Wondering about wild grapes

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Wondering about the Ocean

One of the blogs I follow is Old Fat Man Adventures. Barney travels a lot of places but usually ends up on the Gulf coast for the winter. He is now in Rockport, TX and other than living through some cold and/or wet spells; he seems to enjoy the sea and all the things that can be done in, on, and around it.

My wife and I used to spend a month over Christmas at Galveston State Park. It was no further to my customers’ locations than from home and I could, if necessary, work anywhere on my laptop. So it didn’t interfere with my work, but the holiday seasons were always slow (work wise) for me. We did this for three years in a row. One year it snowed on Christmas. See my old blog: http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2010/07/weather-records.html



Here are some more pictures of the area on the days after the snow went away and it warmed up. This first one is of a couple of the dogs looking out the window of the RV at the beach:


The next two pictures were taken on a foggy morning:


And of course you have to have a sun-set:

And a typical beach picture:

The last is looking out the window:

As you can guess, we too love the salt water. Well guess what, salt is not the most abundant chemical in sea water, chlorine is. Here is the break-down if you are interested. Chlorine is about 19 ppt, then sodium at 11 ppt, then sulfate at 2.7 ppt, then magnesium at 1.3 ppt, then calcium at 0.4 ppt, and then potassium at 04 ppt.

Did you know that there are about one million bacterial cells in a typical cubic centimeter of ocean water (and I bet a lot more off Galveston). The total amount of bacteria in the oceans weigh more than 240 billion African elephants!!! That is 240 Billion, WOW!!! Not sure if I will ever swim in the ocean again. . .

7 comments:

  1. You'd think with that much chlorine in the water the bacteria wouldn't be too harmful. The pictures are very nice. I lived by the ocean for three years in Ireland, and had my fill of it. I loved it then, but mountains and forests are my true preference. Ain't it a grand world with so many thing to choose from?

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  2. Some really nice pictures, buddy! Lots of choices here in Texas, right?

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  3. Gypsy, Like you said there are such a variety in nature that there is always somewhere to suit each person. Myself, I like a variety. Never get tired of nature, cities you can have. Don't like cities.
    By the way, ppt stands for parts per trillion, so that wouldn't be enough to kill bacteria.

    HJ, Those pictures were taken the year it snowed in at Galveston. No snow up here in Cut & Shoot, but the further south you went the more snow. Believe Victoria got 10" or more.

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  4. Hey Dizzy, haven't been to Galveston since the hurricane. My father-in-law sport fishes out of there all the time.

    I love the Gulf and the BP mess broke my heart.

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  5. Sixbears, Even though I am not too far from there, I have not been down to the island for a few years. I figured that after hurricane Ike, it would break my heart.
    Bring your sail boat over this way someday.

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  6. The total amount of bacteria in the oceans weigh more than 240 billion African elephants!

    Now that's an interesting bit of information.

    The sunset photo is beautiful :-)

    ~Ron

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  7. Hey Old Geezer, thanks for stoping buy. Yep, there is that much bacteria in the ocean, but it does some good; it puts a lot of oxygen into the atmosphere.

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