Oceans In Peril

Check out my latest video on ocean conservation and why it's so important to me

Are you sitting comfortably? Don't. Life is short

Are you sitting comfortably? Don't. Life is short.

People constantly aspire to have more, to be wealthier, own more possessions and be successful. Which is crazy when you think that there is someone out there aspiring to just have what you already have. There are always those better off and worse off than you. Remember that.



 I was lucky to have been born in a developed first world country, to have; not just education, food and clean water everyday, but also so many opportunities. I'm far from the wealthiest person I know, but I still have so much, I am extremely fortunate. I don't know why I was born into these circumstances and not different ones, but I do know that I definitely won't take it for granted.







I have been that girl; working two jobs, seven days a week just so i can afford to cover my costs. I was literally working to afford working. However, unlike many of my peers, I now refuse to work a job I don't like- just to make money- to carry on living a life I'm unhappy in.





So people should not aspire to materialistic goals. They should strive to improve themselves in some way; making money doesn't equate to making yourself better. Travelling changed my life. My mindset used to be all about money. It wasn't really MY mindset though, I was just a product of the society I was raised in. Aspiring to make money and orientating everything around that is seen as being sensible and realistic.






I had myself lined up a successful career based on the hard years spent working to get my degree, but then I boarded a plane to travel the world working as a dive instructor instead. I defied the stereotypical expectations people held of me.The best decision I ever made. I quickly came to realise that making money was most certainly not the most important thing in life, not for me anyway. Now I would gladly live out of a suitcase; sacrificing material possessions for life-altering experiences.







So don't waste your life aspiring for things that can only be measured in materialistic success because "Life isn't about how many breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away."

Empty the tanks

Many animal advocates are wondering what’s going on with Lolita, the loneliest orca. Miami Seaquarium abruptly cancelled the whale shows that normally feature Lolita, an orca who was captured off the coast of Washington in 1970 and transferred to Florida, where she’s been living by herself ever since.

Read the full article about Lolita here

Save Sharks

If sharks were the cruel, menacing man eaters that the media makes them out to be then I would have probably been eaten years ago. However, I believe that sharks know we are not prey and I intend to prove that.

Swimming with sharks I feel vulnerable, clumsy and small. They have an aura of invincibility, but with these top predators in the ocean nothing is as it seems.

Great white shark

Sharks are in serious trouble. Every single second of every single day around 3 sharks are killed by us. We are destroying their homes, polluting their seas and catching them by the million. And there is one practice that could empty our oceans of sharks for good... Fishing. Unfortunately this has become a much more common way that humans now interact with sharks, and it's not just their meat they’re caught for, but their fins. The fins are used for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy and status symbol; although the fins do not even add to the taste they are just used to enhance the texture.

 In the time is has taken you to read this over 2,000 sharks will have been killed, all for the sake of a soup. If this carries on in the next 4 years as many as 20 species of sharks could go extinct. Every year 70-100 million sharks are taken from the oceans purely for their fins.

The natural world is all about balance. Sharks are top of the marine food chain and like all apex predators they're especially important. We don't know what the impact would be If we lost them but the effects could be catastrophic. Without a healthy ocean, the world as we know it would cease to function and the horror of a world without sharks is a very real one.

Over 500 million years sharks have evolved to become complex, sophisticated and utterly magnificent. To lose them in the age of man would be truly unthinkable. We need to tame our fear and learn to love sharks. 

10 things that change when you start scuba diving

This article is funny and so true.

 Click here to read it.

Orcas at Seaworld

"Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures." Dalai Lama

That orca you see at seaworld is not an orca. 

It looks just like one but the captive orca is an artificial representation of the real animal. Everything that constitutes an orca has been taken from it, nothing it does is what an orca should be doing. It has been conditioned to eat dead fish and gelatin rather than hunt live prey in the wild, it has been bribed into performing tricks which is an unnatural behaviour and imprisoned in a pool rather than swimming up to 100 miles a day in the wild.

Orcas at Seaworld spend the majority of their time floating at the surface of their tanks, with no shade from the sun. Orcas in the wild spend up to 95% of their time submerged in the depths of the ocean. Seaworld's deepest tank is only 40 feet, not nearly deep enough for them. Due to this the orcas have constant sunburn, which is covered up with black zinc oxide.

Orcas in the wild have an average life expectancy of 30-50 years and their estimated maximum life span is 70-100 years. The median  age of orcas in captivity is only 9.

