The Strange Duality of Pirate Stories—and the Ocean at the Center of Them There is a strong case to be made—only half in jest—that we are living through the golden age of pirates. Not the one we learned about in school, all cutlasses and colonial trade routes. Not the 17th and 18th centuries of Golden Age of Piracy , with its brutal economies and shorter life expectancies. That version was less romance and more risk, less freedom and more desperation. No, this golden age sails under different...

Are Marine Protected Areas Sanctuaries from Humans—or Tools to Repair What We Broke? There’s a petition headed to the California Fish and Wildlife Commission this April that, on its surface, sounds straightforward: Let trained divers into California's Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to remove urchins and restore kelp. Simple, right? Not even a little. Diver culling overpopulated sea urchins on rocky reef. A Forest Missing in Plain Sight If you’ve been in the water along California’s coast in...

Why We Need More Wild, Unscheduled Wonder in an Unraveling Moment There’s a phrase we’ve been playing with lately at Ocean Hoptimism . It began as a joke after a talk. Something muttered between sips of a pint as we tried to describe that unpredictable spark the ocean gives us. The thing you can’t script or optimize. The swell of feeling that arrives on its own terms, not ours. Stochastic ocean joy. The words are a little unruly (as they should be). Stochastic—born from randomness, governed...