Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul (28 page)

Those of us who had fought so long and hard listened to Judge Wilson with a mixture of disbelief and elation. A handful of people had achieved the impossible. We had taken on the mightiest naval force in the history of the world—and we had won! We prevented 269 naval detonations, and in so doing, saved the lives of more than 10,000 marine mammals.

Maris Sidenstecker

Dolphin Rides

Original painting by Wyland © 2003.

Everything I Needed to Know About the
Ocean I Learned in the Second Grade

F
ilthy water cannot be washed.

African Proverb

Every time I meet with a group of kids, I’m reminded of why I and so many other people work so hard to preserve the beauty of our natural world. Mention the ocean to children, and their eyes light up. Ask them about whales or dolphins or sea turtles and you’ll get a joyful litany of facts, figures and explanations. Children accept our world unconditionally. When they’re happy, it shows. When they’re dissatisfied with the state of things, they’ll let you know. I got a glimpse of this recently during a visit to a second-grade class in Southern California. I was lucky enough to talk with a group of bright, funny kids right after they had taken part in a cleanup project at a nearby beach. Even at seven years old, the kids were learning how important it is to become caretakers for the environment.

Being a curious person, I wanted to hear what they learned from their recent experience. My “panel” included Johnny, Cassidy, Sarah F. and Sarah G., Matt and Jenna— all bubbling at the idea of sharing their thoughts.

First we had to decide who would answer my questions. Sarah G., the most outgoing of the group, thought the first person who slammed their hand down on the table, “like they do in
Family Feud,”
should be given the honor of responding. We tried this a few times, and then moved on to the more democratic approach of taking turns. With the new ground rules firmly in place—for the time being, anyway—I asked the group to start the discussion by naming a few different types of bodies of water. The answers came fast and furious: “The ocean!” “A river!” “Lakes!” “Streams!” “Ponds!” . . . “Fresno!”

The last answer came from Matt.

“Fresno?” I asked.

“Fresno has water,” he said, proudly.

I couldn’t argue with his logic. Fresno does have water. I’m pretty sure of that.

I could see I was in good hands. Clearly, this was an advanced group. So I upped the ante and moved in with a real hardball question. Pollution is something that I often talk about when I meet with kids. They have very strong opinions on the subject and, in fact, they can be very persuasive in encouraging adults to curtail environmentally damaging habits. All it takes is one withering look from a little kid to make you pick up your chewing-gum wrappers for the rest of your life.

“How can adults take more responsibility for the environment?” I asked.

Cassidy’s hand shot up.

“Don’t litter,” she said. “And don’t waste water. . . . I turn off the water when I’m brushing my teeth.”

Yes, I said, that’s important. I tried to remember if I had turned off my faucet that morning. I imagined the lecture these guys would give me if I had left the water running. Next we talked about the types of trash they saw during their beach cleanup experience. Apparently, the beach that day was littered with plastic water bottles, Styrofoam, grocery bags, cigarette butts and beer cans. The kids asked me how adults could be so forgetful.

“That trash washes out to sea,” Johnny said. “Fish eat it.”

“But they don’t like it,” Jenna said. “If I were a dolphin and saw someone dropping trash in my home, I’d think that’s not fair.”

Sarah F. said, “When a dolphin sees trash, it probably wants to swim away to someplace cleaner . . . probably farther out to sea where we’ll never get to see it again.”

I asked if any of them had seen really polluted water. The answers were a mixture of yeses and noes. Matt, who judging by his T-shirt was an active member of the Indian Guides, said he’d seen a dirty lake in Idaho. He said the water was hard to see through. “It’s kind of smoky looking . . . and it smells,” he said.

When I asked what dirty water smells like, Sarah G. said, “Polluted water smells like dirty socks.” She volunteered to take off her shoes to demonstrate.

I told her I got the point.

Wyland

Do You Hear It?

The ocean is breathing, do you hear it?
Its soft breath rolls with every wave.
It crashes upon the sandy beach
Making its mark upon the shore.

The ocean is whispering, do you hear it?
Its soft voice is a melody of the wind across the water.
It whistles silently through our minds
Making its mark upon our souls.

The ocean is calling, do you hear it?
The sweet sound of life beneath.
It calls to you, it calls to me
Making its mark upon our hearts.

The ocean is weeping, do you hear it?
The silent cries rise from the deep.
It pleads for us to save it
Making its mark upon our conscience.

     Will you help it? Do you hear it?
     The voice so sweet and gentle.
     All it asks is that you help
     And keep its breath safe from harm.

Tiffany Pope, age 16

Life Imitates Art

N
o one person has to do it all, but if each one
of us follows our heart and our own inclinations,
we will find the small things that we can
do to create a sustainable future and a healthy
environment.

