Category: Sea

Strange Stays

~ mehopper

I concluded my last post about Sand Art with highlighting how Booking.com offered the chance to stay in a sandcastle as a promotion for Coney Island’s Sand Sculpting Competition. Here’s a link with more on that unusual “opportunity.”

Giant Coney Island Sandcastle Offers Sleepovers (Summer Delaney, WPIX)

That may have sounded like a one-off type of oddity, but in truth, it wasn’t.

Booking.com is known for cooking up some “unique” promotions. For example, here’s a silly clip on what they did for that illustrious holiday, National Avocado Day.

Buzz60 (YouTube Channel)
Buzz60 (Facebook)

The aren’t alone in promoting atypical places to stay. In fact, far from it!

There are also a bevy of travel articles about a broad array of places to stay.

17 Weird and Wacky Hotels Across the United States (Violet Kim, CNN Travel)
22 Weird, Wonderful and Unique Hotels in the World (Stine Gjevnøe Sørensen, momondo)

No matter what your passion happens to be, there’s bound to be a place to stay for it.

The reason that I’m so aware of this is because awhile ago, with amusement, I realized that there’s some sort of lodging related to almost every subject on Cosma. Sometimes those experiences end up as adventures like Sand Art. That’s why I have a huge stash of links to “thematic” lodging that range from mildly amusing to pretty wild.

For example, there’s some kind of place to visit for what ever kind of transportation.

If you like trains, then you might enjoy a say at the Featherbed Railroad (Upper Lake, California). If you’re into cars, then you might want to book a night at V8 Hotel Motorworld (Stuttgart, Germany).

DIRS21 by TourOnline AG (YouTube Channel)

Are planes more your thing? There’s quite a few adventures ranging from sleeping in a Plane Airbnb (St Michel Chef Chef, France) to a 727 Airplane Fuselage (Costa Verde, Costa Rica).

If you’re into boats, then try a stay at The Queen Mary Hotel (Long Beach, California).

If you prefer an even more aquatic experience, then there are undersea hotels like these.

Atlantis – The Palm (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
The Manata Resort (Psv-zanzibar, Tanzania)
Jules’ Undersea Loadge (Key Largo, Florida)
The Muraka (Rangali Island, Maldives)

Let’s say you are into trees, then how about staying in a tree house? There are many places to consider. Here are links to a few of them.

Out’n’About Treehouses Treesort (Takilma, Oregon)
Azulik Resort (Tulum, Mexico)
Treehouse Lodge Resort (Iquitos, Peru)

Less run-of-the-mill tree houses include Freespirit Spheres (Vancouver Island). Here’s a link to a video about them.

Free Spirit Spheres Ultimate Treehouses (Animal Planet, YouTube)

Trees are nice, but what if you prefer animals?

Dog lovers might get a kick out of cuddling up inside a beagle at Dog Bark Park Inn (Cottonwood Inn, Idaho).

KTVB (YouTube CHannel)
KTVB (Official Website)

If you love giraffes, there’s Giraffe Manor (Nairobi, Kenya). Here’s a virtual 360° visit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Photos of Africa (YouTube Channel)
Photos of Africa (Official Website)

Do you long to see polar bears in the wild? Then climb on the Tundra Buggy Lodge (Churchill, Manitoba).

Amanda Williams (YouTube Channel)

There are some places where you can take shelter in ice. The two most famous are Hôtel de Glace (Quebec City, Canada) and Icehotel, Sweden (Jukkasjärvi, Sweden).

There’s also a place called Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Saariselka, Finland where you can have all sorts of winter fun and then chill in glass igloos and watch the northern lights.

Goway Travel (YouTube Channel)
Goway Travel (Official Website)

So there you have it — there really is a place for about any interest that you can imagine, and also some that you might not expect.

For example, there are places where dyed in the wool Tolkien fans can live like hobbits!

5 Places Where You Can Vacation Like a Hobbit on Hobbit Day (A. Pawlowski, USA Today)

You might think that nobody would want to stay in a jail, voluntarily, but that’s not so.

