The Right Blue: announcements

Showing posts with label announcements. Show all posts

Who's sleeping on the job around here?

by B. N. Sullivan

I know, I know -- it's been awfully quiet here at The Right Blue for the past couple of weeks. If there were crickets underwater, you'd probably hear them chirping!

I haven't been sleeping on the job. I've been traveling, and then catching up on stuff related to my day job, so I've neglected this space. I'm about ready to get busy here again -- posting new photos, creature features, and articles about the marine environment. -- so please stand by.

Meanwhile, if you haven't already done so, do check out Jerry's very active Twitter stream @therightblue. He's been busy there, keeping our followers informed about developments surrounding the horrendous oil well catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, among other ocean-related topics.

Sharing Aloha: Hawaii in the spotlight

by B. N. Sullivan

Our blogger friend Evelyn over at Homespun Honolulu regularly hosts the Carnival of Aloha -- a blog carnival celebrating all things Hawaiian. The theme of the current edition is Preservation and a lot of Aloha, and it is well worth reading.

Topics in the current Carnival of Aloha are diverse, ranging from a thoughtful (and thought-provoking) piece about a visit to an ancient Hawaiian heiau on the Big Island, to reminiscences about a romantic visit to the island of Lanai, to an item about the pineapple fields on Maui. There are several articles about Hawaiian real estate, including one on the current residential market, another on the foreclosure of Hawaii Raceway Park on Oahu, and an article that describes the home in Kailua used by President Obama's family for their vacations in Hawaii -- with photos of the home's stunning interior and grounds. (Don't miss that one!)

And yes, our article about the new Hawaii Marine Debris Action Plan is included, too.

We think there is much in the current Carnival of Aloha that will be of interest to readers of The Right Blue, so we invite you to visit: Preservation and Lots of Aloha Create an Interesting Carnival

One more thing -- speaking of interesting blogs about Hawaii. We spotted a story about an encounter with dolphins in the wild that we know readers of The Right Blue will enjoy and relate to. It's a guest post by Lisa Weber on Pua and Keoki's Best Hawaii Vacation blog: Kayaking with Dolphins, On Their Terms - A Big Island of Hawaii Story

The Right Blue: Perennial Favorites

by B. N. Sullivan

It's always interesting to study traffic reports for The Right Blue to see which articles and photos earn the most attention -- not just when we first post them, but over time. There have been some we just knew would be winners, while other winners of the blog post popularity contest have been complete surprises.

In the previous post we reviewed which articles published in 2009 were the most popular, based on number of visits to each. We'd like to note, however, that the five most popular posts on The Right Blue during the past year were not posted during 2009; they were older articles, dating back as far as August of 2007 (just a month after The Right Blue was launched).

In addition to showcasing our underwater photos, we've always had the goal of sharing what we have learned about the ocean and its inhabitants with readers of The Right Blue. Knowing that there is a lot of junk information out there on the Web, I admit I am more than a little bit obsessive about presenting factually correct information, especially when I write about marine life. Some of our 'creature features' are time consuming to prepare, but the reward is that information-heavy articles on The Right Blue almost always end up on the first page of search engine results, and remain there. It's a nice indicator that what we produce is of value, and also has staying power.

With that said, here are the five posts on The Right Blue that were viewed most often during 2009:

Fire Coral: Look, but do not touch, posted in November of 2007
The Cave Where Turtles Die , posted in June of 2008
Bubble Coral Plus, posted in May of 2008
Dotted Sea Slug from the Mediterranean, posted in October of 2008
Why is the sea blue?, posted in August of 2007

About the photo: I photographed this colony of fire coral (Millepora dichotoma) in the Red Sea at a dive site called 'Jackfish Alley', near the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula. This fire coral species is very common in the Red Sea.

The Right Blue: 2009 Review

by B. N. Sullivan

So, here we are at the beginning of a new year on the calendar, and a new decade as well. We hope our readers had an enjoyable holiday season, and we wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010! During our holiday break we took some time to review where we've been -- literally and figuratively. For one thing, we reviewed what we produced here on The Right Blue over the past year. We also took a good look at the 2009 traffic statistics for this blog.

Here are a few interesting nuggets we discovered. In 2009, readers in 170 different countries visited The Right Blue. About 67% of our readers were in the United States.

