A Few Stray Thoughts - and Chesapeake Bay Scenes

Isn't it amazing that, while humans are made up of, mostly, water, we are land animals?  And isn't it also amazing how afraid humans are of creatures that live in the water?  I'm sorry that "Sharks Are Terrorizing North Carolina Beaches" is a big media draw.  I am very sorry that people are being attacked and injured in the ocean - but humans are encroaching on marine life territories, when they swim and surf in the sea, ocean, whatever...  The population of sharks around the world has been greatly reduced by over-fishing (both for sharks and what are caught by accident by fish trawlers), and by the popularity of shark-fin soup.  It's sad, really.
  Sixty-nine to seventy-three percent of each of our bodies individual cells are made up of water - a compound of oxygen and hydrogen.  In actual breakdown, the human body is 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, 10% hydrogen, 3% nitrogen, 1.5% calcium, 1.2% phosphorus; and the other 1.2% is made up of potassium, sulfur, chlorine, sodium, and magnesium, with minute traces of iron, cobalt, copper, zinc, iodine, selenium, and fluorine.
   If you're walking in a park - local, county, state, or national - you are not constantly in fear of fire ants, bee swarms, venomous snakes, or wild animals.  People are raised to believe that they are smarter than other creatures, and that they are, therefore, at the top of the food chain.  However, if one should be out, alone, and unarmed in various areas of the world, one can understand being aware of the possibility of a lion, tiger, bear, or mountain lion.  We are small creatures in a large wild world.  Why don't people realize that the same goes for oceans, seas, rivers, and lakes?  People put themselves at risk - and then are upset, when Mother Nature takes it's course.
  The water is a fantastic place.  It teems with life.  A lot of that life, humans do not understand.  But we share the planet with these creatures - sharks, jellyfish, barracudas, Portuguese man-o-war, sea snake and other stinging, biting creatures that normally live in the water.  We invade their space and then hunt them, when they are behaving normally for their species.  Humans still have a lot to learn....

Chesapeake Scenes