Faithful readers of this blog will surely recognize the sentiment behind this next post. Disposable plastic crap—from drinking straws to shopping bags to flip-flops—bears hideous witness to our callous view of the environment around us. I’ve picked up cubic yards of junk off an otherwise pristine beach in Mexico that had the misfortune of acting …
I love it when my worlds collide in stories like this. The National Park Service announced today that it will protect an 18th-century British warship that sank near present-day Miami, under the terms of an international memorandum signed with the Royal Navy. HMS Fowey, a frigate carrying 20 guns, launched from the British port of …
Read more “National Park Service and Royal Navy Agree to Protect 18th-Century Shipwreck”
Attention maritime history nerds: my new article on the historic relaunch of the Charles W. Morgan, America’s oldest commercial vessel still afloat, is posted at CoastalCommons.net. This story encompasses two spheres near to my heart, whaling history and environmental conservation, and proves that they aren’t mutually exclusive. Though I couldn’t attend the relaunch ceremony at …
I can name a handful of close-up encounters with nature that have changed my life. One was snorkeling off the coast of Maui in 1998, where a green sea turtle sidled up to my face mask and seemed to want to get to know me. Another was going on my first whale watching trip from …
Read more “Whale Watching Leads to More Concern for Marine Conservation”