I’ve seen a few in the past week, including Orca, starfish, crab, sealion and seal.
Ones I’m certain that I saw:
- A pod of dolphins swimming just offshore in the Atlantic, while my family was on a vacation on Jekyll Island in southeastern Georgia (I was probably 7 or 8 years old)
- A group of humpback whales migrating north, just offshore from our vacation condo on Maui, about 15 years ago
- A large number of very noisy sea lions, hanging out on the piers at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco
- Various small crabs during visits to beach areas
Here in SoCal, the beach is generally cooler than inland. So we go to escape the heat.
Well, being as my degree is in what amounts to marine Biology- I have seen most of those. (“Littoral Ecology” ).
Yeah. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to the ocean, and most of the times I’ve been there were between about forty and fifty years ago. Aside from the seals, which I remember clearly because during the brief time during my wanderings when I had a job in California I used to hear barking while I was walking to work but I wasn’t hearing dogs bark, I was hearing seals (I also saw them), all I can say is that I certainly saw species other than seals but don’t remember which. Didn’t vote.
I don’t understand what the numbers in the “how old are you” poll mean, or how they were selected, or why they aren’t in order.
Technically if you have seen an Orca you can tick off dolphin and whale as well as Orca are a species of dolphin (or debatably several species as scientists do not agree whether the different types of killer whales are distinct species) and dolphin are a type of toothed whale.
I have seen most of the list either while scuba diving or on various boats from the surface, including various species for many of them. I am not sure about sea cucumber, puffer fish, squid, christmas tree worm and chamberered nautilus so didn’t tick them.
About how old I think I am “not your chronological age, how old your mind/heart is” varies considerably.
I’ve done a lot of snorkeling, in Hawai’i and the Gulf of Mexico, so I’ve seen almost all of those animals. If you’ve dived I’m surprised that you’re unsure about sea cucumber; those things are lying around everywhere in the Hawai’ian littoral zone. Pufferfish are also pretty common in Hawai’ian waters. I’ve seen Caribbean reef squid and Christmas tree worms in the Gulf. Reef squid are very cool and intelligent animals. I stopped eating calamari after interacting with reef squid.
I haven’t dived the Carribbean or HI, about half my dives have been in in the UK, and also dived the Phillipines, Malta, the Caneries, and Austrailia. I am not great at IDing creatures or remembering what I saw so it is possible I have seen some of them.
I like to do activities like scuba diving, horse riding and (though I am too embarressed to do often) activities usually done by kids like zip lining so my heart is probably about 16.
On the other hand my memory is getting terrible and my reasoning is not as sharp as it used to be, I would not say my mind is 95 but it is WAY more than 41, I would probably put it early 70s.
I left the poll blank as there was no other / “I must explain in discussions” option
Is that a problem ?! It shouldn’t stop you from voting.
Well, none of the numbers felt at all appropriate, either. There was a big gap between 40 and 90, or thereabouts.
Eta: 41 and 95. I feel older than 41 (still rearing children) and 95 (ancient and decrepit).
I checked 12, because I’m prone to invincibility syndrome when it comes to doing stuff. Then my 60+ yo body has to remind my 12 yo brain that no, you can’t sit cross-legged on the couch for an hour and then leap up and scurry off to do something. And wrestling a couple of150lb hay bales into and then out of the back of a pickup, and dragging them into the storage area may be mentally satisfying, but the next morning is going to suck!
I’m still more likely to climb up on the stock room shelves to grab something out of my reach than to walk an extra 10 steps to get the mini-ladder. That move hasn’t bitten me yet, and it’s kind of fun, so why stop? 
There’s a protest on the 14th close to my farmers’ market. Protest runs between noon and 2. Market ends at 12:30, there are sometimes last-minute customers, and then I have to pack up the stand. If the protest is still there when I’m done I’ll stop by. If it isn’t, I won’t be able to.
I think it’s not officially a No Kings protest, because the organizers don’t like to officially affiliatebut it’s certainly the same general idea.
Voted ‘not sure’, but it could also have been ‘other’.
I never saw a whale in the wild until I went on an Alaskan cruise. There was a whale watching excursion and we saw an even higher number of whales than usual. Since then what had been an occasional sightings at the Jersey Shore have become much more frequent. I’ve had several sightings from the beach the last few years. They have always been there but it seems like there are more of them and they seem to be coming close to the shore more.
I’ve seen dolphins frequently since I was a kid.
Seals do show up in New Jersey but not usually where I frequent. I’ve personally never seen them here. I hear they are often seen at Sandy Hook. I go much further south than that. I did see some in Alaska.
I don’t know of any protests around here but I wouldn’t go anyway.
I am not a go-to-protests person. I don’t do well in crowds or noise. I also have trouble understanding how they accomplish anything: if I go to a protest here in Canada, how would that help?
All the same, I hope millions do protest.
Not going to a protest. Too old and feeble.
Supporting them from the background as much as I can.
I mean, you can use the same argument for voting.
The reason we go to protests (when we can) is that if a bunch of people go to those same protests, it will provide visibility into the level of anger, and perhaps spur people to possibly become more active, plus remind legislators of how people feel. It’s pretty abstract, but I believe it helps.
I understand the colective action / solidarity portion. The disconnect, for me, is the “perhaps spur people” and “remind legislators of how people feel.”
I understand that it works: plenty of examples from history. I’m very resistant to peer pressure as an individual for some reason (not intellect or virtue or anything: just seems to be the way I’m wired, with some neurodivergence involved). Perhaps that’s why I don’t really get it.
Heh, I’ll have to change my vote on the sea creatures. I voted that I’d seen a clownfish, but then I remembered it wasn’t that orange fish, it was that other orange fish – the Garibaldi.
I can still remember decades ago walking down the hill to the Point Reyes lighthouse and seeing whales swimming in the ocean nearby.