Landlocked Mermaid

Meet my little brother Dylan: He is seven and three quarters, though he'll tell you he's already eight. He is just as crazy about sharks as I am, if not crazier. He can name at least fifty species of shark, just off the top of his head. He can tell you the bite force of several sharks. He is even writing a "Word Documentary" about sharks. (His phrase, not mine.) Because of this, I decided he'd fit in perfectly at my blog. He's a little strange and talks through clenched teeth sometimes (no, I'm not sure why!), but he is a sweetie with a mind full of sharks. So here is the first episode of Sharks at 7 & 3/4 ! It's inspired by the B-Movie Sharkenstein , and well, I'll let Dylan do the talking. Filmed by Mash - she's the watch buzzing half way through! (In case you hadn't noticed, I have a YouTube now! I would say check it out, but it is literally this video. But there will be more to come and it will be yo...

Photo: The Telegraph Happy Earth Day Everyone!   (Yes, I realise it was yesterday, but humour me.) If you follow my Instagram , I'm sure you'll have seen I had something of a productive day. Well, here is all the behind the scenes gossip, my what went wells, what I'm going to do next time (yes, next time) and some of the weirder things we picked up. The Beach: Colwyn Bay, Wales. MORNING We started early, aimed to get to Colwyn Bay for about 10am. Through some miracle, we kept to that plan. I'm normally half an hour after the time I guestimate we should be at places for. It's an easy drive though: up to Chester, across to Wales. Literally two roads. And with my sea-themed CD, it felt like no time at all. Parking was a little problematic, there were roadworks happening where the internet said the car park was. But with it being Sunday, we found somewhere better and free. Getting to the promenade and beach was simple, we were at the seafro...

I got a request from someone I work with to do a post about Megalodon. So me being me, I thought, why not make a segment about it? There is so much more to our oceans than what inhabits it right now. There are literally billions of years to cover. I am only one mermaid, but I can do my bit. So welcome to the Ancient Seas segment! Ancient Seas MEGALODON Class: Chondrichthyes Status: Extinct (EX) Size: 60ft* Weight: 77 tons* Era: Early Miocene to end of Pliocene aka 23-2.6 million years ago Diet: Large prey; whales, seals, giant turtles Habitat: Warm waters; juveniles: coastal *Estimates as, without time travel, it is impossible to acutally measure and weigh a Megalodon. And who would want to, right? Me inside Megalodon jaws, South Africa Museum What exactly was Megalodon? Well, it was huge. And I mean huuuggggeeeee! (Yes, that many extra letters huge.) If you are a fan at all of the creature feature B-movie genre, then I'm sure you've se...

April 22nd. It's fast approaching. In my research for what I can do I found a number of organisations which have scheduled beach cleans. Fantastic news! Between Surfers Against Sweage , The National Trust , The Marine Conservation Society and 2 Minute Beach Clean I could find an event near me on the 22nd. Nope. Most of them are happening today. Or a couple weeks ago. Or not until September. Just my luck. I mentioned I was a landlocked mermaid, right? But, there are alternatives. Surfers Against Sewage offer a step-by-step guide to hosting your own beach clean, including all the legal stuff and who to contact for permission. Now, I realised I have left this a little late. To make all the necesary arrangements and drum up enough people to come, it would take more than a week. But it is something I definitely want to do; it'd be a great learning experience and a great way to do something for the environment. So what can I do now? What can I do in a week? ...

So I'd like to do a monthly segment where I focus on one marine creature, #MCotM, and this is it! Ordinarily there will be no waffle up here, I will jump straight into it. So to surprise you all, I have chosen my first #MCotM to be... *drum roll*... The Green Sea Turtle Photo by me, taken at Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town Kingdom: Animalia Class: Reptile Conservation Status: Endangered (EN) Found: Tropical/subtropical seas; Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans Diet: Herbivorous* Size: 5ft* Weight: 68-190kg* Habitat: Shallow, coastal waters* *Average adult There are two main populations of Green Sea Turtles: in the Atlantic ocean and the Indo-Pacfic ocean. Both populations return to the nesting grounds they were born on, which is known as natal homing (from The Biology of Sea Turtles ). Females return to the nests every 2-4 years, while males return every year for the chance to mate. The main nesting ground for the Atlantic populations are found in...

Earth Day is a thing I've only really heard of on American television, but since discovering 4ocean my Instagram is now full of their Earth Day bracelet campaign, among others which I will get to later. So having very little idea what Earth Day was about, I decided to do some digging. The 4ocean bracelet made from one pound of recycled plastic pulled from the sea. It started in 1970 and was founded by Gaylord Nelson, a US Senator at the time. It's largely considered to be the birth of the modern environmental movement. At the time pollution was synonymous with success and prosperity, there was little conern for the long term effects on the environment. A book entitled Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, released a few years prior, was what opened Nelson's eyes to the issue. April 22nd, 1970, saw the first Earth Day. It was initially to educate and promote the idea of being sustainable and environmentally friendly. Over the years it gained traction and it beca...

So who am I? What is this all about. I am your friendly neighbourhood landlocked mermaid. Aka a human who likes the seaside but is surrounded by fields. As beautiful as the Shropshire countryside is, it is no glittering ocean. So while I am far from the sea, I shall have to make do with the inflatible aquariam in my living room. You read that right. One landlocked mermaid So why the ocean? Why am I - a Shropshire lass - so obsessed with the sea? Well, there are a multitude of reasons, really. It all started with wildlife documentaries. Anytime the camera dipped below the water, I was filled with wonder. Then it grew into seeing any costal picture with its glittering seas - waters in blue, green or grey - made me wish I was there. I go full Liz Lemon - "I want to go to there..." The ocean is so vast and so unexplored. It is teaming with life (and now unfortunately plastic), and there is so much variety. From the incomprehensively massive Blue Whale ( Qi k...