big Mama and our check-in and orientation: She keep telling us and everyone else about the necessity of having bottles of water. That was all I needed to hear. The red flags went up. I recalled a very good friend and former teaching colleague telling me about how he (even after many warnings) ordered a gin and tonic in Istanbul, Turkey with ice. He developed a case of Giardiasis. Let just say it was a nightmare for him and something that stuck in my mind.

So I mansplained to Mariam that it was only to be bottled water, even to wet a toothbrush while we stayed. It was only after a Google search to the World Health Organization that I learned that tap water in the Bahamas was safe.

Next, Big Mama snapped a wrist band on the two of us. Since there were only a relatively few people around, I wondered why the band? I thought of the following reasons:

—Glass Bottom Boat Excursion

—Deep-sea fishing

—Snorkeling

—Ocean swimming

—Capsizing

On that level it all made sense. But the band reminded me of the last overnight stay at a hospital. Wearing it around the Resort, I felt like an escapee from Bellevue.

[The infamous band. Photo is mine.]

I’m now looking at my watch. It’s 4:14 pm on Tuesday. We’re in a Marriott Courtyard in Fort Lauderdale and I so want to get to the roof-top pool and bask in the 82℉ and read.

So, I’ll speed things up a bit.

We arrived at Room 210. We opened the door. We saw what was essentially two single beds…not true singles, but not double. There were no beach/palm tree paintings on the wall. In fact, there was nothing on the wall. I went into the kitchen and flipped on the light. I opened the cabinet that contained one wine glass, one bowl, one coffee cup, two plates and zero utensils. I checked the bathroom. The water was loudly dripping into a tub with no stopper. I saw my soaking bath fly out of the Venetian blinds. I was momentarily conflicted. Should we accept this and tough it out or should we try to locate another room…or another hotel? I thought: We seasoned travelers and we are adaptable. The the housekeeper left. I flicked the switch on the wall. Nothing. There was no light in the living area. I even pulled the chain on the ceiling fan thinking there was a light up there. There was indeed a light, but the bulb was dead. I ran after the housekeeper who, after looking my panicked eyes, went to another room and returned with a table lamp. I hope the occupants of that room weren’t as needy as I was concerning light.

It wasn’t long before Mariam and I discovered that we were in WiFi Limbo.

Mariam: “I think I remember Big Mama saying that the WiFi was only available in the office, by the pool and in the restaurant. We did have a signal but it was so weak, a slight breeze would blow the WiFi signals out through the Venetian blinds.

We made two trips ($16.00 r/t) to Port Lucaya. The ride was a tediously unbearable six minutes long. On Sunday evening, we visited Port Lucaya for the last time…mostly for two reasons: To have dinner at a civilized late hour and to mail three postcards (one to a friend in the City and one to Brian and one to Erin). We’ll be back home planning our next trip before they get their cards.

So that’s about it. Our voyage back to Florida on the Margaritaville-at-Sea went uneventful save for last night howling nightmare I had. But that’s another story for another time.

I did love the beach at our Resort. Beautiful sand and that sea color I’ve never seen on any artist’s palette. I just wish the Travel Agency had been a little more honest about what we were getting into. Their descriptions were not outright lies. Rather they were grossly misleading and overstated.

We saw a young couple standing outside the office on our second day.

Me: “Enjoying things, so far?”

The Man: “We saw our room. We’ve booked another hotel.”

Me: “Really?”

The Man: “It’s a case of I worked too hard to settle for this.”

I took his point. But I lacked the energy to move out of a house that was very slowly burning down.

[Taken a few hours ago in the lobby of the Marriott Courtyard on N. Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale. I have no idea what it means but I’m sure it has to do with sex. Photo is mine.]

We Dream In Colors Borrowed From The Sea

[The beach at Taino Beach Resort. Photo is mine.]

Like painted kites

Those days and nights, they went flyin’ by

The world was new

Beneath a bright blue umbrella sky…

~ ~The Summer Wind. Lyrics by Henry Mayer & Hans Bradtke

Slide your beach lounger closer, Mariposa, the white plastic is making my eyes water. There plenty of room for the two of us under the Palm Thatch Tiki Hut. If the onshore breeze get too cool for you, you can always rely on my warm arms. But don’t get too close. The Aloe Vera gel on my sunburn is still sticky. I have a few things to talk about. You do know, Mari, that I have two more nights here before I have to get back to Jimmy Buffet’s Cruise Boat. (Why it’s called Marguaritaville-at-Sea is beyond me.) I know you will miss me like the sun on a rainy day…but who knows…I may come back sometime, in the distant future, riding the summer wind.

