From Marine Biology to Meaningful Design

(And Why This Is Not “Just Another Ocean Shop”)

I’ve spent a lot of my life observing and listening to the ocean in ways most people never get to. Some of those moments happened offshore on research vessels or from whale-watching boats nearshore. Others happened quietly, late at night on a rolling ship, staring at a screen filled with sound and listening to animals I couldn’t see, but had come to know well.

Wrapped In Waves didn’t start as a business idea. It started much earlier, as a way of deeper understanding.

From Childhood Wonder to Knowing Individuals

Decades ago, I watched the movie, Gorillas in the Mist, and became fascinated, not just with wildlife, but with the idea of knowing individual animals in a population. Dian Fossey didn’t just study gorillas as a species, she knew them by personality, behaviour, and relationship. That idea lodged itself somewhere deep within me and never really left.

I grew up far from Africa, first far from the ocean in Alberta, Canada and then later, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia on the west coast , but I carried that curiosity everywhere. As a small child I observed bugs and animals in my backyard, imagined safaris on my bike rides through local parks, and built entire worlds through exploration and play. What started as imagination slowly became intention.

As I got older, that fascination turned into real opportunities. In high school, a work experience placement on a whale-watching boat changed everything. Sitting with engines off as killer whales surfaced nearby, I felt something click into place. I didn’t just want to see whales. I wanted to understand them deeply

Figure 1: Southern Resident Killer whales (Orcinus orca ater) traveling through the Salish Sea with Mt. Baker in the background.

Learning the Work, Earning the Perspective

That desire led me through years of marine mammal research and fieldwork. I spent decades observing whales from clifftop camps, multiple research vessels, a lighthouse, twin otter aircraft, and remote Arctic camps. I worked in the Pacific Northwest of Canada, the Canadian high Arctic, Mexico, Kenya, Tanzania, and beyond, following whales across oceans and seasons.

One of the most formative experiences of my early career was working with the Center for Whale Research, assisting with the long-term photo-identification census of Southern Resident Killer Whales. Knowing these whales as individuals, recognising dorsal fins, family lines, and life histories, felt like coming full circle to that early spark I felt watching Fossey’s work. This was the kind of work I was meant to do.

 Figure 2: Photo of two Biggs (Transient) killer whale (Orcinus orca rectipinnus) during my first photo-ID encounter with the Center for Whale Research in December 2003.

Figure 3: Grey whale research in Laguna San Ignacio, Mexico, 2006. Sometimes a whale enjoys a good scratch! 

Figure 4: Conducting a photo-ID survey of bottlenose dolphins in Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park, Kenya, 2006-2007.

For a long time, visual observation defined my relationship with marine mammals. Seeing them surface, travel, and socialise, was exhilarating, but later in my career, something shifted.

Figure 5: On survey on the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust sailboat off the west coast of Scotland during the Master of Research in Marine Mammal Science program at St. Andrews University, 2008. That was the first time I experienced acoustic monitoring; we deployed a towed hydrophone and listened for whales, dolphins and porpoises. 

When Listening Changed Everything

As I developed skills in passive acoustic monitoring, my relationship with marine mammals moved from visually observing to listening. I spent years, thousands of hours, monitoring underwater sound, working as a PAM operator. My days were filled with spectrograms, visual representations of sound showing frequency and intensity over time, and click detectors, used to detect and identify echolocation clicks.

At first, they were just data. But slowly, patterns emerged. The calls of whales and dolphins became familiar. 

Somewhere along the way, I started to see something unexpected: beauty. The shapes of these calls, their rhythms and structures, felt expressive in a way I hadn’t anticipated. These weren’t abstract signals. They were voices.

Figure 6: One of many passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) watches during a seismic survey offshore Pemba, Mozambique, 2011.

That’s when a seed was planted. I began imagining what it would look like to take these real, scientific representations of sound and turn them into something tangible, something people could reflect on and feel connected to.

Why Wrapped In Waves Exists

I’ve always been drawn to ocean-inspired art and products, but I often found them generic, inaccurate, or disconnected from real science. At the same time, so much meaningful data and knowledge remains locked away in technical spaces, inaccessible to most people.

Wrapped In Waves exists in that space between science and everyday life.

This brand is rooted in real marine biology. Real data. Real animals. Real experience. Every design is informed by scientific understanding and respect for the species and ecosystems that inspire it. My goal is not to simplify science, but to translate it, making it visible, tangible, and meaningful without losing its integrity.

Wrapped In Waves is thoughtful by design, grounded in curiosity, and guided by a commitment to conservation and education.

Figure 7: Spectrogram showing Southern Resident killer whale calls during a 24 second clip. The horizontal axis shows time and the vertical axis shows frequency (pitch) of the calls. 

Who This Is For

This space is for people who love the ocean, whether they work in science, dream of it, or simply feel most themselves near water. It’s for those who want a deeper connection to marine life and appreciate the stories behind what they see.

If you’ve ever wished you were a marine biologist, or if the ocean has quietly shaped who you are, you’re in the right place.

An Invitation

This blog will be a place where I share stories from my career, lessons learned from decades of marine work, and reflections on the intersection of science, sound, and design. Wrapped In Waves is still unfolding, and I’m glad you’re here at the beginning.

If you’d like to follow along as the story continues, I invite you to join the Pod.

More soon.

Kyla Graham, Founder of Wrapped in Waves