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| A California shore. © Elaine Molina Stephens, 2019. |
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| Sea lions off California’s Channel Islands. Brett Seymour, Submerged Resources Center/NOAA. |
This series of posts will shine a light on the mysterious undersea world, where creatures attract each other with flickering lights; where clams and snails perform somersaults, flinging themselves away from ravenous sea stars; where eels and giant fish form hunting partnerships; where scallops can look back at you through their bright blue eyes, and they’re also listening.
Sea creatures are smarter and more active than people think. Even limpets are not just dumb snails. And neither are octopuses—perhaps the sea’s most intelligent animal next to marine mammals—yet the octopus brain is more similar to a snail’s than it is to ours.
This is a dynamic world with a lot going on, from the personal dramas of individual fish, each with their own personalities, to immortal jellyfish who when traumatized, revert to their youth to start over again.
While this series focuses primarily on the unusual denizens of the sea, it also will highlight the beauty of shoreline, its ferocity, its peacefulness, its drama, and living along the coast.
Living on the coast |
| Hana, Maui, Hawaii. © John Richard Stephens, 2024. |
Under the sea and along our coastlines are hidden communities of creatures, living out their mysterious and unusual lives, interacting in dramatic ways, struggling for survival, and experiencing life in ways very different from ours, but occasionally surprisingly similar.
We do have a remote connection to them. We also have a strong affinity to the coasts, its beaches, and the ocean. It’s estimated that nearly half of the world’s population lives within a hundred miles (160 km) of the coast. People do seem to love water and appear to seek it out more than other animals do. Not as much as beavers and sea otters, but more than dogs, cats, cows, chickens, and most land animals. Many of us enjoy swimming, boating, fishing, or even just sitting near water. And kids love playing in it, whether it’s at a beach, lake, stream, or inflatable swimming pool...or even jumping around in water from a sprinkler. Most animals are a bit leery of it. You don’t often see them jumping off cliffs into it as people do, unless they’re forced to.
The people of the sea—Aleuts, Inuit, Polynesians, Vikings, Bretons, Basques, Newfoundlanders—spent a large portion of their lives on the water and built their cultures around it. Today’s sailors and fishermen have done so too.
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| Ventura, California. Chris Karas/NOAA. |
Even those who just live along the coast can feel that there’s something special about the sea. People who save up for vacations at the coast also know it. Now Swiss scientists have found that regardless of what country you live in or your income level, just visiting the seaside, lakes, and natural pools is related to better health. Those who live near water also benefit, but to a lesser extent. This is still a new area of research, but I think people who live along the coast have some idea of what the scientists will find—that being near water is good for you in many ways.
At the extreme end of this is living on an island where you are surrounded by coast. You’re more limited in where you can go, so your world tends to get smaller. Life can be a bit slower and a bit more isolated. Usually you’re closer to nature. And there tends to be a greater sense of community. You get to know more people. The community can be an extended family, or you can be alone with nature.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a writer, aviator, and the wife of Charles Lindbergh, who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic. In January 1950 she wrote the following passage for her bestselling book, Gift from the Sea, while vacationing alone on Florida’s Captiva Island on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
How wonderful are islands![...] An island from the world and the world’s life. Islands in time, like this short vacation of mine. The past and the future are cut off; only the present remains. Existence in the present gives island living an extreme vividness and purity. One lives like a child or a saint in the immediacy of here and now.[...] People too become like islands in such an atmosphere, self-contained, whole and serene; respecting other people’s solitude, not intruding on their shores, standing back in reverence before the miracle of another individual. “No man is an island,” said John Donne. I feel we are all islands—in a common sea.
Adam Nicholson, who often spends time alone on three islands he owns in Scotland off the Isle of Skye, wrote in his book Sea Room that “a kind of silence seems to hang about them. It is not silence, because the sea beats on the shores and the birds scream and flutter above you. But it is a virtual silence, an absence of communication which reduces the islander to a naked condition in front of the universe.”
Then there are the coastal people who spend most of their time on the ocean or working along the shoreline. Harvesting food from the sea is one of the most dangerous occupations and it takes tough people to do it. Not only is the work hard and strenuous, they also have to withstand difficult conditions, such as nasty weather and constantly being wet. When out on a ship they often work for days at a time.
The most common seafood eaten in the United States listed in the order of the amount taken from the ocean are salmon, tuna, shrimp, crabs, Alaska pollack, cod, and crabs. For fish alone, between seventy million and a hundred million tons are caught each year, not including the bycatch that’s discarded.
Of course there are others who work at a variety of jobs related to the sea, both on shore and in vessels—from the Coast Guard to sellers of seafood and those who repair the ships. Entire communities around ports, harbors, and fishing villages are devoted to the sea and could also be considered sea people.
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