Well over half of the traffic to The Right Blue came via search (mostly Google). Thousands of people landed at The Right Blue after searching for information about fire coral -- the number one phrase among a total of more than 13,000 unique search terms. Most of the other top search terms were the name of some creature -- sharks, sea turtles, nudibranchs, various fishes and corals. And then there were the innumerable versions of the question about why the sea is blue: "why is the sea blue"; "why does the sea look blue"; "what makes the sea blue"; "how come the sea is blue" -- and so on ad infinitum!

Search produces the most traffic to The Right Blue, but the number two source of 2009 traffic -- about 20% -- was StumbleUpon.com (and we thank the readers who liked a post enough to Stumble it!) We also noted a substantial (and growing) amount of traffic from both Twitter and FBI Blogs. Considering we only joined FBI Blogs in May, and Twitter in June, we are both amazed and gratified to see that these associations have become so fruitful so quickly. Big thanks to Damon Tucker, who runs FBI Blogs, for inviting us to become a part of this group of top-notch Big Island bloggers, and thanks as well to our fellow FBI bloggers for their support. (Note: In case you may not know, 'FBI' stands for 'from Big Island' -- not that other federal FBI.)

Speaking of Twitter, Jerry has been the official Twitterer for The Right Blue since June of 2009, and thanks to his efforts, @therightblue already has just shy of 4,000 followers. Jerry tweets the titles and links to everything we post here on the blog, of course, but most of what he tweets is ocean news and interesting finds on the Web about the ocean, marine science, conservation, and related topics.

Among the articles we posted on The Right Blue in 2009, these five were the most popular, based on number of visits to each:

Tiger Cowries: The largest cowries in Hawaii, posted in May.
Conus striatus - a fish-eating cone shell, posted in April
Stingrays: Dangerous or not?, posted in May
Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, posted in May
The Octopus: Nature's ultimate shape shifter, posted in December

I should note that although the above were the five most popular items posted in 2009, they were not the five most popular articles overall. That honor went to three articles from 2008, and two from 2007. In the next post we'll tell you which articles on The Right Blue have attained the status of Perennial Favorites.

About the photo: The image on this page shows a Southern Stingray (Dasyatis americana), a species common to the Caribbean, and occasionally seen in the Bahamas and along the coasts of south Florida. I photographed this one at Stingray City, a popular dive site in the Cayman Islands.

Happy Holidays from The Right Blue

We wish all of our readers a happy, festive and safe holiday season. We're taking a break for the holidays, but we hope to see all of you again early in the new year. We have a few surprises in store for our readers in 2010. Meanwhile, stay well and enjoy yourselves.

Happy Holidays!

Bobbie & Jerry

Helping kids learn about the ocean

by B. N. Sullivan

We began publishing our photos and stories on The Right Blue back in mid-2007 primarily as a means to share them with our family and friends. Since then, we have acquired a much larger audience than we ever imagined. These days, our regular readers are divers, marine scientists, and ocean buffs of all stripes -- including children.

From time to time we hear from kids -- or their parents. They thank us for an article about something they were studying, or ask if we know where to find more information about a certain creature . Sometimes they want to know if they can use one of our photos for a report or a school project. We're always glad to help if we can, because we believe it's important to share with children our fascination for all things ocean. We like to foster young people's interest in the sea and understanding of marine ecosystems.

Earlier this week our fellow ocean bloggers over at Deep Sea News came up with a great idea. They proposed that we, along with a number of other ocean and nature bloggers, join together to sponsor ocean and waterway science education in K-12 classrooms. We're doing this by publicizing and promoting Donors Choose, a charity that allows individuals to directly fund educational projects proposed by K-12 teachers themselves.

The teacher-chosen projects we are sponsoring are all worthy. Teachers at participating schools in seven states around the U.S. are asking for things like materials for classroom projects; a salt water aquarium; gear to help them collect field samples; subscriptions to a student science magazine; and transportation for a field trip to learn about what sailors and explorers did 'back in history'.

We are joining the guys at Deep Sea News, Southern Fried Science, Blogfish, Oyster’s Garter, Echinoblog, Cephalopodcast, Drop In, The New Blue, Natural Patriot, and Malaria, Bedbugs, Sealice, and Sunsets in asking our readers to help fund these educational projects for young people by making a donation. The requests from the individual teachers are modest, so even a $10 donation will be helpful -- but of course more generous donations also are very welcome!

Follow this link to Donors Choose to have a look at the individual projects. You can specify which project you'd like to help fund, or you can make a general donation via the "Give to the most urgent project" button near the top of the list.

