As The Waves Crash Down

As the Waves Crash Down, the Rest of the World Follows When I was younger, the ocean was always a sign of relaxation and fun, seeing how I 3rarely and in the vicinity of an ocean. The reflection of the sun beating off the rigid water made the water looks as if it were almost frozen; yet the moving ways always keep in motion. Its vast area stretches as far as the eye can see, making the brain even wonder where it ends. Curiosity always comes to mind when I think of the ocean, for so many things about it remain a mystery. Controlling more than half of the earth’s surface area, it is the largest single home in the world. Trillions of different creatures live beneath the cold salty surface, living in different complex ecosystems in which the ocean has become a habitat. Its salty taste and strong waves protect these habitats from land intruders, but since the technological advances in water travel, only massive storms can protect them now. Though the water is cold, and the waves are harsh, I still feel warm whenever I am near an ocean. It makes me feel good that something so natural and simple can make so many people happy. I always thought it was weird that the ocean had waves. I felt that it was naturally trying to keep us out, like it was protecting something. People can walk right into the waves, get tossed around, and send back to the shores on their backs, with an urge to continue. It is like watching a dog fetch a stick, something so simple to us on a large scale, can actually amuse us when we aren’t aware. When looked at on a large scale, the ocean is really a big anti-social bully, who neglects all people by throwing them under its large waves, and sending them back to the sands. If the ocean were in high school, it would a hard time making friends. Yet, people day in and day out, continue to pursue the ocean, taking heavy strides through the thick undertow, just to get tossed around and end up back at shore. Each time I return to the ocean, I always think to myself,

“Does anybody actually think they can get past the waves? Does anybody go into the ocean looking to conquer?” The answer is always no. Nobody is trying to beat the ocean, become the best, go where no man has gone before. They are all expecting to get tossed and thrown, just as everyone else has, just as everyone else will. Man may not realize it, but they actually pursue getting beat up. The reason, it remains just one of the many questions the ocean beholds, but that is why curiosity is a following of the ocean.

As a child, the sandy beaches of the Pacific Ocean seemed as a place for excitement and pleasure, visiting on vacations and holidays. Having family that lived on the coast of Malibu beach, the beach and ocean was completely at my disposal. Spending hours with my family lying on the beach, listening to the powerful waves crash, and sometimes even trying to jump them. I was not an ignorant child, and I was aware that on occasion human waste would eventually lead to the ocean, but my parents always reassured me that it was treated so that the water in the ocean would still be clean enough for me to play in. The curiosity sprouted after watching the movie Titanic, making me believe that I was swimming where all the victims died. They said that the salt purified the ocean water, making it clean and all right for me to use for my own enjoyment. I took their word for it, and for years I would come back to the same beach to vacation. People continued to surf, swim, and boogie board like nothing had changed. The water was still the same blue-green color it had been the year before. Every year I became more environmentally aware, learning more in science classes, and applying to my everyday life. We never learned about the Ocean ever changing from the mass habitat that it was for possibly billions of different species of amphibious creatures. The earth was heating, the glaciers were

melting, the rainforests were disappearing, endangered species were being lost every month…but the ocean remained the same. January 1st, 2001, the day that put the world’s environmental problems in perspective. Walking out on the beach in the early mornings of the New Year, I witnessed a sight that would boggle most minds. Hundreds of small fish lined the shoreline where the tide had risen to the previous night before. The foul odor of dead fish filled my nostrils, and my mind pondered what the real truth was about the water. How could I not see this coming? The entire world was changing; it was ignorant of me not to see that the largest habitat in the world was not feeling any after effect. The truth was finally in sight, and the corpse of the hundreds of fish that lined Malibu beach were signals of changing times.

The once almighty ocean is no longer its strong self, and though Human interference is the cause, there are still ways that we can save the most important ecological system on our planet. The laws of nature are against us, and all of our waste just pours into the Oceans, which needs to be regulated. As a civilization, the humans need to control all waste management that are anywhere near a running body of water, because the odds of that water flowing into an Ocean are extremely high. The chemical age has brought even more harm to this massive ecosystem, and the more we continue to wash them into the water cycle, the harder it will be to reverse the damage that we have already done. The myth that the Ocean is indestructible needs to silenced, and the truth about our pollution needs to be internationally expressed. The fish industry, which accounts for over one third of all meat consumed by humans, is being destroyed by our own pollution. The fish are becoming contaminated and killed by our ignorance, and the only way to save our world would

be to stop pollution the Oceans. The world is already running out of fresh water as it is, which will eventually lead to our reliance on the Ocean water for survival. We have the technology to purify saltwater, but the costs of energy and production are just not plausible or economic for regular use yet. The more we continue to pollute and destroy the oceans that we have, the harder we are making life for the future generations. The time when freshwater is no longer existent is in the near future, and our ignorance and inability to see ahead to the future could lead to a mass extinction to the human species.