In captivity all adult males have collapsed dorsal fins, the sign of an unhealthy orca. This is due to the unnatural environment they are kept in and is very rarely seen in wild orcas.

Marine parks claim that first hand experience with captive animals is essential to build respect for nature. Scientific studies say otherwise: people show the same appreciation for nature whether going to marine parks or not. 

Seaworld has recently claimed that they "need to keep orcas in captivity to save them."

No large whales like blue or humpback whales have ever been held in captivity and yet their numbers are now rebounding in the wild after being hunted close to extinction. It would appear that the best conservation strategy is the most humane- all we needed to do was stop killing them.

Impermanence

I started writing 
when I learned of impermanence,
of all the things that could 
be washed away by the ocean.

Once,I started building
sand castles by the shore,
it wasn't the incapacity of the sand 
to hold structures in place
that scared me,

it was the wave that toppled it,
because it grew
increasingly violent
and washed away my castle.

And sometimes things,
even when they don't last,
can leave their mark
when immortalised in print.

So every time people ask me, 
I tell them I write
because transient things
need to be remembered,
and too much is forgotten.

First free-diving memory

There is nothing more beautiful to me than rising to the surface and looking up to see the sun through the water above me, refracting into rays piercing through the blue of the ocean, flickering and changing not only by the movement of the clouds way up in the sky but also by the surging of the water.

The first time I free dived I was 9 years old. Of course at that time I had no idea what free-diving was and no real concept of what I was doing. I had simply seen an underwater arch snorkelling in Greece and I felt an inexplicable urge to swim through it. I guess that was the start of something because that moment is so ingrained in my memory that I can even remember which bikini I was wearing.

I remember initially hesitating as I was alone, it seemed like a long way down and there was a risk I might get stuck or find it was longer than I could hold my breath once I'd commit. However I don't think I ever really developed a sense of fear, especially when it came to the ocean. So after about 30 seconds of not so careful consideration I took a big breath and kicked myself down underwater. When I made it through the arch and was exploring the underwater world on a single breath I got the most liberating and awe inspiring feeling I had ever experienced. That was the start of something, I’d well and truly fallen in love with the ocean.

What if money didn’t matter?

"Don't you want to be rich when you're older? Choose a career that earns well. Be a lawyer or a doctor, those are well paid jobs."

I've heard statements like these over and over again throughout my life; adults trying to influence and mould younger generations to grow up to aspire to only do what makes money and I've seen first hand my friends and classmates pursue these false ideals. 

Children are taught that money really matters and the   importance of it is emphasised through every medium. Be it price comparison adverts on TV, or the wealthy getting     preferential treatment, e live in a society where the value of having and making money is obscenely exaggerated. I am not dismissing that money is essential to life and that most people would choose to aspire to lead a financially comfortable life, however I think in the first world too much significance is placed upon money and material possessions and what is missing is the importance of happiness. 

All that matters to me is happiness. Money is immaterial and something we definitely take for granted in the 1st world. Life is short, I'd rather spend it doing what I loved and what made me happy than spending it purusing financial gains. I have always felt like this to a degree, but travelling drastically impacted not only my views on money but my entire perspective on life.

Listen to what Alan Watts has to say about the importance of money here

We are emptying the ocean of sharks

It’s all very well fighting to get people in power to listen to what you’re saying and put a stop to shark culling but even if they agree, they have no physical ability to stop the daily goings on of fishermen and individuals who want sharks killed. In my opinion focusing on politics is not the answer: prevention is better than cure.

In order to stop sharks being needlessly killed we need to look at why it is happening and why people are allowing it and that all comes down to perception. People see sharks as evil, monsters and man eaters. This is fuelled and sensationalised by the media, so in order to prevent sharks being killed we must change people’s perception of sharks and in turn their acceptance of this happening.

I believe that in the future people will look back on shark killing and question how on earth it was ever allowed to happen. In the same way that we now look back on slavery, world wars, capital punishment or frontal lobotomies and ask how it was ever possible for mankind to be so short sighted and deem such activities acceptable. I just hope that by the time people finally see sense, it isn’t too late, the damage isn’t irreversible and we aren’t faced with the extinction of sharks.

I could preach all day about why needlessly killing them is so inhumane and wrong and why we need to save sharks and how valuable they are as apex predators which control equilibrium in the ecosystem, but instead I will share some facts, courtesy of Project Aware.