While people do pay to stay in an ex-jail here in Boston called The Liberty Hotel, that’s a tame example. A far more extreme and bizarre experience can be found at the Karostas Cietums aka Karosta Prison (Liepāja, Latvia)!

Monta Krafte (YouTube Channel)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure in strange places to stay around the world.

Now you know that whatever your passion, there’s bound to be some lodging where you can revel in it.

Here are still more sites where you can find unusual lodging organized into handy categories.

Unusual Places to Stay and Unique Holiday Accommodation (CoolStays)
The Most Unique and Unusual Places to Stay (Host Unusual)

If something isn’t covered in this post or those sites, then you can probably find something with a search for “Your+Interest+Hotel 🙂

That’s how I found a place for my inner librarian called the Library Hotel. It’s on Madison Avenue in New York City, and the rooms are organized by Dewey Decimal! Here’s a link to a video about it.

Library Hotel New York (NY) (HotelReviews, YouTube Channel)

So, next time you are booking lodging, I hope you will consider looking for something a bit less “traditional” that will fit your interests and maybe even become an adventure in its own right!

Find out more about travel, adventure, the World and knowledge in general…

Gone Beaching!

~ mehopper

It’s high summer here in North America, and it’s also the time for “official” national holidays, so a lot of people are hanging up their proverbial gone fishing signs.

However, I tend to be more the type to hang up a gone beaching sign.

Since I live in the Boston area, and I’m also a North Shore type, that means that when I’m feeling lazy, I grab the Blue Line (featured in the movie Next Stop Wonderland) and head up to Revere Beach that’s known for being “the first public beach” in the country.

In case you’ve never been, here’s a 360° image I took there with my handy dandy Ricoh Theta S 360° Camera — if you click and look around, you’ll see the iconic Kelly’s Roast Beef.

Here’s a another 360° image that I took with a better view of the beach.

Revere is fun to cruise the first day of Spring, or if you’re into world class sand sculptures.

However, the truth be known, I’m more of a “further up” the North Shore type.

My favorite thing to do is to head up to Nahant Beach.

Here’s a 360° picture that shows where I walk from Nahant Beach to King’s Beach.

Here’s another 360° snap of my favorite place to soak up some sun.

So I hope that this has inspired you to find your inner beach bum, as well as find the best sea, sand and sun near you so that you can kick back, relax and experience some real sand between your toes too 🙂

Find out more about beaches …

Great Eyes o’ the Sea

~ mehopper

The news is full of stories about how a giant squid was filmed in U.S. waters for the first time. Here’s a link to an article by ABC7 that includes a great clip about it.

Wondrous 10-foot Giant Squid Spotted Deep in Gulf of Mexico (Danny Clemens, ABC7 New Orleans)

Here is a link to the web site of the researchers that did the filming.

Here Be Monsters: We Filmed a Giant Squid in America’s Backyard (Sönke Johnsen and Edie Widder, NOAA Ocean Exploration and Research)

The accomplishment was applaudable, but I was a bit disappointed about the clip.

Where were the eyes?

The text in the video said that the giant squid can have eyeballs that measure up to ten inches in diameter — that’s almost a foot! Yet the eyes weren’t actually captured in the video.

Luckily there’s another place where you can see a giant squid’s eyes.

While this was the first time a giant squid was filmed in U.S. waters, it wasn’t the first time that one’s been filmed. That happened back in 2012 when researchers from Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science filmed one in the Ogasawara archipelago, and that time they did get a fleeting shot of the giant squid’s humongous eyes. Here’s a link to a clip that covers that sighting as well as some background like how giant squids have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom and how sightings of them probably led to the legends about kraken.

Giant Squid: King of the Ocean (Seeker)

Giant squids aren’t the only cephalopods with great eyes — octopuses’ eyes are also neat.

Here’s a link to a mesmorizing video that shows a rainbow colored blanket octopus with a closeup of its eye at the end.

