REPORT: July 2, 2010 - Friday - 6pm

Today, I read this on nola.com (The Times Picayune, New Orleans) which was issued by NOAA:

A new computer model shows oil from the massive Gulf of Mexico spill has as high as an 80 percent chance of reaching the Florida Keys and Miami.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the forecast Friday. It shows a 61 to 80 percent chance of sheen, tar balls or other oil remnants coming within 20 miles of Florida's eastern coast, from the Keys north to the Fort Lauderdale area, by on Aug. 18.

Outside those areas and the Florida Panhandle, which has already seen beaches littered with tar balls, other areas show a low probability of oil. The state's western coast has a 20 percent chance or lower of seeing oil, and parts of southwest Florida have less than a 1 percent chance.


As a follow-up, NPR reported a further explanation: that much depends on hurricanes and any unexpected changes in weather patterns (which we are having this year in particular); but that the data is in fact projecting the above scenario.

MID AUGUST. SYMPTOMS OF THE GULF OIL SPILL ON OR NEAR OUR BEACH AND NEARBY BEACHES. I keep thinking of the Loggerhead sea turtles who are in prime nesting season. Their hatchlings swimming out into the loop current where they spend their first year along the sargassum cradle that feeds and shelters them and all the big and little fish, snails, crabs and sea life. This is where the oil too may be pulled into. Even if it does stay out to sea and not make it onto Atlantic shores, I wonder if the results of the oil's presence will show up in the marine life that makes it back onto the coast?

Another comment to a report hits too close to home: "You can rebuild Louisiana; but you can't rebuild that reef out there." I stop reading.


And went to the beach...

And smiled when my son griped at me for taking too long to get in the water with him as he waited for me to shoot these photos.

Tonight just like every night, T. OCEAN and I will continue our good-night ritual which lately for me has become vested with hope of safe-keeping - more like a prayer. We say good night to the moon, the stars, the sun, the rain and clouds, the ocean, the dolphins, whales, birds, jellyfish, crabs, sea turtles, fish[es], trees, butterflies, dragonflies, bumblebees, grass, sand, sea shells, etc. - more or less the natural world which is part of our everyday language.

And of course, T. OCEAN usually adds his own - good night surfers, good night train tracks, good night beetles, good night sail boarding...if it's on his mind, he bids it good night.

It is a pleasant way to end the day, and hold onto the the wish that all will be cared for even as we sleep.


Your,
Little mama Sea Keeper