Nearly one out of four shark and ray species is classified by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) as Threatened with extinction. That doesn’t even include almost half of all sharks and ray species whose population status cannot be assessed because of lack of information.

Why do we worry about shark populations? A healthy and abundant ocean depends on predators like sharks keeping ecosystems balanced. And living sharks fuel local economies in some places, like Palau where sharks bring in an estimated $18 million per year through dive tourism.

They may rule the ocean, but sharks are vulnerable. They grow slowly, produce few young, and, as such, are exceptionally susceptible to overexploitation.

Overfishing is driving sharks to the brink - with many populations down by 80 percent. Tens of millions are killed each year for their meat, fins, liver, and other products.

Bycatch– or catching sharks incidentally while fishing for other commercial species – poses a significant threat to sharks. At the same time, new markets for shark products are blurring the line between targeted and accidental catches.

Finning– Shark fins usually fetch a much higher price than shark meat, providing an economic incentive for the wasteful and indefensible practice of “finning” (removing shark fins and discarding the often still alive shark at sea).  Finning is often associated with shark overfishing, especially as keeping only the fins allows fishermen to kill many more sharks in a trip than if they were required to bring back the entire animal.

Shark fishing continues largely unregulated in most of world’s ocean. Yet the future of sharks hinges on holding shark fishing and trade to sustainable levels. The best way to ensure an end to finning is to require that sharks are landed with their fins still “naturally” attached. Fishing limits must be guided by science and reflect a precautionary approach while trade must be controlled and monitored. We must also invest in shark research and catch reporting, and protect vital shark habitats. And last, but most definitely not least, if you choose to eat seafood, refrain from a purchase unless you can be certain that it's coming from a sustainable source.

The reality of travelling

I don't mind going back home for a while in between my travels because it forces me to touch base with reality and ensures that I appreciate my next destination with new found awe and gratitude. 

If I simply bounced from one paradise to a next I fear that I may start to take it for granted and forget that life is not always this perfect, not for me anyway. 

I travel to see places that remind me how tiny me and my problems really are.

 I've lived an extraordinary life already. 

End the war on sharks

I had to post this video as shark conservation is something I am extremely passionate about, not just as a scuba diver but as human being who cares about the future of our oceans. 

In my opinion we shouldn't have to justify why the slaughter of 100 million sharks per year is inherently inhumane, but for those that need convincing this short video summarises why the war on sharks must end. 

Click here to watch

Why fear a creature that has everything to fear from us?

73 million sharks are killed every year for their fins alone. All to make shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy and status symbol. Thats 190 sharks killed every single minute.

However, sharks only kill 5 people a year worldwide. We have been taught to fear them but this is wrong. We must change our perceptions of sharks and in turn our actions towards them.

Shark populations on the Great Barrier Reef are down by 97% and 600 tonnes of shark is taken from inside the GBR World Heritage area every year... Legally.

With 90% of the world's shark populations already wiped out, sharks are being depleted faster than they can reproduce. If an apex predator is taken out of any ecosystem then eventually it is going to collapse. This therefore threatens marine ecosystems around the world. Sharks are vitally important apex predators which have shaped life in the ocean for over 400 million years and are essential to the overall health of our oceans.

Don't fear them. Fear for them.

Manta Ray Facts

1. Except during mating season, mantas are not known to be social; however, the great fish regularly congregate in areas with plentiful food.

2. Like most reef fishes, mantas regularly attend cleaning stations where certain species of fishes pick parasites from their hovering bodies.

3. Mantas give birth every other year to a single pup, or a pair of four-foot pups that arrive rolled up like burritos.

4. It is not known why mantas leap from the water. Theories abound: to impress females, to help control parasites, to escape predators, or as a means of intraspecific communication.

5. Mantas can grow to nearly 25 feet from wingtip to wingtip, live for a quarter century, and willconsume about 60 pounds of plankton and small fish each day by filter feeding.

6. Mantas and their smaller kin, mobulas, were once tagged with the unflattering name “devilfish” because the cephalic lobes attached to each side of their mouths resemble horns. When extended, the flattened lobes help direct food into their mouths.

7. Currently only two species of mantas have been scientifically described, although a third, similar-appearing species inhabiting the Caribbean and Atlantic is suspected.

8. Although useless and nonfunctioning, a manta has approximately 300 rows of skin-covered teeth in its lower jaw.

Watch a video of me freediving with manta rays in the Maldives by clicking here

Best advice I ever got...

If anyone ever tries to fight you, take them to the water. 

They won't stand a chance.