Are you a Marine Life Explorer?
Maybe you are a diver, a student in marine biology or a passionate of life underwater or on the seashore.
BUT when you go diving, walking on the beach or swimming during your vacations and you see some fish or other animals you have no idea what species they are or why they have some weird behavior. Maybe you spend time watching them because you find them beautiful and full of mysteries. You might want to know more about them: knowing their name, how they live, what do they eat? You would like to answer your friends, kids when they are wandering what are those strange and cool animals swimming around, and what are they doing?
No worries, this is very normal not to know all those things. We are not learning that at school and this kind of information is surprisingly not so easily accessible. Maybe you feel that you would need to be a genius or an expert to know more about nature. Books are expensive, they are really big, and not easy to read or to transport during your vacations on the beach. And they focus on a specific subject or area so you would need to get soooo many of them. You might be aware that you could find some scientific articles online but they are also expensive and written in this heavy scientific English that doesn’t make any sense to you! Why using all those complex words?!!… It does seem overwhelming and doesn’t look so much fun to spend time learning about marine life so you never do it and that is totally understandable, I have to say!
What will you find here?
On this website…
You are going to be able to find answers to all sorts of questions you may already have or maybe that you do not have yet! Because as you may have noticed already, the more you learn, the more questions you have! That is awesome!
You are going to see the beach you are used to go with a brand new look and with an increasing interest. When you know where and what to look, the world around you look different, even if it is in fact the same as before. When I learned that there are different zones on the seashore with specific species depending on their tolerance to dryness, walking when the sea is low became so much more fun and interesting! Understanding nature around you is like getting a map of the city you just moved in, it is way clearer and you want to explore even more!
Your love for seas and oceans is just going to continue to grow.
What kind of amazing creatures you could see underwater?
Why this blog?
To be able to gather this knowledge and learn how to look for information I had to:
- go through long studies with a Bachelor, a Master, and know a PhD,
- do lots of research by my own
- do lots of research internships
Despite my love for oceans, learning all this has needed a lot of hard work and sometimes it has been heavy going. That is why I decided to start writing on this blog. I would like this knowledge to be more accessible and understandable for everybody who is interested. So I will do my best to explain complex possesses in an easy way as much as I can. Do not hesitate to tell me in the comment sections at the end of blog posts if it is still a bit hard for you to understand or if you have any questions! You can also get in touch with me if you have ideas or needs regarding this subject. It has been a while now that I am using this “heavy scientific English” so I am going to need some practice! 🙂
If you are sensitive to ecological issues, one of the first step to help and do your part is to love what is around you and to do so, for me, it has also been through understanding and knowing more about species interactions with their environment. This is also important knowledge before being able to protect and conserve our ecosystems. I have seen many people loving nature and doing their best to help but actually making things worse because they did not know the consequences. I have met this really nice and interesting couple in Lapland; they are doing amazing things and thinking a lot about their impact on nature. It has been so interesting sharing and discussing with them. But at some point, they told me that when they are going to the forest, they bring every seeds they kept from their food to plant them. Obviously, they did not think or know about how we can end up with species invasions (if you do not know neither it is fine, no worries, you can read articles on the blog to find out). I do not tell this story for any of us to judge. It is not the issue; they were thinking doing the right thing here. It is just to illustrate how knowledge is important to protect nature and take the right actions!
YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE IF…
YOU ARE CURIOUS…
… if you are curious about what is around you. If you want to learn more about marine life secrets. When you are swimming in your favorite beach during your vacations, do you have any ideas of what kind of fish is around you and why are they behaving this way? Do you want to know more?
YOU LIKE ADVENTURE…
… if you love adventure and get excited to discover secrets. Do you want to explore with me your favourite places and discover which species are living there?
YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO ECOLOGICAL ISSUES…
… if you love nature and you want to protect and conserve it. You want to learn more to be able to decide which actions you need to implement in your life, to start making a difference at your own scale. (By the way, let me tell you that this is amazing!!!)