One more thing: If you have a blog or a website and would like to join our group in supporting and promoting these projects, let us know. We'd love to have you on board.

Invertebrates are such spineless critters!

by B. N. Sullivan

Readers of The Right Blue have been very patient while I turned my attention to 'another blog' for the month of August. (Yes, I feel a bit like I have somehow been unfaithful!) Never fear: on August 31 I ended my month-long tenure over at Photo Synthesis. So, dear readers of The Right Blue, I am all yours again.

In order to tie things up tidily, here are the links to the final two posts that I did over at Photo Synthesis:

Now I have one more thing to tell you about. There is a blog carnival called Circus of the Spineless, "A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms, and most anything else that wiggles, crawls or fluttered. (Spineless = invertebrates, i.e., critters with no backbones.)

One of the articles I did for Photo Synthesis -- the one about the Bearded Fireworm -- is featured as a part of this month's Circus of the Spineless, which is hosted by Susannah Anderson at her nature blog, Wanderin' Weeta. Do go and have a look at the great collection of photos and articles about all manner of creepy crawly things over there. It's quite an education.

Thanks, Susannah, for including my creepy crawly Fireworm in this month's Circus.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming on The Right Blue...

Crinoids, fish faces and backscatter - oh my!

Bobbie has been busy over at PhotoSynthesis this past week, posting close-up protraits of Wrasses, showing and writing about Crinoids, and suggesting ways for underwater photographers to cope with the problem of backscatter.

What's backscatter, you ask? It's the stuff that all too frequently spoils underwater photos that were taken in water that's not exactly clear. For an explanation, check out Backscatter: The bane of underwater photography, in which Bobbie holds forth about matters of physics and light, but also includes a handful of really nice critter photos.

The photo on this page shows some Crinoids on a reef in the Celebes Sea. Remember them? Long time readers may recall that Bobbie wrote about Crinoids -- also known as Feather Stars -- here on The Right Blue more than a year ago. This week she wrote about Crinoids on PhotoSynthesis, so if you find these Echinoderms interesting, or you like to see pictures of them (including some pretty amazing macros), check out Getting to know crinoids through close-up photography, and then Crinoids on the night shift. (Yep, a two-parter.)

And finally, do have a look at Hello, Fish Face -- four in-your-face close-ups of pretty fishies from the Wrasse family.

The Right Blue is the 'flavor of the month' at Photo Synthesis

Several months ago the folks over at ScienceBlogs.com launched a new project -- a blog called Photo Synthesis. The idea was to showcase science-related photography and provide a platform for discussing it.

Here's how they describe it:

The internet is home to a wealth of captivating science images, from the many microscopic components of a cell to the remote corners of the universe captured by Hubble. On Photo Synthesis, we aim to bring you the best of what's out there. Every month we will feature the work of a different photoblogger, exposing worlds both small and large, familiar and exotic. We will let the power of the lens take us where we ourselves are not able to go.

Shortly after Photo Synthesis was launched, we were asked if we would like to take a turn there. Long story short: Bobbie agreed to post some of her underwater photos there, and to write about the photo subjects and the process of taking pictures underwater -- just like she does here on The Right Blue.

This month -- August -- is Bobbie's month at Photo Synthesis, so we'd like to invite our readers to visit there and say hello. Just think: If you like what you see at The Right Blue, this month you can have a double dose!

Here's the link to Photo Synthesis, and here is what Bobbie has posted there so far:

We'll keep you posted on what else Bobbie publishes at Photo Synthesis.

About the photo on this page: Bobbie photographed this Whitemouth Moray eel (Gymnothorax meleagris) in its hiding place in a bed of Plate-and-Pillar Coral (Porites rus) at Honaunau Bay, Hawaii.

Another Dimension of The Right Blue

Visitors to The Right Blue may have noticed that we added a Twitter button to our sidebar awhile back. On the other hand, those who read The Right Blue via the RSS feed would not have known about that Twitter button. So, we decided it might be a good idea to post a quick announcement about our Twitter feed: @therightblue

Jerry is the primary Twitterer for The Right Blue. He tweets the title and link to each new post on the blog, of course, but that is just a small fraction of what we view as a new dimension for The Right Blue.

