Courtesy of Associated Press on Why is the Hong Kong coast glowing an eerie blue?. People who swim across the Catalina Channel often relish in the sparkling blue bioluminescence they see at night along the surface of the water and lighting up their hands as they pull through the water. But a similar glittering blue chemiluminescence in Hong Kong waters is
Courtesy of Jim Clifford who became history's oldest person to swim across the Catalina Channel. Around midnight on September 28th, I stepped off the beach at Catalina Island and entered the ocean on one of the darkest nights imaginable. There was only a sliver of moon visible and no light pollution from the island or mainland California. I had heard
Courtesy of Joseph Locke in a first-person account of his 13 hour 58 minute crossing from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate Bridge that broke Ted Erikson's record first set in 1967. When we started conditions could not have been better. The channel was like a lake - absolutely smooth and no one was even remotely ill on the ride out. We had a full
Most of the humans in the world either cannot or do not swim. They may go to the seashore or head to the lakeside, but they never enter the water. They may vacation on a cruise boat or they may fish in rivers, but they never see the aquatic environment from below the surface of the water. Like mountaineers who see the world’s peaks or fighter pilots who
The bioluminescent comb jellyfish has roamed the earth for over 525 million years. It generates light, flashes of blue-green, to startle its predators and its eight comb rows to swim (away). It contains proteins that enable it to generate light. According to researchers, these same proteins may have given rise to the diversity of light-sensing molecules
Endurance athletes in every sport are a breed apart. They are often more cerebral than celebrated, more introverted than extroverted, more inspirational than arrogant. They know what they want and they set an agenda to achieve their goals in a methodical manner. Those in the aquatic world are especially driven with their head in the water, swimming hour
Five creatures take to both the salt water and fresh water: bull sharks, La Plata dolphins, salmon, humans and dinoflagellates. While bull sharks and La Plata dolphins live in both saltwater and freshwater, salmon are born in freshwater, migrate to the ocean and then return to freshwater to reproduce. But human swimmers and dinoflagellates interact in an
Catalina Channel swimmers know it ... the stillness of night swimming when bioluminescence is visible on the water's surface and a dark calm settles over the ocean. Early morning swimmers - from Michigan to Melbourne, Manila to Messina - know it ... the quiet serenity of the pre-dawn hours when darkness blankets the water and peacefulness quiets the
Open water swimmers know the beauty of swimming at sunrise and at sunset when the colors of the sky turn magical and majestic. For a select few who get in the water at night for various reasons: adventure, training for a channel swim or for an actual channel swim, are often enthralled by the beauty of the ocean orlake, particularly during a full moon on a
