Blue Sway . . .

sea stars ~ photo, db Nelson

waiting for high tide . . . ~ photo, db Nelson

tide pooling ~ photographer, Barbara Denham

National Geographic ~ Bodega Bay Tidepools

'Brimming Pools' is a featured article in National Geographic this month. Along with beautiful photographs by David Liittschwager, writer Mel White takes us on a journey of Bodega Head Tidepoos. Guided by Sarah Ann Thompson, a marine biologist from the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, White describes his experience:

The rocks and pools here create an abundance of opportunities and host a diversity of life to rival any rain forest. Pisaster is just one of scores of species that have adapted to innumerable micro-habitats with a seemingly endless variety of physical shapes and lifestyles. One little worm can shoot a harpoon out of its head to stab its prey. A limpet tends and guards its own farm plot. A seaweed releases acid for defense when it's injured. A nudibranch (which looks like a gussied-up slug) eats poisonous creatures and implants stinging cells under its own skin to repel predators.
Why all the aggression? It's simply the result of lots of plants and animals competing for resources in a highly productive but limited space. In nature, as in real estate, location is everything, and the intertidal zone is Park Avenue.

White also gets an education about sea creatures from Erik Sanford, a biologist with the Bodega Marine Lab. White tells us:

So there's the magic. Eric Sanford is holding, in one hand, representatives of more than one-fourth of all the animal life on Earth: nine phyla on one rock. In comparison, the entire land surface of the planet, from Poles to Equator, is home to only about a dozen phyla.

Sanford is actually a little crestfallen because he can't find a peanut worm, an odd thing in the phylum Sipuncula that would give us an even ten. The thrill would have been strictly numerical, though. I've already seen a peanut worm, and it has all the aesthetic appeal of used chewing gum. (I must admit, however, that the one thing it does, it does very well: extending a hydraulically powered, tentacle-tipped proboscis several times the length of its body to grab tiny bits of drifting dead stuff. Sanford calls it "this crazy sort of Dr. Seuss-like thing.")

This article is a great way to learn a bit more about our precious and unique coast. For more information contact the Bodega Marine Lab for a tour. Public drop in tours are available Fridays, 2-4 for groups less than 10 people. 

Thank you to our own (future) Bodega Bay Veterinary Hospital for bringing this to our attention.



Previously Unreleased track, 'Blue Sway' Written Nearly 20 Years Ago Dedicated to Linda McCartney . . .

'Blue Sway' music video

Paul McCartney recruited award-winning surf filmmaker Jack McCoy to create a music video for his previously unreleased track "Blue Sway." Written nearly 20 years ago, McCartney's never-before released song, "Blue Sway," is available for the first time on the bonus audio disc of the special edition of McCartney II. The music video created by McCoy is also featured on the bonus DVD included in the set. McCartney II will be released on June 14th by MPL and Concord Music Group.

Jack McCoy has been capturing the surfing vision in a truly unique way. Using a high powered underwater jet ski, the filmmaker found that he was able to travel behind a wave, creating underwater images that have never been seen before.

Over the past couple of years, McCoy set out to capture footage for his surf film, A Deeper Shade of Blue. During the editing process, McCoy put one of his surfing sequences to a song off McCartney's The Fireman album. A mutual friend, Chris Thomas, saw the footage while visiting McCoy in Australia, and when he returned to the UK he gave McCartney a copy of the sequence.

"Paul was pretty stoked with what I'd created. He immediately thought my images might be suitable to go with his unreleased song "Blue Sway." said McCoy.

McCoy spent the next six weeks creating the music video, while also working full days on making A Deeper Shade of Blue. McCoy compiled and edited footage that he filmed off Tahiti's Teahupoo reef to create what became the "Blue Sway" video.

"When I saw Jack McCoy's underwater surfing footage put to the soundtrack of "Blue Sway" I was blown away," said McCartney.

"Blue Sway" won 'Best Music Video' at NYC BE FILM Short Festival this past May, and the video will be featured as part of Surfrider Foundation's summer PSA campaign. Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world's oceans, waves and beaches.

For more information about the McCartney II : http://paulmccartney.com.
For more information on Jack McCoy's A Deeper Shade of Blue: http://adeepershadeofblue.com
For more information on Surfrider Foundation: http://surfrider.org.

Too amazing not to repost . . .