Hilton Head Island: strange things

 

As I write and as you read there are some very strange things in and on the ocean.

Among them, typhoon Mawar, the strongest storm anywhere on this planet in the past two years and one of the strongest ever, and this is only May,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/05/26/super-typhoon-hurricane-mawar/

On the other side of the world in the Strait of Gibraltar and elsewhere off the Iberian Penisula orcas have been attacking and sinking boats.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/28/orcas-sinking-boats-attacking/

I have sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar five times.  I have no plans to sail there again, but I would now hesitate to do so.  Adult orcas are longer than GANNET and adult males weight four to six times more than the little boat; adult females one and a half to three times more.  They could crush GANNET like an egg.

Meanwhile scientists have discovered 5,000 new species in a deep sea hot spot.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/25/more-than-5000-new-species-discovered-in-pacific-deep-sea-mining-hotspot

And perhaps weirdest of all is the creature in the top photo.  That is not a cartoon.  It is a tardigrade which can survive in temperatures from near absolute zero to above the boiling point, extreme variation in pressure, and dangerous radiation.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230521.html

Life fills every possible niche, and some seemingly impossible niches as well.  To what purpose? one might wonder.  The question might be irrelevant and unanswerable.  Life just is.