Water

“We cannot see our reflection in running water.”

Taoist Proverb

Dear Reader,

Thank you all for viewing, reading, and commenting on this FLOG (FLOATING Blog) We have hit another exciting mark in April. Average readership per day, not counting spam or search engine spiders, is 170. With that I rededicate myself to research and author more articles for you about Earth, Ocean and the human impact. We live on a dynamic planet; there’s lots going on if we take a moment to look beyond our own back yards.  ~ Paul

Rapidly changing technology can make last year’s great idea into a slumdog, and that is certianly the case with HDV. The 2009 show seemed to be a sort of catch up year, in that innovations of recent years are now very usable and ready to work.  RED for example: a few years ago the camera was a prototype. This year the accessories were out in big numbers.  3D is big. More on that in years to come.  It’s cool, but the technology has to develop to attract an audience.

NAB camera report

My favorite camera is from Silicon Imaging. Slumdog Millionaire Shot with the SI-2K Cinema Camera. The SI-2K series combine a DCI-spec 2K sensor with CineForm’s revolutionary Visually Perfect® CineForm RAW™ codec. All that- embedded Intel Core 2 Duo powered architecture. It delivers a direct-to-disk recording platform with unprecedented image quality, 11-F stops of dynamic range, an intuitive 7” LCD touchscreen interface that is off the charts, sharp OLED electronic viewfinder option, IT-friendly connectivity, battery powered operation, and up to 4-hours of continuous shooting on its hot-swap 160GB notebook hard drive. My friend Steve Waterford of ZennaTek has already invented an ingenious waterproof housing that has interior climate control and lens clearing airflow for housing lens.  This partial submersion bag is for taking it to the extreme.

Please note: There is no up-side benefit to my company if you shoot a specific camera.  In fact; I’d like to see all ocean videographers using HDV please. This is my NAB 2009 review of cameras I personally would deploy underwater.

I don’t like being negative, but I recently read an article that a soup of plastic debris floats off the coast of California, a testament to humanity’s reliance on plastic and the failure to dispose of it properly, which is why we Ocean lovers must be diligent and set the ecology example.

I first heard of this plastic-rich portion of the ocean way back in the 1970’s. It is a product of swirling currents, known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, that gather and concentrate debris. Like an iceberg of debris floating in the Pacific Ocean, the mass usually isn’t visible on the surface, but lurks just below. You can’t walk on it.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has become an early symbol of what some say is a looming trash crisis. But this floating mass of is hard to measure, few agree on how big it is or how much plastic it holds. That makes it difficult to determine what to do about it.

That hasn’t stopped activists and the media from using only the biggest estimates of the patch’s size to warn of an environmental catastrophe, which really captures the publics imagination, but to characterize it inaccurately is wrong and prone to exaggeration and mis-characterization. One thing is for sure; it is human trash and so it can be controlled.

It is difficult to know how to extrapolate the findings. The borders of the gyre shift between seasons, and some scientists argue that the high-plastic area is concentrated and confined to a relatively small part of the gyre.  So what let’s fix it, RIGHT?

I found a very interesting government study based on research from 25 nations took park in the International Polar Year, 2007 – 2008. Follow both links.  Over 500 researchers [collectively and cooperatively] discovered dozens of new species in the polar seas.  That’s right seas with an s, plural.  Both polar seas have species in common that are just now discovered.

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We have seen out into space to the beginning of time; the big bang. We can detect what a star is burning for fuel thousands of light years away, and yet the earth beneath us holds so many unsolved mysteries.

The newly discovered species are mostly invertebrates; simple life-forms without backbones, but all total as many as 235 species were found in both polar seas, including five whale species, six sea birds, and nearly 100 crustaceans.

The question is; With the same species at both poles separated by nearly 7,000 miles, where the pole regions connected in the evolutionary process? During the last ice age, or maybe the ice age before that?

The Earth is a dynamic planet meaning it is always changing, evolving in random cycles and that includes temperature. We just happen to live during a very nice period, so enjoy it.  But also take care of it as best you can.

NEWS FLASH: buried on PAGE 14 - Arctic ice sheet discovered

Earlier this week it was reported the global ice sheet was underestimated.  In their defense, there is a tremendous amount of ice on the Arctic Circle.  How much ice was found amounts to the size of California.

On the other hand: How the heck do you miss something the size of California?  The good news is we have more ice.

Scuba dive along the Florida Keys and you will notice a gentle pull of the Gulf Stream, always flowing Northeast.  In fact the Gulf of Mexico is slightly higher than the Atlantic sea level. The Keys block flow like rocks in a stream.  Tides come and go, but the Gulf flow is smooth and steady, and full of life.

At the very end of the earth- the very tip of the Key’s island chain- is Dry Tortugas. Key West is 100+ miles from Florida; Tortugas is another 70 miles west of Key West.  Cuba is only 90 miles as the missile flies, but southerly.

If you jump into the unprotected waters off Garden Key, home of Fort Jefferson, you would be carried along by the Gulf Stream at a 5 knot clip.  That’s just the surface.  All that water is also flowing, massive volumes of rich ocean water form the North Atlantic Elevator which carries warm water past Cape Cod and all the way to Europe.

Let’s drop some ocean turbines directly in-line with that current.  In a recently proposal to the National Park Service I proposed exactly that for Dry Tortugas. The proposal was submitted on October 3, 2008 and contained the idea in general terms.  That’s exactly what I read in the Wall Street Journal today. Everybody Into the Ocean.

Are you in touch with the Mother Earth? Most likely- if you’re reading this Flog. If so you will want to plug into one amazing group out of South Africa called Earth-Touch. I am a big advocate of animal rights. I’m also very interested and involved with animals in the service of humans. Visit our store category, COOL_STUFF and see most things sold are to benefit great causes. My wife mostly (and I) has raised four golden retrievers for CCI, a Capuchin monkey for Helping Hands, and we have committed to Island Dolphin Care.