I just spent three weeks at sea in the Andaman, and... it's grim out there. The sea is virtually lifeless. Small pockets of sea-life survive on reefs in national parks, but as you look up from the water, you see trawlers scattered across the horizon - soundly within the nautical boundaries of the national parks. They operate day and night, as the article says, and the size and brightness of the arrays of floodlights they deploy to attract squid and other nocturnal creatures is astounding.
The crew I was with have been sailing all over the planet for the past several decades, and unanimously reported that they'd seen a steep decline in the variety, quantity and quality of all sea life, particularly in the past five years. Places which once thrived with dolphins are now devoid of them, others which were rich with seals and birds are barren rocks at the same time of year, and propspeed (anti-marine-growth coating for propellers) is increasingly pointless with the amount of near-surface debris. In addition, they noted that sea temperatures were way out of whack, weather was "odd" everywhere they've been in the last few years (pretty much everywhere on the planet), and worryingly, that even recent charts and depth soundings were often significantly wrong, due to the seabed shifting in storms.
All of this is common talk among the yachting crowd, and they're worried - people are selling boats and moving back ashore after decades of "marine life", and brand new marinas are rotting absent of tenants. It's not the economic crisis that's forcing these folks out, as they mostly either subsist or are independently wealthy, and they're all pretty clear about it being due to their fears for the future viability of faring the oceans.
I ordinarily avoid "me too" posts, but I'd really like to emphasize joeguilmette's request: do you have specific pointers to any sources for discussions among yachters of concern over the state of the oceans, and of their abandoning boats, marinas, etc.?
Not really, I'm afraid to say, as a) I'm not part of their community, more of a passerby and b) this was all face-to-face conversations over shared meals/tasks/adventures etc.
It's all hearsay/anecdotal evidence, but I'm inclined to respect the opinions and views of folks who've spent more than half their lives on the water. It's unbelievably sad... it really feels like "last chance to see" for the seas.
One thing I forgot to mention are the jellies. Driving everyone mad, as a) they clog pumps and filters like you wouldn't believe and b) stinger suits are boring.
do you know of any online resources where i can read more about this yacht talk? i scuba dive quite a bit, and as a human, this is relevant to my interests.
I went to the barrier reef in 2001, and already saw damage there. I thought, "This is a hobby for part of my lifetime, but probably not for any meaningful part of my kids"
If we can get our act together, life in the ocean will respond. I'm just not sure we can do that.
What kind of flippant, useless comment is that? You dismiss his entire experience as "claptrap" and then sarcastically suggest he go on a killing spree? Get the hell out of here.
It's his standard MO. Like most commenters of this type, he usually gets away with it, too. I'm not sure why he didn't this time, but probably the part about killing as many humans as possible was a bit too much even for the people who normally cheer on comments like this.
Fortunately, you discredited your own sentiment with your harshness and poor sentence construction. In addition, you presented a false argument, implying that somebody with my concerns would see murder as the only answer, perhaps revealing more about your own psyche than you'd like.
The crew I was with have been sailing all over the planet for the past several decades, and unanimously reported that they'd seen a steep decline in the variety, quantity and quality of all sea life, particularly in the past five years. Places which once thrived with dolphins are now devoid of them, others which were rich with seals and birds are barren rocks at the same time of year, and propspeed (anti-marine-growth coating for propellers) is increasingly pointless with the amount of near-surface debris. In addition, they noted that sea temperatures were way out of whack, weather was "odd" everywhere they've been in the last few years (pretty much everywhere on the planet), and worryingly, that even recent charts and depth soundings were often significantly wrong, due to the seabed shifting in storms.
All of this is common talk among the yachting crowd, and they're worried - people are selling boats and moving back ashore after decades of "marine life", and brand new marinas are rotting absent of tenants. It's not the economic crisis that's forcing these folks out, as they mostly either subsist or are independently wealthy, and they're all pretty clear about it being due to their fears for the future viability of faring the oceans.