Showing posts with label Beach and paradise. Show all posts

Thank you Miami for making us feel so much at home

After sixteen months in the cold Massachusetts, a proper vacation was in order. The past six weeks has therefore been pretty much solely dedicated to enjoying the richness and warmth of this our new home city. Four months in and I still love Miami more for each day. We live around the North Miami Beach area which has the most beautiful and serene beaches, and a lovely village like ambiance, in contrast to its loud touristy counterpart slightly to the South. The mixture of people, religion, culture and colour is refreshing and every day I am grateful for the sunshine we get to wake up to. Quality of life has risen significantly since our move down South. In fact life here reminds us a tad about life in Barcelona and thus we haven't missed the Mediterranean much at all since we got here. Old readers know how much that means to us.

The last of our visitors have now gone home and we're back to the slightly more serious sides of life again. Although living in this climate surrounded by this very special energy I'm pretty sure we'll be able to maintain a good balance between work and pleasure. 

Hope your spring has started off smoothly!

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Cape Cod by sunset

That weekend we spent on the cape, fourteen days ago. Mentally trying to prepare for the long cold season ahead by soaking in each day of heat and sunshine available. It's always nostalgic for us to visit a beautiful beach, especially at sunset. Feels like we are meant to be out there on the water, and not on land.

Those prehistoric horseshoe crabs are one of the few living creatures that have outlived the dinosaurs. A species 350 million years old, they are considered living fossils. I read that they come up to shore for mating, but there seem to be another reason to why so many of them were laying dead on the beach.

Apparently it is a very lucrative global business, to harvest horseshoe crabs and their milky blue blood for biomedical research (their blood has no hemoglobin, but copper which makes it blue).

Harvesting horseshoe crab blood (which goes for up to $15.000 per quart!) involves collecting and bleeding the animals, and then releasing them back into the sea. Mortality is correlated with both the amount of blood extracted from an individual animal, and the stress experienced during handling and transportation. Estimates of mortality rates following blood harvesting is up to 30%.

So that seem to be one uncomfortable reason why so many of them can be found dead on the beach.

Because someone stole their blood.
Image from the Atlantic.

Given that 250.000 of them are harvested yearly, it is not a surprise they are an endangered species. Imagine to have survived a few hundred million years in nature but you'll get extincted by human beings in just a couple hundred years. Human nature in a nutshell.

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summer come soon

New England weather really is as confusing as we were told when we first got here. Snowstorm and freezing cold one second. Dry and sunny spring weather the next. It seems the whole world is a bit screwed up, weather wise I mean (in many other ways too but let's stick to this subject for now), and I can only wish for the sad global warming to work its magic around here and bring the actual spring to us soonish. Looking back at some shots from the Caribbean and can't help but miss our warm sunny life over there. Missing the liberty it gives when you don't have to shield yourself with fifty layers of clothes. To be able to be naked, or with very little clothes on, really is the ultimate form of freedom, physically speaking at least.

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One more day

Alex found a damaged lip seal in the salt water pump causing the pump to leak and the bearing to corrode so we are awaiting new parts before we can continue up North... what a shame, one more day in these ugly surroundings. Seriously, the coast around here is absolutely stunning, glorious natural beauty. These photos were taken at the rugged beach of Jupiter Island. 

I know many of you already do, but go check out our favorite sailing portal Sailing Anarchy for the latest sailing news. There were something (although slightly exaggerated on the body part) written about our latest video there yesterday.

P.S: New readers, why don't you follow us on our Facebook page to be the first to get all the latest juice? Don't forget to hover over "Liked" (under our cover photo to the right) and click on "Get Notifications". This will ensure you getting all our updates in your news feed. That one's very important for both new and old followers so don't miss to go and click on it please.

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