As @therightblue, Jerry tweets news and other information about all things ocean: scuba diving, underwater photography, maritime archaeology, ocean conservation and ecology, developments in oceanography and marine biology -- and whatever else strikes his fancy on a given day! He also passes along information about upcoming events related to all those topics via re-tweets.

Of course it's not all titles and links. Jerry adds his own brief comments, and the Twitter feed is liberally sprinkled with Jerry-style one-liners and dialog with fellow Tweeps.

If you're on Twitter, and you want to stay current with all things ocean, we invite you to follow @therightblue. Click on the button near the top of the side bar on the blog, or on the big fat Twitter button on this post.

One more thing: If you're not on Twitter, Jerry says he's got some eight-track tapes he'd like to sell you. ;-)

Please do this one small thing for marine research

You visit The Right Blue because you like the ocean, and you like to see learn about the creatures that live in the sea, right? We'd like to ask you, our readers, to do one small thing that can aid marine research. It won't cost you any money -- just a minute of your time, and lending your name to a very good cause.

We'd like you to click here to sign an online petition. Here's what it's about:

The Johnson-Sea-Link I & II submersibles and their support ship, the research vessel R/V Seward Johnson, may be taken out of service. Kevin Zelnio over at Deep Sea News explains:

A shining legacy of deep sea research is under threat from the state of Florida. Citing economic problems and the high cost of maintaining equipment and crew, the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (HBOI) has announced it’s intention to sell or retire the submersibles and its mother ship the R/V Seward Johnson II. Concerned citizens from the state of Florida have created a petition and are asking for people to “invest in science, education and technology.”

So very little of the ocean depths have been explored. Research submersibles like these afford marine scientists opportunities to view undersea environments, observe deep-dwelling marine life, and collect samples for further study -- activities that cannot be accomplished by any other means.

These submersibles are not tourist rides; they are essential research tools. Please help to insure that they will continue to be made available to the scientists who need them. Click here to sign the online petition. Do it as a favor to The Right Blue.

Here are a couple of videos from the Johnson Sea Link submersibles:

Click here to watch the above video on YouTube.

Big News: The Right Blue Joins FBI Bloggers (no, really!)

Earlier this week we were invited to join FBI Bloggers, and we gladly agreed to become a part of the team. No, not that government organization. FBI in this case stands for 'From Big Island' -- that is, the Big Island of Hawaii, our home.

FBI: From Big Island. That's us!

Awhile back, Big Island blogger Damon Tucker decided to create a website to gather "the Big Island's best blogs" into one location. FBI Blogs is that website.

What a great idea: all of the Big Island's top blogs in one place -- a microcosm of great blog content (and ad-free). As Damon says, "The FBI site is not designed to make money or do anything except to showcase our blogs from the Big Island."

We're very proud and honored that The Right Blue is part of this very special, very talented blogging community. We invite all of our readers to visit FBI Blogs and enjoy the wonderful and diverse content produced by the writers and photographers who are FBI bloggers. If you like what you see, bookmark the site, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Right Blue: Nominated for a Blogger's Choice Award

This site was nominated for Best Photography Blog

A regular reader of The Right Blue, Jenn Thorson, has nominated us for a 2009 Blogger's Choice Award. The nomination came as a complete surprise to us, and we are very honored that Jenn thought enough of The Right Blue and Bobbie's underwater photography to nominate our blog in the Best Photography Blog category.

We have never before been nominated for a competitive award, and to be honest, we're not quite sure how it all works. But, we'll put the clickable badge on our sidebar and see what happens! If you do like The Right Blue -- and especially the photography -- we hope you will vote for us.

We already have thanked Jenn Thorson privately for the nomination, but now we'd like to say it publicly as well: Thank you, Jenn. You couldn't have given us a better surprise. We are very touched.

The Blog Carnival of Aloha Celebrates Midwinter in Hawaii

Every month, our friend Evelyn hosts the Carnival of Aloha on her blog, Homespun Honolulu. As the name suggests, life in Hawaii us the theme of this blog carnival.

Our article Perceived Risk, and Point of View, which is about our reflections on scuba diving vs. hang-gliding, is featured in the February 2009 Carnival of Aloha, along with six other articles about diverse aspects of life in Hawaii.

By visiting this month's Carnival of Aloha, you can read about Haleakala National Park on Maui, and attend the Chinese New Year celebrations in downtown Honolulu. You can sample a local treat called malasadas, while you learn about birds called white-eyes (one species of which lives in our islands). And last, but certainly not least, you can learn a few things about Hawaii's connections to the new U.S. President, Barack Obama, who was born in Honolulu and spent a considerable portion of his childhood and adolescence there as well.

