IN THIS ERA of discernible climate
change there has been a lot more talk than usual about wilderness, and how best
it may be preserved. But one thing that mostly escapes attention is the fact
that the earth’s greatest wilderness is the sea.
When we talk about wilderness, of
course, we think of it as unspoiled nature.
And what makes it unspoiled is the absence of human beings. Most people
think of wilderness as little pockets of the earth’s surface that we want to
preserve just as they are. But the problem is that besides preserving them we
want to see them and experience them. That means our presence, even our
temporary presence, causes the wilderness to be despoiled. We affect it; we
change it with our jeeps and all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes, rumpling the
land and fouling the air with their exhausts.
So far, though (apart
from the great dumps of plastic in the ocean gyres) we haven’t managed to
change the sea to the same extent. None of mankind’s endeavors has left any
permanent monuments in the oceans, such as crumbling pyramids or rusting Eiffel
Towers. There is no Great Wall of China
at sea, no Taj Mahal or Mt. Rushmore. The sea erases all signs of man’s
presence as soon as we pass over it.
If fact, when you’re on a small boat
in the middle of the ocean it’s easy to believe that you are seeing something
that no human being has ever seen before, and never will again, for the surface
of the sea is constantly changing. It’s never the same from minute to minute.
And beneath the surface, out of
sight of passing man and largely unknown to him, the sunlit ocean is very busy,
teeming with life of all sizes from microscopic bacteria through tiny animal
and vegetable plankton to the giant squid, intelligent beings about which we
know so little, and the world’s biggest mammal, the blue whale.
As a matter of fact, scientists in
New Zealand are now getting a rare look at a sea creature with tentacles like
fire hoses and eyes as big as dinner plates.
A colossal squid known as an Architeuthis, weighing 770 pounds and as long as a
minivan, was hauled out of an Antarctic sea several months ago. The rarely
observed animal was frozen until recently, when a team of scientists got a
chance to thaw and inspect it at a New Zealand museum.
I have often wondered on a calm
night at sea whether any of these fearsome and highly intelligent creatures
could see my boat silhouetted against a moonlit sky and, if so, if they would
be tempted to attack it as the ancient krakens were reputed to do. At times
like this I have had to remind myself that I’ve read no reports of giant squid
smothering a small boat in their tentacles and dragging it down into the
underworld. On the other hand, boats (and ships) do disappear mysteriously at
sea from time to time, and who knows why? And who knows how many giant squids
there are in any given stretch of ocean and who knows how large the biggest of
them is?
I found the best way to resolve my
feelings about this was to go below at the end of my watch, take a generous nip
from the rum bottle in the medicine cabinet, and curl up in a tight ball in a
nice warm bunk.
Today’s
Thought
Not
only is the sea unspoiled and without artificiality, there is a primeval
quality, a purity surrounding its environment. Maybe you appreciate the sea because
when you are lost upon its vastness your life is not jammed up with the trivia,
the meaningless detail, and the foolish stuff of civilization.
—
Hal Roth
Tailpiece
Exhaustive intensive researches
By Darwin and Huxley and Hall
Have conclusively proved that the
hedgehog
Can scarcely be ravished at all.
And further industrious enquiry
Has incontrovertibly shown
That this state of comparative
safety
Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone.
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
