What can I say, I am a child of the Age of Aquarius, it is an age of hope

Amongst my poet icons of that age has always been Paul Simon. His “Sound of Silence” has always spoken to our common human hearts and needs. God bless that man.

I can remember and reflect back on countless occasions when I drew comfort and inspiration by listening to that song.

Just now Paul Simon’s wonder child has resurfaced with some gritty edgy new characteristics. As a grandfather I never cease to be inspired by the ever-changing new hope delivered by children.

In my life as a grandfather I am devoted to work to spare, even save, the world from the menace of generations of our CO2 emissions. These dark foreboding clouds of CO2 are truly menacing, not so much to my life but surely to the lives of my grandchildren and their grandchildren.

At times the darkening gloom is nearly too much to take, then something wonderful happens, like receiving in this single week the inspiring news that for the first time in my 3 decades of work. Now 196 nations and delegates, ten thousand maybe more, have endorsed in the Paris Accord that such work is not merely good but vital to survival of life as we know it on this blue planet, our common home.

My work is below the surface of the ocean, a world frequently described and characterized by its sound of silence.  It is a wonder to me that as the good news of the Paris Accord was sinking in this incredible video by musician David Draiman and stunning artistry of visual and video art by Matt Mahurin falls upon my senses (Matt might well be channeling Ansel Adams). Two miracles in one week, I am smiling and inspired.

While I watch and listen to this video I can see in my mind’s eye that the darkness of decades of doom and gloom prospects for Mother Nature are beginning to clear.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

It will take a lot of work but my ship(s) will sail again soon to help restore the oceans and deliver some of the vision that was landed in my brain by another grandfather – the late great John Martin.

To share with me what goes through my mind as I listen and watch this video here’s a start of a description of what I witnessed as I accomplished my first ocean pasture restoration.

I wrote this report in the summer of 2012 while hundreds of miles out at sea, a sea that with a ‘handful of magic dust’ I had just turned from a desolate blue desert into a wonder-filled oasis of life.

The Ocean Pastures Corp (Haida (Hi Da) Salmon Restoration) project is nearing completion of its ship borne work and the team of sailors, scientists, and fishers are now heading home. This summer my crew has been aboard ship engaging in what is surely the most substantial ocean restoration project in history. In a large ocean eddy west of Haida Gwaii we have replenished vital ocean mineral micro-nutrients, with the expectation and hope it would restore ten thousand square kilometers of ocean pasture to health.

We watched in awe as it did just this feeding the nightly migration of zooplankton, the largest migration on earth. Along with the abundance of plankton came vast herds of great whales, seabirds by the thousands, and hopefully the baby salmon that we swimming into this big blue sea to begin their ocean live. If we have done our job right instead of mostly starving those baby salmon are being treated to a feast.

Indeed this has occurred and the waters I choose to do this in those of the Haida eddy have turned from clear blue and sparse of life into a verdant emerald sea lush with the growth of a hundred million tonnes of plankton and the entire food chain it supports. The growth of those tonnes of plankton derives from vast amounts of CO2 now diverted from becoming deadly ocean acid and instead made that same CO2 become ocean life itself.

For weeks the men and women, on my team toiled in stormy overcast weather and fog without a hint of blue sky. Now in mid-August the skies have cleared and revealed the wonder of the mission on which they have laboured. Satellites focused on ocean health that monitor and measure plankton blooms sent back stunning images. Far offshore in these NE Pacific salmon pastures a vast plankton bloom is revealed matching the health and vibrancy of blooms seen in rich coastal waters. The return of such blooms is “the stuff dreams are made of” for all ocean life.

In addition to the focused study the accomplished mission of the project also included detailed oceanographic studies of the near-by Bowie Sea-Mount Marine Protected area, the near shore and famous Haida Eddy, and the coastal ocean from Vancouver north to the study region.

We are witness to the greatest migration on Earth… read the rest of my report here.

My thanks to those in Paris and to Paul, David, and Matt.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence”

Join me my ships will sail again in 2016! We will help flowers save our world. Fair warning I’ll likely blast David Draiman’s version of this old friend/song throughout the ship from time to time.

The Sound Of Silence