But, I digress.

Yesterday we handed over $18.00 for a return trip to Port Lucaya. The trip lasted all of five minutes. That works out to $3.60/minute. If you calculated a similar trip from New York City to California…I don’t need my calculator to tell me that trip would run about $68,000.

Port Lucaya is where there are more restaurants and Gucci gift shops and bars (The Rum Runner looked inviting) than we have here. And it’s only five minutes away. Most of the shops were closed but we did manage to find a convenience store where I stocked up on my midnight snacks and a can of Coconut Water. That last purchase got me to thinking. How did water get inside a coconut? I’ve seen enough castaway movies to know that the person with that Island Survival Knowledge always chops the top of a coconut and gulps the liquid thereby avoiding dehydration and thereby saving all the others from a grisly death from drinking fetid seawater.

So I googled Coconut Water like a good blogger. The ‘water’ is really a clear liquid that serves as a suspension for the endosperm of the coconut during its nuclear phase of development. [Note: “Nuclear” in this case has nothing to do with Polonium 210 or any other of those fun elements at the bottom of the Periodic Table.]

Back to Port Lucaya. I managed to find a post box to dispatch two postcards to my daughter and son. Interestingly it was fire-engine red and had the E-R logo. As a former colony of Great Britain I get it. But I wondered if the changeover to a King Charles logo (it’s gonna be very expensive in England!) will apply to former colonies. I wonder. We (the USA) does have our own issues with former colonies. Texas and Florida come to mind. But I’ve found myself caught inside yet another digression.

As I write this, I’m keeping an eye on my iPad battery. I’m down to 60% and nowhere to plug in. Mariam’s iPad is at 51%. The sun is burning my shoulders while my fingers are slightly numb. Don’t ask. The beach is beckoning. I need reading time as does Mariam. We should also take a walk to burn off last night’s midnight snacks.

So it’s back to plug in at Room 210. Time for a walk. Time to think, read and dream.

Reading and dreaming is always best left to a chair and shade and sound of the never ending waves from a silver-green sea.

[Why do they need a pool when you have the ocean? Photo is mine.]

[Author’s Note: In no way am I attempting to make many of my friends and readers be jealous of me. Many of you have just finished shoveling several feet of snow. This trip was ‘won’ in a drawing. But I’ve paid my dues at the working end of a shovel. Enjoy these posts for what they are meant to be. Entertaining and enjoyable.]

The Migratory Habits of Cockle Shells, Birds & Yankees

[Recent snow storm near Owego, NY. Photo courtesy of my friend Mark Mendelson]

[Author’s note: I would like to dedicate this humble blog to my friends and loved ones who, through no fault of their own, were caught up in a Late-Spring Snowstorm. No wonder many of my classmates from high school moved to the south or mid-south after graduation. After a winter in Fort Myers, Florida, I totally get it.] Now the blog:

All Things Must Pass–A George Harrison album name.

[A palm frond. Down and out at winter’s end. Photo is mine]

We are taking our late afternoon walk down Cuarto Lane. One must wait until after 6:30 pm for such a stroll. Otherwise, it’s so barking hot the sun will melt your polyester toupee, it’ll bleach your already grey hair and sear your retina unless your wearing Ray Bans. I’m not wearing Ray Bans. I’m wearing cheap Walgreen’s sunglasses. I can feel the plastic rims get soft. That’s why 6:30 is our cut-off time.

But I digress.

On our walk yesterday I snapped a photo of a palm frond, on the grass, beside the Lane waiting to be picked up by the Resort maintenance crew. I saw it as a symbol of a season’s completion. Just like the leaves in Autumn in the mountains of the Adirondacks or all of New England. The frond spoke to me. It was lamenting the fact that it was done with contributing any and all Oxygen to the atmosphere. No more photosynthesis, it said. I stopped to answer back but my wife, Mariam tugged at my arm.

“Don’t! The neighbors are watching.”

