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When I was a little girl, I was afraid of the water. Not so afraid that I wouldn't go in it, but I would never be the first one to take the plunge. I’d sacrifice my family and friends, quietly waiting a few beats to see if they were eaten by a shark or sucked down to core of the Earth by a surprise sinkhole—even in the lakes, rivers, and streams of my home state of Vermont, where we are stuck tragically without a salty coastline. After the scene appeared to be safe, I’d cautiously join them, only then able to enjoy the water with peace of mind.

If you have ever woken up early to wander the stalls of a fish market, you can relate to my feeling of anticipation leading up to the SeaWeb Seafood Summit.  The fish market brings to the surface a sample of the undersea world that you cannot see day-to-day.  You know that some jewels will be revealed to you.  You revel in the diversity of the species, each with its own niche, but collectively making up an exquisite system.

The UN SDG14 Ocean Conference: the first UN conference of its kind on the ocean.

June 8 is World Oceans Day, as designated by the United Nations, and we like to think of June that week as Ocean Week and in fact, the whole of June as World Ocean Month.  In 2017, it was truly an ocean week in New York, which was abuzz with ocean lovers attending the first World Ocean Festival on Governor’s Island, or attending the first-ever UN conference of its kind on the ocean.  

The following are daily logs written by Dr. John Wise. Along with his team, Dr. Wise traveled in and around the Gulf of California in search of whales. Dr. Wise runs The Wise Laboratory of Environmental & Genetic Toxicology. This is part two of the series.