Go and have a look!

As always, we thank Evelyn for graciously hosting the Blog Carnival of Aloha every month.

About the photo: This landscape typifies winter in the minds of those of us who live on Hawaii's Big Island. Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano, is the tallest mountain in Hawaii, rising 4,205 meters (13,796 ft) above sea level. Its name means "white mountain," and in winter you certainly can see how it got that name.

We can see Mauna Kea from several spots in our garden, and from one of our kitchen windows. I took this early morning shot from our neighbor's field. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can spot the astronomical observatories on the summit.

Copyright status of material on 'The Right Blue'

We get quite a few requests from other bloggers and website owners, asking if they can use some of our material. If you scroll down to our blog's footer, you will see that we publish The Right Blue under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license. This means we allow others to use our material under certain conditions:

You may quote from our articles -- but not copy the whole thing -- so long as you attribute it to us and link back to The Right Blue (http://therightblue.com/).
You may post our photos on your personal, non-commercial website or blog, so long as you do not alter them or remove the copyright line that says (c)TheRightBlue.com, and you must link back to The Right Blue.
You may not use any of our material for commercial purposes, nor display it on a commercial website, without explicit permission from us.

What you see and read here is the product of decades of experience, thousands of dives, countless travel miles, and a lot of out-of-pocket expenditure over the years. It is with with pleasure that we share our photos, stories, and knowledge with our readers.

We own the copyright to all of the original photos and written material that appear in The Right Blue. Occasionally we publish a photo from elsewhere, or quote a paragraph or two that someone else has written, but we always indicate when photos or other material are not our original work, without exception, and attribute them to the original author or photographer. All we ask is that those who borrow our work do the same.

New Year Notes and News

We're back from our holidays and ready to resume our storytelling and underwater photo sharing with our readers. We hope all of you had a nice holiday season.

We thought we'd begin 2009 with a short review of the past year on The Right Blue. We spent a bit of time going over the blog's traffic statistics for the full year of 2008, paying special attention to where our traffic came from, and which articles and photos appeared to be the most popular with our readers. We'd like to share some things we discovered.

Average monthly traffic to The Right Blue over the past year has tripled, compared to 2007. Our biggest source of traffic in 2008 was StumbleUpon, and we are grateful to the readers who Stumbled various articles on The Right Blue. We don't request Stumbles, so all of that traffic was organic -- and that's the way we like it.

Speaking of organic traffic, the second largest source of traffic to The Right Blue was from search, especially the Google and Google Image search engines. In 2008, more than a third of the traffic to The Right Blue was from search. (And did you notice? Google gave us a 'promotion' of sorts, recently raising The Right Blue's page rank to 5.)

The top five articles on The Right Blue for 2008, based on average monthly traffic since the time of posting, were:

That number one article, which is about an underwater cave full of sea turtle skeletons at Malaysia's Sipadan Island, was posted in mid-June. Since then, that article's URL has been visited well over 20,000 times. The article also has been linked to by other bloggers and websites more than any other item on The Right Blue, and the photos that accompanied the article have been 'borrowed' a lot, too.

Each week we post a stand-alone photo for Wordless Wednesday (and more recently for Watery Wednesday as well). Participation in these photo memes brings some additional traffic to The Right Blue, and some of those visitors have become regular readers. We have noticed that nearly all the photos we have posted for Wordless/Watery Wednesday immediately begin to generate search traffic, too, so the photos are viewed again and again long after they were posted for the memes.

The top five Wordless/Watery Wednesday (i.e, photo only) posts on The Right Blue for 2008, based on average monthly traffic since the time of posting, were:

Coming Attractions

What's coming up on The Right Blue for 2009? Of course we will post more illustrated 'creature features', since those stories definitely are the most popular. We also will present more tips for divers, and tell more tales about the adventures of the Marathon Diving Club back in the early days of diving. Speaking of adventures, there will be more wreck diving tales, and more stories about memorable dive trips.

We're also preparing a series of articles about the only period of time when we were paid to dive. This memorable assignment, which last for several months, was a unique experience for us. It entailed a lot of hard work underwater, but it was both exciting and lucrative. Have we piqued your interest? Here's a hint: Hollywood!!

Stay tuned...

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.)