But I got the point. All things must pass, even palm fronds. And even Snowbirds like us. Soon we leave this little bit of paradise and go north. Back to our home on Rainbow Lake and the very real possibility of a freak mid-June snowstorm. Think I’m kidding? We once sat at the bar of Lake Placid’s Mirror Lake Inn. It was May 31, my birthday, and we were have a quick glass of wine before a lovely steak dinner at the Adirondack Steak & Seafood. I spun around in my bar stool to look out at Mirror Lake, but it was snowing…no, it was blizzarding. I saw the fronds as a metaphor for our eventual departure. But, there’s more:

This blog is about travel, migration and departing. Here is something of interest:

[A Bar-tailed godwit (L. lapponica. Photo: Google search]

The bird shown above happens to hold the record for longest migratory flight yet discovered. The Godwit has been found to have the ability to fly 6,800 miles without any layovers. (Think of it as Jet Blue with feathers). Now, I don’t know what impresses you, my reader, but 6,800 miles is one badass flight. In doing the research necessary to bring you this post I also found out that some long-term migratory birds can do awesome things on their journey. One species has the ability to eat, fly, sleep and mate while on the wing. My brain short circuits when I think of humans doing these sorts of things. Myself? I can barely drive along a country road for a country mile while eating a cheeseburger.

Well, so much for the avians. Time to discuss Cockle shells.

[This is a Cockle shell. I found it and a zillion others on the beach this very afternoon. Photo is mine]

The Cockle shells litter the edges of the beach…where the waves wash up and then back into the sea. Whole shells, bits of shells…shells of all kinds are found in the sands of Sanibel Island. I find pleasure in picking one from the knee deep water and holding it for the iPhone camera. But, like everything else along a shoreline, the waves and currents are constantly moving the shells along only to replace them with newer ones. If I were to stand at the exact same spot on the exact same beach at the exact same time next year, I will reach into the sand beneath my feet and find another Cockle shell…exactly like the one I found today. I’m not sure what the point is about all this, but it does remind one of moving along, going away, traveling and replacing one environment (the beach) with another (the Adirondack lake shores). Some of my readers will say:

“A place in the Adirondacks? You have waterfront? Kayaks? Canoes? A screened-in porch? A quiet place in the playground of New York State? And you’re not satisfied? Are you playing with a full hand?” The truth is that I enjoy the Adirondacks very much, but not like I used to. As a little boy I played in sands of many of the most popular beaches in the ‘dacks. But I’m not a boy. I’m not a healthy fit young teenager who would climb any peak at the mere suggestion of doing it. Two of my three brothers were Adirondack oriented men. Both are no longer with us. I have found that around every bend in a trail, every curve in the road and every paddle stroke I make to round an island, I see the ghosts of my brothers. I’m tired of seeing ghosts, both figurative and real.

I love the night sky and the Adirondack air is fairly free of light pollution. The stars tumble out in numbers that are not humanly countable. I’ve slept on mountain peaks and counted the stars. I gave up after reaching 3,000 points of light. But our house is surrounded by trees and my patch of sky above our house can be covered with one open hand.

I want to see for miles while standing at sea level.

Which brings us to Yankees. Sorry, but this is not about the Bronx Bombers. This is about snowbirds who flock to Florida for the winter. I’m one of them. A yankee? In one sense, that is the definition of anyone living north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But what about my one-time sailing partner here in Fort Myers? He was from Toronto. Well he’s a yankee too, by my definition.

I’m lonely and I’m restless. How many years do I have left to see the world? Only a seer can answer that kind of question.

[This not my car. Mine is cobalt blue. Photo: Google search]

So take heed, take heed of the western wind

Take heed of the stormy weather

And yes, there’s something you can send back to me

Spanish boots of Spanish leather

–Bob Dylan “Boots of Spanish Leather”

Christmas by the Pool

Cardiologists and others (who live on Long Island) have said that shoveling snow can be beneficial to living a healthy life. People over 55 however should limit their shovel time to a reasonable level. For me that time limit is roughly 43 seconds. Over the years I’ve moved a lot of snow from the walkway and the access to the garage. There were times when the drifts got so large I feared that I would end up like The Little Match Girl instead of the beautiful Nancy Kerrigan or the alluring Tanya Harding. Since I have very little of importance to say to anyone and my wife loves to read cozy mysteries, I was afraid I’d be forgotten until 3:30 am and Mariam would wake up and find my side of the bed empty.

