sea - #77

The work of sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor can only be seen with the right scuba equipment. Placed in the sea bottom, his sculptures of a ring of people, heads emerging from a coral reef and a writer who desperately tries to reach his coral-encrusted typewriter emerge eerily from the blue-black haze, and captivate their viewers.

We have seen many amphibious cars over the last few decades, but Swiss automobile design company Rinspeed manages to stand out among the competition with their two amazing concept cars, each one straight out of a James Bond movie.

The Rinspeed sQuba can swim like a boat, or dive like a mini-submarine. It also has an artificial intelligence that can drive by itself under controlled settings.

We use it to pack our food and store our goods. Our clothes, vehicles and even homes are made out of it. Plastic is so common that we take it for granted and see it almost like a natural substance when throwing it away.

However, there is a place where every piece of waste eventually gets to, and that's the sea. Plastic contamination in the oceans is at such levels that bits and pieces of it turn up even at the remotest regions, and it is scarcely possible to find a sea animal which hasn't got at least a single piece of plastic in its body.

Crossing the equator on a ship is traditionally one of the most important sea ceremonies in maritime tradition. In some ways, it is the rite of passage for sailors.

The rituals associated with it vary from ship to ship, but at the end, no one is exempt from hazing. Even US President Franklin Delano Roosvelt had to undergo the "trial" in 1936 in front of a seasoned sailor dressed as king Neptune.