#aaaaand now I’m rambling in the tags I’m gonna go ahdhjsksks me

[just-another-hhazbin]

Why u like ocean stuff so much? 👀

Hi! Well, I am an oceanographer, so. It is for the best that I like ocean stuff haha.

(MBARI, call me…)

And I’m so sorry to all of you who followed me for Hazbin content and then just got smacked in the face with ocean. Repeatedly.

But like, backstory wise? 🤷 When I was born the stars aligned and said you know what this one is gonna be obsessed with? Water. 🌊 The more, the better.

I don’t live near the coast or anything. Used to visit it with my grandparents in summers though, and I would stay at the beach pretty much all day every day and study everything I could get my hands on. Bike down to different sections of shore, talk to the fishermen, bike back to the Wetlands Institute there to ask questions and check out the tanks and books, stop by town for ice cream and a library visit at some point or hide out in the antique book store that would let me read old ocean books about pirates and sailing and ocean expeditions.

Sometimes, I’m nostalgic for pre-Google days, I’ll admit it.

I would collect beach glass, study shells, tide pools - tide pools are the shit, y’all. Give me a tidepool and the smell of the nearby estuary any and every day. These aren’t even the super amazing hard rock tide pools you can find in California that are full blown colorful microcosms of life. These are just shallow sand pools that have hermit crabs, some fish, maybe a crab or horseshoe crab or whelk shell. A stingray or dog shark maybe once or twice a year. Still fucking amazing.

And I know most of y’all with Experience are thinking wait, the smell of salt marsh estuaries? Yes, okay, yes. I love it. I would buy candles of it if I could. The thought brings tears to my eyes. Nobody talk to me.

Somehow my interest in biology and genetics led me to studying marine microbiology instead of the nekton or other macro-organisms, but since the deep sea is my most beloved… it works out pretty well.

TLDR: little three year old me saw the ocean for the first time and went oh, this is gonna be the rest of my life, and I am going to make it everyone else’s problem.