Dream Reef...

Tonight I held the second to last meeting before our tour to Australia, New Zealand and Oahu. I'm calling it our Native People and Nature tour. I feel that it's important for my own children and the students (ranging from entering High School to mid-way through College) to experience these natural wonders and native cultures before they have become extinct. My first tour was to the Galapagos and Andes of Ecuador. My next will most likely by to an African nation.

Jacques Cousteau inspired me to see the underwater world when I was 12 years old. Now, 40, years later I'm making it to the largest reef in the world. So large that when superimposed onto the North America or Western Europe it's immensity become profound for those of us used to scope of these Northern Hemisphere landmasses. Imagine: a reef longer and wider than California or from the toe of  Italy to London!

There are more unique ecosystems and critters associated with the GBR than we may every truly know. Unfortunately, 50% of the coral has died in the last 30 years (Cousteau was tragically correct with many of his prognostications), so what we'll be seeing will be a shadow of it's former glory. Have of the damage is due to invasive species (starfish the bore holes in the coral, for example, that have arrived on the hulls of boats) and much from global warming and other effects of man-made environmental scale-tipping.

I'm hoping that the piece of it, off Cairns, that we'll be visiting will be fairly well preserved by UNESCO, just as they'd been doing in the Galapagos. Although I know that places we took our boat and snorkeled in the Galapagos three years ago are now closed to visitors due to the rapid disintegration of the reefs there. Just to see a segment of the magnificent 1000's of km that make up the reef will be thrilling. Dusk and dawn critters, including my favorite 8-legged wonder of the world, will be life lasting for me.

I'm tired....was at school 10 out of the last 16 hours, with 2 hours spent driving!
Longer missives and more internal reflections over this no deadlines weekend (and fingers crossed, warmth and sunshine)!

Good Night, Dreamers of Thriving Reefs, G'night!