Yellow fields

We spent the weekend in Timaru, about two and a half hours north of Dunedin, because I was leading a seminar there. Timaru is close to the southern end of the Canterbury Plain, a wide plain that stretches north and south of Christchurch. We loved the fields of rapeseed in bloom after we reached the Canterbury plain. The first photo loooks west towards the mountains, and the second photo looks east to the sea. The sea around Timaru is often very turquoise, as you can see in the second photo. It's amazing to me how turquoise the sea can be around New Zealand, even as far south as we are. These photos are taken at the same latitude south as Oregon is north, and there's no turquoise sea by Oregon, at least I've never seen that color sea there. Someone told me the sea is more turquoise in the Southern Hemisphere because the sea is more salt. Most of the rivers that dump fresh water into the ocean are in the Northern Hemisphere, so the sea here is saltier. I wonder if that's the reason.