John Denver

I’m constantly amazed at the goodwill and support of the many people who turn out to watch me paint my murals. Of course, at the same time, there’s always at least one critic in the crowd. My mural in the small community of Marathon in the Florida Keys was one such experience. Painted on a building along the A1A Highway, the mural I wanted to create was to be over 150 feet long and twenty feet high, making it the largest in Southern Florida, not to mention a landmark for many years to come. For me there was no pressure. I would simply paint the undersea world of Florida’s colorful living reefs, then add a life-size sperm whale and her calf. Finally, I intended to paint all the different kinds of marine life that thrived in the warm tropical waters around the keys.

As expected, the mural generated a lot of attention. Thousands of people showed up to watch its evolution. On the last day I decided to paint a large green sea turtle hovering over the reef. I didn’t have any photographs of a green sea turtle, but I had a great deal of experience swimming with them in Hawaii, Florida and other parts of the world, so I winged it from memory. As I was completing the turtle, a local marine biologist approached me in a huff and told me point-blank: “That is not a green sea turtle.” Naturally, this surprised me. So I asked him politely what he thought it was. He took a step forward, peered at me above his glasses and said in a scolding voice, “It’s a combination of a hawksbill turtle and a green sea turtle . . . there is no such thing.” I tried to defend myself with artistic license and all, but he was adamant about critiquing every aspect of this imaginary species. He seemed very upset that I could even do this without his permission and finally left in disgust. All I could do was shrug and say, “Hey, I did the best I could.”

The new mural was dedicated the next day at a special ceremony. The entire town showed up to cheer their new landmark and the environmental message that it carried. Ten years passed. One afternoon I received a phone call at my home studio in Hawaii from my good friend Mandy Rodriguez, the vice president of Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, Florida. Mandy seemed very excited. “Hey, Wyland,” he said, “you’re not going to believe this. I just got a call from the turtle hospital in Marathon. They just saved a sick little hawksbill green sea turtle.” He paused to catch his breath. “That’s a species that no one’s ever seen before! The first thing I thought of when I heard about it was you. They want you to come down next month and release the turtle into the Atlantic Ocean.”

I was amazed to hear this news, and I had to admit I had a huge smirk on my face, remembering the words of the turtle expert at the mural site. I was pretty used to the idea of art imitating life, but I never thought I’d see the day when life would imitate art. Mandy explained that the turtle owed its survival to the turtle hospital in Marathon, where they perform rescues of turtles all over Florida—the first facility of its kind. The volunteers at the hospital include doctors who actually perform surgery on injured turtles and remove the life-threatening tumors that are being found more and more on these endangered creatures. The general feeling is that pesticides and other chemicals are entering the food chain and the turtles, which have thrived for 200 million years, are feeling the full impact of man’s destruction of the ocean environment. Every once in a while, though, there is a victory, as in the case of this young hawksbill green sea turtle. It had been found stranded on the beach, dying from malnutrition. Soon it was to be returned, healthy and recuperated, back into the sea.

When I flew down to Marathon to see this amazing new species I was astounded. It was exactly like I had pictured it. I hate to personify animals, but this turtle was one of the cutest things I had ever seen. As I gazed at the turtle, I was amazed that, sure enough, it had the features of both the green sea turtle and the hawksbill. Nature never fails to astonish me, and I felt like this was an important moment in science and art. Gently, I lifted the fragile, five-inch creature from its healing tank and carried it to the fishing boat of Richie Moretti, the founder of the turtle hospital. Mandy Rodriquez joined us, and we boated out to sea in search of the sea-grass cover that would camouflage and protect the turtle until it was large enough to defend itself.

Eventually, we found a large, thick floating mass of sea grass—the perfect place to release the turtle. The boat stopped and, carefully, I slipped into the Atlantic with the turtle in my hand, placing it near the edge of the sea grass. To my surprise, it circled around to me and hovered by my face mask before disappearing into the sea grass. To this day I believe there was something miraculous about the entire event. It shows that we do not know all the mysteries of the sea, that nature will always surprise us, and that man can make a difference in our world. Every time I visit the Florida Keys and drive past that Whaling Wall mural, I remember the hawksbill green sea turtle and the important lessons it taught me.

Wyland

More Chicken Soup?

Many of the stories and poems you have read in this book were submitted by readers like you who had read earlier
Chicken Soup for the Soul
books. We publish at least five or six
Chicken Soup for the Soul
books every year. We invite you to contribute a story to one of these future volumes.

Stories may be up to 1,200 words and must uplift or inspire. You may submit an original piece, something you have read or your favorite quotation on your refrigerator door.

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Chicken Soup
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Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 30880
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The Wyland Foundation and
Wyland Ocean Challenge

A portion of all proceeds from
Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover’s Soul
will go to the Wyland Foundation, which has partnered with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, to create the Wyland Ocean Challenge “Clean Water for the 21st Century”—a free, nationwide marine life art and science educational program for every school in the nation. This program is designed to teach children everywhere about the importance of our marine resources. Your purchase of this book will help make this program a great success.