Rare ‘Rainbow’ Blanket Octopuses Caught on Camera in the Philippines (USA Today)

When you’re looking eye to eye with a squid or octopus, it’s easy to imagine that they would see you in the same way that you would see them, but that’s not so. Until a couple of years ago, researchers believed that since cephalopods only have a single type of photoreceptor, they would be colorblind. Then in 2016 some researchers suggested that the truth may be more intriguing than that — their eyes may work like a prism. Here’s a video about that and a link to the the research that it was based upon.

Ocean Imaging (YouTube Channel)
Ocean Imaging (Official Website)

Spectral Discrimination in Color Blind Animals via Chromatic Aberration and Pupil Shape (Alexander L. Stubbs and Christopher W. Stubbs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Of course, cephalopods aren’t the only creatures in the sea with great eyes. Plenty of marine mammals have wonderful eyes, too. Here’s a lovely video filmed and edited by Sally Bartel for Save The Whales that brings you eye to eye with whales, dolphins and an affectionate manatee who will even come up and give you a smootch!

Sally Bartel (YouTube Channel)

They were all beautiful, but I must confess to being partial to whale’s eyes. In fact, one of my favorite 360° videos of all time is TheBlu because at one point a blue whale comes up and looks you right in the eye for a bit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Transport by Wevr (YouTube Channel)
Wevr (Official Website)

TheBlu is awesome, but it is just an animation. There’s another non-360° video that was posted by Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris that’s even more impressive — it takes you eyeball to eyeball with a real humpback whale!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris (YouTube Channel)
Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris (Official Website)

Again, since those huge creatures are also mammals, it’s easy to assume that their eyes would see you in much the same way as you would see them. While that’s more true than it is with the cephalopods, it’s still not really the case. Here is a story that will give you sense of how whales might really see you.

You’re Eye-to-Eye With a Whale in the Ocean—What Does It See? (Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic)

Finally, I’ll leave you with this 360° video from the American Museum of Natural History. It’s a bit slow in the middle but features some nice eye to eye shots near the beginning and end.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

American Museum of Natural History (YouTube Channel)
American Museum of Natural History (Official Website)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this deep dive into seeing eye to eye with some giants of the sea.

Find out more about squids, octopuses, whales and the ocean…

Yellow Submarines

~ mehopper

My last post was about an adventure with seals doing science in Antarctica.

This adventure begins where that one left off, but this is a very different, and fun excursion that happened because Boaty McBoatface surfaced in my news feed.

In case you never heard of him, Boaty’s a submarine that got his name via a publicity stunt by the UK’s National Oceanography Centre that went viral and didn’t turn out like they expected. He turned up in my news feed this week because he’s been doing science similar to the kind that the seals in my last post were doing, and the results have just been published.

Google assumed that if I would want to know what seals with antenna were doing in Antarctica, then I would definitely want to know about Boaty’s activities.

Here’s a video about Boaty’s discoveries as well as the fiasco that led to his name.

Audacy (YouTube Channel)
Audacy (Official Website)

Here are links to some stories about Boaty’s research.

Boaty McBoatface Sheds Light on Warming Ocean Abyss (British Antarctic Survey)
Rapid Mixing and Exchange of Deep-Ocean Waters in an Abyssal Boundary Current (Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, et al., PNAS)

Boaty’s research is important, but seeing him, whose thoughts could help but wander to The Beatles’ song/album/movie Yellow Submarine?

Google/YouTube couldn’t resist helping me along with those musings. Next thing I knew, nostalgia kicked in, and I was watching a trailer for the re-release of the movie in the UK and Ireland that was done for the movie’s 50th Anniversary.

Yellow Submarine UK Theatrical Trailer (Beatles, YouTube)

Then I discovered that The Beatles have official Playlists on YouTube, and there’s even a dedicated Yellow Submarine Playlist that has over twenty videos with all sorts of insider stuff about the movie.