“Oh, he must be having such fun he wants to play in the snow until dawn.” Meanwhile, hours earlier (after the last interesting story on CNN} I would have turned into a lump of gray flesh with a plaid coat and L. L. Bean’s rejected gloves that were made out of the thinnest cotton available.

But I digress.

The time has come to throw my fake fur away and trade it in for a straw cowboy hat. We’re finally moving away, away from the Frozen North, away from the land of Nanook for the winter. We bought a little cottage in Florida and I shall be practicing the doggie-paddle in a solar heated pool.

In truth, I can’t wait for a walk in an outdoor mall with the palm trees beautifully decorated with red and green lights, with Bing Crosby crooning over the PA system, while all my friends who haven’t moved south yet are standing and shivering to meet Santa in a Walmart parking lot.

I will, of course, still have issues to deal with but a dose of SPF 45 will take care of that. No more cans of deicer to unfreeze the car door that went solid after the first bag of groceries were put in the kitchen.

I will also have to do certain things if necessary. When they close off half the pool so the old folks can play volleyball, I’ll need to locate a beach chair that has at least some shade, and stretch out to listen to the murmur of the waves of the Gulf of Mexico a mile or so away. There I can also listen to the motor boats from Venezuela taking drugs to Alabama.

It’ll be a winter of warmth and quiet. I’ll better myself too. I will continue to improve my sailing skills, I’ll comb the beaches for shells, learn to play Shuffleboard and Bingo.

If you follow my blogs, don’t worry. They will continue as I learn about alligators and snakes.

Best wishes and stay warm.

Are You Overly Concerned About Dinoflagellates?

[Bioluminescence at night on a beach. Photo source: Google search.]

You find yourself sitting up in bed at 2:30 am and thinking of dinoflagellates, the Valium hasn’t kicked in, your partner is in REM sleep and softly mumbling Bono Bono and your supply of Sleepy Time Tea has been deleted…you’re not alone.

I, too, suffer the same night terrors.  I feel your pain.  Several nights ago, sleep couldn’t find me nor could I find sleep.  It was 2:17 am.  I picked up a magazine and began reading an article about how to keep mud from getting stuck in the treads of your car’s tires.  I finished the lengthly piece and looked down at my copy of David Copperfield.

Should I pick it up and start where I left it three years ago, on page 346.  But it wasn’t to be.  My mind kept going back to dinoflagellates.

What brought comfort to my restless soul that night, I cannot say for certain.  But I decided to go down to my office and find a copy of a marine science textbook.  I went through book after book.  There it was…The Secret Life of Dinoflagellates.  I brought the heavy glossy-paged book back to bed and began to read.

It was so heavy, it left a strange imprint on my abdomen.

I was vaguely aware of the existence of dinoflagellates when I studied geology in college forty-six years ago.  That’s why I was vaguely aware, I had forgotten most of the facts I once knew.

To put it simply, dinoflagellates are two-edged swords in the form of a single-celled organism.  On the good side, they are responsible for bioluminescence, the strange glow-in-the-dark phenomenon of the oceans.  The eerie blue light is awesome to behold.  [See the lead illustration.] Sailors proclaim that a glowing sea on the darkest of nights is a sight they will never forget…something like seeing the bow of a freighter fifty feet away, coming straight out of the fog bank and straight at your boat.

On the downside of dinoflagellates is that they are the cause of the dreaded red tide.  Yes, the waves are tinted red.  The dinoflagellates are eaten by bivalves (clams and the like).  If you had ordered such a plate of these clams at the Ancient Mariner Restaurant and consumed it you would soon be begging for an appointment with Dr. Kevorkian…cause you’re gonna pay the piper…as the saying goes.

Here some advice about how to live with dinoflagellates:

  • Go sailing at night off some island in the Caribbean and be stricken silent with the beauty of the blue/green bioluminescence.
  • Avoid areas where the red tide is present.  Ask around.  Maybe go for the spaghetti and meatball option.

So, stop losing sleep over dinoflagellates.  Lose sleep over climate change instead.  That will bring on worse things that any single-celled organism.

[Some of the facts are from the June 22, 2019 issue of The Economist. The rest is just stuff I already knew.]