I wanted my children to have the same exposure to the water I had. My strongest memories of Northeast Harbor are going in a small Whaler with my dad, looking for osprey.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The sea was at the bottom of my road, and I seemed to spend my childhood in it or on it, hearing, tasting, smelling it. Now, still, I need to be near water as often as possible.
On my second swim at Deception Island, the water was very clear and I was looking at hundreds of whale bones beneath me. It was a graveyard from the whaling some time in the 1920s-30s.
I wanted to do something creatively, having been a beached whale for many months and nursing my daughter.
I grew up on Cape Cod. We didn't live right on the water, but I could walk to it and did every day.
I'm concerned about the ocean and the environment. And I love whales.
It was really cool going to Sea World. We had an amazing time. They were amazing to us. We got to swim with the dolphins, and it was really special.
Now and then, when I grow nostalgic about my ocean childhood - the wauling of gulls and the smell of salt, somebody solicitous will bundle me into a car and drive me to the nearest briny horizon.
We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine.
I hope that 'Jaws' will have brought sharks into the public interest at a time when we desperately need to reevaluate our care for the environment.
I have always had the sea as my playground.