The Internet then led me to scads of ancillary products inspired by the movie. For example, there’s a Yellow Submarine turntable from Pro-Ject (YouTube). Who knew?

LEGO also released a Yellow Submarine Set, and here’s their colorful trailer for it.

The Beatles’ LEGO Yellow Submarine vs. the Sea Monster (LEGO, YouTube)

That’s fun, but there are a number of fan videos that are pretty great, too.

Here’s a lovely stop motion video with a creative take on building the kit.

The Bits Beatles Tribute (YouTube Channel)

Here’s another fan made stop motion video done in the MTV style.

White House Productions (YouTube Channel)

Neat stuff!

Of course, LEGOLAND in California even went so far as to build a ride!

Theme Park Insider (YouTube Channel)

Personally, I prefer the open sea, and it turns out that there’s a ride for that, too.

An outfit called Submarine Safaris operates Yellow Submarine tours out of Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Here’s a promo video for their tours.

Tenecar Tenerife (YouTube Channel)

If you’re inspired to book a trip on a real Yellow Submarine, then here’s a link to a video with some background on the Canary Islands that you may want to know before you head out on a real-life adventure.

Introducing the Canary Islands (Lonely Planet, YouTube)

There you have it. One minute you’re doing science with seals in Antarctica, and then the next thing you know, you’re exploring the warm waters of the Canary Islands in a Yellow Submarine.

Isn’t the Internet a wonderful place?

Finally, if all this talk about The Beatles has you craving something a bit more psychedelic, or you just want to play a little while longer, then here’s a trippy little 360° video that claims to be “inspired by The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Rock Hy. Zhang (YouTube Channel)

Find out more about music, fun stuff in general and ways of getting around in the water …

Under the Ice

~ mehopper

To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous words in The Lord of the Rings, “It’s a dangerous business, clicking on a link. You glance at a story, and if you don’t watch out, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

This week I innocently clicked on a link to this story from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Mysterious Holes in Antarctic Sea Ice Explained by Years of Robotic Data (University of Washington, AAAS EurekAlert!)

In turn, that link led to this research study that was just published in Nature last week.

Antarctic Offshore Polynyas Linked to Southern Hemisphere Climate Anomalies (Ethan C. Campbell, et al., Nature)

Indeed, the articles provided an interesting explanation for those odd polynya phenomena in Antarctica, but it was actually this intriguing image that really grabbed my attention.

Instrumented Seal, University of Washington. Credit: Dan Costa/University of California, Santa Cruz
Image: Ocean measurements were also collected by seals swimming under the sea ice with temporary satellite tags, showing normal water conditions in the years that did not have large polynyas.
Credit: Dan Costa/University of California, Santa Cruz

Yep, that’s a seal with an antenna on it’s head!

It turns out that the study used data combined from satellite images of sea ice cover, some robotic drifters as well as elephant seals outfitted with sensors.

What’s more, using seals wasn’t a one-off operation. It was part of a program that’s been operating for over a decade according to the Coriolis Operational Oceanography site:

Since 2004, several hundred seals have been equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors in the Southern Ocean for both biological and physical oceanographic studies. A calibrated collection of seal-derived hydrographic data is now available from Coriolis, currently consisting of more than 300,000 temperature/salinity profiles. — Coriolis


The Coriolis site also has information about a program called Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole that provides access to an international database of validated ocean observations collected by marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, and even turtles.

You can find out more about the program here.

MEOP Web Portal: Ocean Observations by Marine Mammals (Argos System)

On my journey to learn how scientists have been strapping sensors to seals to find out about what’s going on under the ice in Antarctica, it was impossible to miss stories about other methods they are using.

For example, here’s a story where an evolutionary biologist named Paul Cziko explains how they setup something called the McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory (MOO).

Spoiler alert. This time it’s humans diving way down under the ice. Burrrr!

KGW News (YouTube Channel)
KGW News (Official Website)

Yes, you really can go to the MOO site and listen in on some seals and ice for yourself.

