Wonder Blog 3

Blankinship Cove, Marion, MA

Tuesday July 2 16:00 light consistent wind, sunny, 75 degrees

Today, at my observation spot, I was inspired to look for personhood in nature. I saw breath in the rhythm of the wind blowing on the grasses. Even as a consistent wind blows, the grasses pulse. The shorter, greener grasses have a different breath pattern than the longer, dryer grasses; as do the dense intertwining mattes of grass versus the thin stemmed flowers. To observe this closer, I looked at a patch of saltgrass. The wind hits the grass, pushing it back and down away from the ocean. Within a second, the grasses rebounds against the wind before being pushing back down.

Sycamore tree, looking up. This sycamore is uphill of my observation spot. It is much older than the few other trees around, I wonder if there used to be more.

White tailed deer. This deer walked across the grasses as I approached my spot with my camera. It is just barely taller than the grasses, when it walks with its head down into the taller grasses it disappears from my site.

Two-Flowered Rush. I intended to capture the intertwining nature of the two-flowered rush in my observation spot. The plant life is very dense in this spot.

Where the ocean meets the grass. This photo, taken one hour before high tide, shows how in this spot, the aquatic and land environment meet. At low tide, the grasses extend from moist sandy soil but at high tide just their tips reach above the water line.

I have no idea what this natural object is. I found it when approaching my observation spot from a new angle, closer to the ocean from the beach where the grasses meet the rocky sandy beach. To me, it resembles a horror movie monster’s hand reaching out from the ground with long curly fingers.

Why is the ocean not see through here but is at tropical beaches I see on instagram? I have wondered this for a long time but never researched it, so now I will.

Generally, the water is murky here because it is full of nutrients. The nutrients that are suspended in the ocean waters, feed phytoplankton and algae, further contributing the the murkiness. Upwelling could explain why the waters are murky here and not some of the tropical instagram beaches. Upwelling occurs when wind blows parallel to the coast, surface water is displaced and deeper water rises to take its place. The deeper waters are more nutrient rich and the process of upwelling brings these nutrients to the surface waters. Coral reefs can block this process according to some research I did. The heavier sand sediments found in the Caribbean aren’t suspended in the ocean water as long, leading to clearer waters.

Sources: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/upwelling.html#:~:text=The%20deeper%20water%20that%20rises,of%20plant%20life%2C%20including%20phytoplankton.

https://abc7news.com/upwelling-ocean-color-murky-beach/3822648/

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