Contest details and links to the Monterey Bay Aquarium can be found here.
Yes, yes, it’s true, You caught me. I am a closet supporter of California’s Montery Bay Aquarium. I secretly (well not anymore I suppose) adore their monthly emails which feature beautiful photos of playful wildlife and love their fresh ‘green’ seafood recipe ideas.
When I lived in California my kids and I were no strangers to the museums, aquariums, arboretums, zoos and planetariums. The San Francisco Bay Area specifically is alive with old marble buildings which house so many exhibits one could not possibly see them all in a day. And that’s before you discover Golden Gate Park. As a child I used ride my bike through the park just to get to the Aquarium to throw pennies into the watery pit at the entrance, trying to land one on the back of the crocodile who greeted all the new arrivals. I strolled bravely by the glass cages, home to tarantulas and various lizards pretending I wasn’t the least bit afraid. I visited so often I could have been a guide to the below sea level walkway which was lined with huge aquatic tanks filled with sharks, turtles and octopi and the big, completely ugly groupers and smiling moray eels.
So today my emailbag had this gift – which I’ve decided, in this harsh political atmosphere of stressing over the future of the gulf, our shorelines, our precious wildlife, to share with all of you. It’s appropriate, I think, to take a few moments to reflect on what is at stake in the battles ahead. And what better way to do that than to share photos we’ve all got tucked away in an album or archived on the computer. Better still, if you live anywhere near the ocean, grab your digital and go take some photos- then pick one and submit it to the link above. But be quick! The deadline is just days away.
Clean-up of the gulf is going to be horrendous. Anyone who’s lived through it can tell you it’s disappointing, disheartening, smelly. back-breaking work that seems to never end, and the best of efforts never give us back our pristine beaches. Only nature and time can restore them. Too much time. More than we have.
But maybe today we could take a few minutes and indulge in a small celebration of sorts. By sharing with each other, images of that which seems to survive in spite of our hubris, we can perhaps remind ourselves why the hard work ahead has to be done. By looking into the faces of those wonderful creatures who inhabit our shores, we can renew our comitment to fight the looming uphill battle against future oil spills and the corporate poluters intent on destroying our collective home. Earth.
Enjoy the link – enjoy the site – sign up for your own monthly email indulgence 🙂
To comment on this post, please scroll up to the title “World Ocean Day – Photo Contest” and click on the word comment just beneath. Thanks, OzMud
Oz Mudflats 