After all of this stuff about seals, why stop with listening? Aren’t you itching to see some more?

Here’s a link to a short 360° video that takes you under an iceberg to visit with a crabeater seal along with some gentoo penguins before returning to the surface to share some other views and perspectives about Antarctica.

360° Diving Under Icebergs With A Seal In Antarctica (BBC Earth, YouTube)

That video had a nice view of a seal under ice, but now here’s an even better 360° video that get’s you up close and personal with an elephant seal on a beach.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Wildlife Protection Solutions (YouTube Channel)
Wildlife Protection Solutions (Official Website)

So there you have it. The moral of this story is be careful about what you click on, or you might find yourself on an unexpected virtual journey to learn about seals with sensors, and then end up spending an hour or more exploring the frigid waters under Antarctica.

In case you’ve got a few more minutes and the interest, here are links to two more very nice YouTube videos about the amazingly diverse and beautiful life deep under the Antarctic ice.

The Deepest Dive in Antarctica Reveals a Sea Floor Teeming With Life (OceanX, YouTube)
Discovering Life Under Antarctica’s Ice (Great Big Story, YouTube)

Finally, now that I’ve got you down here with me on this unexpected adventure in Antarctica, the trip wouldn’t be complete without some more penguins, right?

Here’s a 360° close-up view of a colony of some Adélies, chinstraps and gentoos — some of them are having a rough time, but nonetheless, they’re all still fun to watch (esp. the chicks).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

PBS News Hour (YouTube Channel)
PBS News Hour (Official Website)

Have a great weekend!

Find out more about seals, penguins and Antarctica …

Jellyfish Therapy

~ mehopper

Feeling stressed out and need to relax?

How about a nice swim in a swarm of jellyfish?

What, that’s not a remedy for stress, you say!

You mean by using imaginative thinking, right?

Well, no, I do mean it literally.

There’s an actual place called Jellyfish Lake on Eil Malk island in Palau where you can swim with hundreds of thousands of the mesmerizing creatures without fear of being stung. Here’s a video with some calming underwater footage.

Scuba Zoo TV (YouTube Channel)
Scuba Zoo TV (Official Website)

Of course, you may not have time to jump on a plane to Palau right now. Even if you did, perhaps going for a swim in a sea of jellyfish still doesn’t sound all that relaxing to you?

In that case, perhaps a nice, safe one minute 360° virtual dive with a single jellyfish near the Gardens of the Queen off of the coast of Cuba might do the trick.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

AirPano VR (YouTube Channel)
AirPano (Official Website)

Here’s another interesting one minute 360° experience from PBS News Hour filmed inside the jellies exhibit at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

PBS NewsHour (YouTube Channel)
PBS NewsHour (Official Website)

That felt like being in a lava lamp, didn’t it?

Well, it turns out that the National Aquarium also has a live cam of their jellies, and it’s down right hypnotic. Who needs a lava lamp when you can get such awesome, calming nature delivered right to your screen, live!?!

Here’s another great clip from TED-Ed about how jellyfish aren’t just therapeutic to stare at — they also have all sorts of other intriguing properties. Some of them glow, and that helps them contribute to medical research. Others are even “sort of” immortal!

TED-Ed (YouTube Channel)
TED-Ed (Official Webite)

Jellyfish are cool!!!

Find out more about Jellyfish …

Island Escapes

~ mehopper

One of the more entertaining stories to hit the net recently was a tale of some hearty Kiwis who successfully got away from a local alcohol ban by building their own island in nearby international waters.

New Zealanders Build Island in Bid to Avoid Alcohol Ban (BBC News)
To Avoid New Year’s Drinking Ban, Group Builds Tiny Private Island in New Zealand Waters (Grace Guarnieri, Newsweek)

Fun stuff, but these guys were certainly not the first to cook up a politically motivated scheme to get away from it all at sea. The concept has a long, albeit somewhat dubious, history. Pirates and the whole Water World fiasco aside, way back in 1960s there was a relatively well publicized, but ill-fated experiment dubbed Operation Atlantis.

