Another Side of The Right Blue

This will be quick: I just have to share something.

As I do most days, this morning I opened my Google Reader and began to browse the feeds of some blogs I follow. When the feed for Go Visit Hawaii loaded, I was taken aback by what I saw. It was a photo of the view from my window!

Sheila, has been running an interesting series on Go Visit Hawaii called "The Colors of Hawaii." She asked readers to submit photos of Hawaii that highlight a particular color. Unbeknownst to me, Jerry submitted one in the blue category (of course!), and Sheila published it today.

Click on over and have a look at Colors of Hawaii: Big Island Blues on the Go Visit Hawaii blog. And while you're there, you might enjoy looking at some of the other Colors of Hawaii, too.

P.S. I hear that Sheila is still accepting photos for The Colors of Hawaii, so if you have one you'd like to share, send it to her. The details are here.

UPDATE Aug. 6, 2008: Sheila has put a new post on her Go Visit Hawaii blog that lists all the Colors of Hawaii posts so far. She's still accepting more photos.

The Right Blue's First Birthday

The Right Blue has a birthday coming up this week. Launched on July 15, 2007, The Right Blue is now one year old. To celebrate the blog's first year, we thought it would be fun to present a review of some highlights of the past 12 months, which we will do during the coming week.

By the way, we chose the photo at right for this birthday post because we thought it looked festive -- like a party favor. [Click on the photo to enlarge.]

Bobbie shot this macro photo of Social Feather Dusters (Bispira brunnea) off West Caicos, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. In case you are wondering about these creatures, they are annelid worms. They live inside those calcareous tubes, which they secrete, and they feed by extending those fluffy 'feather duster' parts to catch particles. You can see that some of the worms have retracted their 'feathers' into their tubes. (They're going to miss the birthday party!)

So then, back to the year-end review. Some of our regular readers have been with us since The Right Blue began, but we know we have acquired many new readers along the way, too. Some of those newer readers may not know much of the background about who we are, and how The Right Blue came to be. As a review, here are a few links to articles that will serve to explain some things about us, and about the project that came to be called The Right Blue:

About 'The Right Blue' - July 15, 2007

Prologue: How 'The Right Blue' project came about - July 16, 2007

Prologue: Our training as divers - July 20, 2007

Prologue: The supporting cast - August 1, 2007

Learning underwater photography -- The easy parts - August 5, 2007

Since you've asked: Answers to readers' questions - November 1, 2007

More to follow - including a collection of some of our favorite photos from The Right Blue, which we will post for Wordless Wednesday, this week and next.

A theme song for The Right Blue

Our blogger friend LavenderBay came up with cool idea the other day, which she wrote about on her blog, Voice of the Turtle. She said:

I was reflecting this morning that I already hear a particular pop song in my head for two of your real-life blogs. So I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to play around on YouTube and discover other theme songs?

I had three criteria: I really like the song; it has to come from the country where the blogger lives; and it can be located on YouTube.

In her article, A Musical Interlude, she then listed a dozen blogs from her blogroll, chose a song that she associates with each blog's content, and posted links to the YouTube video for each of those. We think this is a clever and appealing concept. Go and have a look, and you'll see what we mean.

For The Right Blue, she chose John Denver's song "Calypso," about Jacques Cousteau's ship and undersea adventures. We are truly touched and honored by her choice, and we thank her. Here's the music video:



(If the video does not play or display properly above, click here to view it on YouTube.)

Announcing a New Photo Blog

Many readers of The Right Blue tell us that they visit because they like Bobbie's underwater photos. Now The Right Blue has a companion photo blog that displays photos that Bobbie takes on land. The new photo blog displays garden, nature and travel photography.

The new blog is a month old today, but we decided to wait until we were finished tweaking the layout before we announced it. The site's name is straightforward: B N Sullivan - Photography. The URL is easy to remember, too: BNSullivanPhoto.com.

We invite you to go and have a look, and tell us what you think. Use the link above, or just click on the screenshot at the top of this page, and it will take you right there. (And don't worry. Our stories and underwater photos on The Right Blue will continue as well.)

A Fishing Tale

Many readers of The Right Blue may not know that I have another blog. I call it my Virtual Scratchpad. It's not about the ocean, or diving, or photography -- except just this once! I wrote an article about fishing and published it there a little while ago. Some of you might enjoy it. It's illustrated with one of my underwater photos, too.

Here's the link, in case you'd like to have a look: Thoughts On Fishing

Two Brief Announcements

We have decided to make one short post with two brief announcements, sharing some Hawaii-grown news before we return to our series about diving in the early days.

Our first announcement is that The Right Blue has been rated E, for Excellent, thanks to a fellow blogger from Hawaii. "Mahalo nui loa" to Evelyn, of Homespun Honolulu, for nominating The Right Blue for this award.

We'd also like to invite the readers of The Right Blue to click over to our friends Pua and Keoki's blog, Best Hawaii Vacation, to read Bobbie's guest post, Tips for Watching Sea Turtles in Hawaii. Illustrating the article are two of Bobbie's sea turtle photos, both taken at Puako, Hawaii. (Regular readers of The Right Blue already know something about Puako's sea turtles. If you missed them, please read our stories about Myrtle the turtle and her friends at Puako.)

Life in Hawaii: A Carnival of Aloha

It has been stormy here in Hawaii for the past several days. But those of us who live here know that after the rain, there's always a rainbow -- quite literally.

We like showing facets of our island home to our readers, and we regularly post articles about Hawaii and photos of the creatures that live here. But there is much more to Hawaii, beyond what we write about.

We'd like to invite our readers to visit the current Carnival of Aloha, a blog carnival hosted by our friend Evelyn at Homespun Honolulu. As always, the Carnival of Aloha features posts by bloggers on several of our islands, and they cover a fascinating array of subjects ranging from local architecture to hula dancers to whales. (Yes, our article about our close encounters with Humpback Whales in Hawaii is included, but there are others, too!) Or maybe you'd prefer to have a look at any of the several articles about interesting things to do, see -- and eat -- here in Hawaii. Take some time to go and have a look at the 6th edition of the Carnival of Aloha: We've Got Us a Whale of a Carnival!

About the Photo: I took the above picture in my back garden early one morning after an all-night rain. We woke up, opened our bedroom blinds and saw this beautiful double rainbow over the Pacific Ocean. I quickly grabbed the point-and-shoot camera that was handy and snapped this image. If you look closely (click the photo to enlarge) you'll see a pair of wild game birds, called Grey Francolins, waiting for their breakfast near our ground feeder.

Have a peek at this!

About three months ago we introduced our readers to a very popular blog called GO! Smell the flowers. The multi-author blog, run by our fellow divers Jim and Em, is devoted to motivating people to enjoy life and encouraging them to enhance their well-being in whatever ways suit them.

Back in October, Jim and Em did a piece about diving, titled Go! Smell the diving flowers. In it, they featured The Right Blue, and they invited Bobbie to lead the follow-up discussion about diving. We all enjoyed this collaboration.

Fast forward a bit: Jim and Em recently invited Bobbie to join the writing team at Go! Smell the Flowers, and Bobbie accepted. Beginning this month, Bobbie will contribute articles to Go! Smell the Flowers on a regular basis. She will write about diving, the ocean, travel, and other assorted topics aimed at giving readers food for thought.

So, we'd like to invite all of our readers to click on over to read Bobbie's inaugural post, Go! Smell the wildflowers... er, weeds. While you're there, click around a bit and have a look at the eclectic collection of articles -- and please do join in the spirited discussions amongst the community of 'flower smellers' over there.