Oceans Unknown - Unknown Oceans

    How many oceans of the world are we destined to see, to know, to swim in, to breathe in, to get to know? How many oceans are there? Perhaps five.

    Some live and die and never see one. They may see some fresh water rivers or lakes, but they stay landlocked and never make it to the beach, or go on cruises or trans-oceanic voyages or fishing excursions.

    

    Out of the 8 billion on the planet today (2026), maybe 5 billion have been to the ocean, at least to one of its shores? Which continent has the most that do this? Likely Europe. Then North America.

    I grew up seeing and and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. The world's second biggest. I did a few trips on boats on it, like a ferry from Nova Scotia to Maine, and and a whaler around the top of Cape Cod. We would go to beaches and places around the Cape. Nausett Beach. West Dennis. A few other beaches. I saw the Atlantic from Nova Scotia as small child. A squid among the rocks of the cold, shiny beach, there. Or the horse shoe crabs near the house of my grandparents in Quincy, Massachusetts.

    It was not till I was an adult that I saw and touched the great Pacific. It was down in the southern hemisphere, on the outskirts of Concepcion, Chile, by the Desembocadura, where the Bio Bio River emptied into the greatest mass of water on earth. Later, after my mission, where I smelled the fish and shellfish of Coronel, or the fish factories north of there, I swam at Chilean beaches like Cobquecura and Curanipe. And still later Coquimbo, or fourteen years later Vina del Mar. With wife and kids in tow.

    The Pacific I have now scene and swam in from Canada, British Colombia, Alaska, Hawai'i, Washington, a smidge of Oregon, and much of California and Mexico.

    I have scene and experience more of the Pacific, possibly than the Atlantic. But now I have been up and down the East Coast of the United States, and even seen it from Iceland, so I guess I am conversant with the Atlantic, too.

    I have not been to the Indian Ocean, nor the Arctic nor the Southern Ocean. Yet.

    I did see the Persian Gulf; I missed a beach party by it, and I did not take much advantage of its shores. Others of my group did. Some even went scuba diving.

    What other oceans must we visit? When will we get a chance?

    Should we seek them?

    You tell me.