More recently, there’s the Seasteaders. They periodically provide updates about how their vision of a floating utopia is just around the corner.

TomoNews US (YouTube Channel)

As Climate Change Accelerates, Floating Cities Look Like Less of a Pipe Dream (Mike Ives, New York Times)

Further afield, here’s a TED talk that presents a take on reasons to take to the seas. It does include a few obligatory libertarian cultural allusions to things like Burning Man, but it also covers environmentally responsible reasons for the movement like safety, sustainability as well as much needed new additions for cities and slums.

TEDx Talks (YouTube Channel)
TEDx Talks (Official Website)

If you watch the talk all the way through, you will see that it also covers a few more exotic topics like private floating islands (i.e. really, really huge yachts). If you’ve never come across that concept before, there are hundreds of videos about floating private islands on Youtube.

Now, if you truly love the idea of getting away from it all for libertarian leaning reasons, you could always join the Asgaurdians. Asgardia is Igor Ashurbeyli’s plan for taking the idea of sovereign nation to space. The Asgardians did launch a satellite, but no one is suggesting that if you want to move in with them, you won’t have a long, long wait.

Asgardia, The World’s First ‘Space Nation’, Takes Flight (Andrea Lo, CNN)
Space Nation to Earthlings: Do You Read Us? (Eric Mack, CNET)

Finally, if you are in a position where headlines like this are not terribly relevant, you may be wishing for a good old fashioned, non-politically motivated island escape. If so, then here’s a nice 360° video from Down Under for you.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Australia (YouTube Channel)
Australia (Official Website)

Find out more about sovereign states and government in general…

Dive-in-Art

~ mehopper

Check out this video from the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival.

FloridaKeysTV (YouTube Channel)
FloridaKeysTV (Official Website)

There are a ton of YouTube videos about the annual fest, and here’s an article about it.

Watch An Underwater Music Festival ‘Make Waves’ for Reef Protection (Florida Keys News Bureau)

You might think that this event is fairly unique, but it turns out that there are lots of divers who are also fans of the arts, so “arts under the sea” is not nearly as rare as you might think. For example, underwater art museums are thriving. Here’s an article about where you can find your nearest “dive-in” art museum.

Underwater Museums of the world: Immerse Yourself in Art in the Depths of the Sea (Ukranian Shipping Magazine)

Here is a video about the Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) mentioned in the article.

Dmitriy (YouTube Channel)

There are even some artists who are specifically known for exhibiting underwater. The photographer Andreas Franke once made news by staging an art exhibit on the Vandenberg battleship that was deliberately sunk off the coast of Key West to create the second largest man made reef on the planet (watch the Vanderberg sink). Here’s a 360° video of the exhibit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Subsurface Media (YouTube Channel)

The pictures from the exhibit were brought up to create a landlubber’s exhibit. Franke moved on to create an exhibit on the SS Stavronikita off of Barbados, and then he went on to create another exhibit on the USS Mohawk CGC off the coast of Sanibel Island.

Barbados Property Search (YouTube Channel)

Ghostly Underwater Art Gallery Breathes New Life to Sunken Ship (Sheena McKenzie, CNN)

Jason deCaires Taylor is another artist who is known for his underwater work, but he specializes in sculpture rather than photography. Here’s a TED talk where Taylor provides insights about what motivates his work.

TED (YouTube Channel)
TED (Official Website)

The eclectic multimedia artist Doug Aitken worked with LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art to construct a large-scale underwater installation entitled Underwater Pavilions off of Catalina Island. Here’s an official video from MOCA about the work.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (YouTube Channel)
The Museum of Contemporary Art (Official Website)

Here’s a cool 360° video that gives a great sense of what it’s like to visit the exhibit.
Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Superswell VR (YouTube Channel)

The current that tends to run through all of the underwater artist’s work is the appreciation and preservation of the Earth’s ocean environments, so please share this to support their work!

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the arts and the ocean …