Garbage Patch Kid

You’ve probably read about the giant patch of floating trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  Well, we have our own plastic trash poisoning the Gulf of Maine.  Let me show you where it comes from.  Saturday was a warm, sunny afternoon, and a lovely day to be...

Ocean Is Our Muse

I grew up on the beach. My mom had summer rental cottages at the shore, where we worked and lived.  Accommodations were spare but from the front door step the vista was limitless.  The sound of surf was always in the background. My dad was a scuba diver at a time when...

Where the Wild Things Are

As the turtle said, “Dude, you’ve got serious thrill issues.”  There aren’t many places in the world where bluefin tuna venture so close to shore that a person can paddle out to cast for them from a kayak.  But Race Point off the tip of Cape Cod is one of those...

Urban Sprawl in the Ocean

John on Press Herald Post   Have you ever attended a planning board meeting? There has been considerable discussion of “urban sprawl” in southern Maine. Town planning departments and planning boards are where citizens confront these questions of sprawl and manage the...

I Hate Balloons

 John on Press Herald Post    You have to love those clear hot July days on the water.  The boat leaves harbor at sun-up and runs straight out to sea for two hours to a favorite offshore fishing ground.  As the morning wears on the sun beats down, the air becomes...

Butts on the Beach

John on Press Herald Post   The International Coastal Cleanup has become a big event worldwide (http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=press_icc).  Volunteers not only collect tons and tons and tons of trash from beaches and shore lands; they...