Landlocked Mermaid

Final Friday Top Five! Underwater Video Games 5. Finding Nemo Video Game Photo from Disney Fandom Wiki I remember playing this as a teen. It was a bright, colourful game and a good companion to the film. It was good fun, contained clips from the film, and had a variety of different levels. There was one, in particular, which was ridiculously hard! It involved bouncing on snail shells and I'm still not entirely sure how to complete this level, to this day. I think one of the sisters managed to crack it, somehow... 4. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Photo from Wikipedia This is the only Assassin's Creed I have played. I've seen my sister play others and, honestly, it gives me vertigo! But I could cope with this one. The beautiful setting, the wild locations, the sailing: tick all my boxes. And I swear the buildings are not as tall in this game! It is an absolutely beautiful game and, much like any game with a tropical island (I'm looking ...

Lately, my diving trips have been plagued by bad luck, bad buoyancy, and bad brain. Now, bad luck is beyond my control and I'm working on the bad brain already; so it's time I have a look at my buoyancy problems. Because when I fix the brain, I'm still not going to have successful dives if my buoyancy is all over the place.  Buoyancy is really important when diving. You wouldn't think so because you're trying to get below the water not stay on top! (Hahaha, I'm trying to be funny there.) But, once under, you don't want to be scraping along the seabed because that reduces visibility. Nor do you want to be floating up to the top because that gives you the bends. Which is bad. You want to be neutrally buoyant - resting in the water, neither sinking down nor floating up. I struggle with this. I am positively buoyant. This means I float. If I was negatively buoyant, I'd sink and have different problems. For me, the issue is getting under the water in...

MARINE CREATURE OF THE MONTH Photo from CNRS News Common Clownfish (*cough* actually an anemonefish/false clownfish - it's confusing *cough*) Kingdom: Animalia Class: Actinopterygii Conservation Status: Least Concern (LC) Thanks to a certain little, animated fish everyone knows what a clownfish is. They are the cute orange and white fish who live in anenan... anememon... Ok, don't hurt yourself kid . I kid, anemones. The common clownfish, which Nemo is based on, is one of thirty species of clownfish or anemonefish, as they are also known. But I am going to look at the common clownfish. WHERE ARE THEY FOUND? These little, orange cuties are primarily found in the Eastern Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific Ocean. They can be found in areas around Australia and Southeast Asia too. They live among the reef slopes or sheltered lagoons. These waters tend to be shallow and warm, usually going no deeper than 15m (49ft). And, of course, they set up...

Hello everyone! I apologise about my recent absence and the rather abrupt instagram explanation I offered. I have been really struggling over the last couple months with my mental health and the whole thing got a little overwhelming. But I am taking steps to combat that and reclaim my life. Starting with here. I have missed bringing you marine themed content and sustainable living ideas! I am going to ease myself back in with a reduced posting schedule, updating once a week with my more popular segments. Fingers crossed I will pull myself together enough to come back on Friday with Marine Creature of the Month! So, to breathe a little bit of new life and excitement into this blog, I have started an associated Tumblr! Check it out over here . I'll be sharing links to posts and reblogging interesting marine themed content. Yes, it will mostly be cute animal pictures. And probably mermaids.  Anyway, I would like to thank everyone who has read in the past and will rea...

Pizza is a staple in my household. Between my partner's Italian heritage and the fact that pizza ticks all my boxes (cheese, carbs and tomato), it's a miracle we don't have it every night! As with most of our food, we try not to get the shop made stuff. Sometimes it's unavoidable, feeling poorly or lazy or pressed for time. But most of the time we make our own. Dough and everything. And if you follow my personal instagram account, you'll see we make it rather regularly! We like to use Jamie Oliver's dough recipe, with a couple tweaks and a variant my own salsa recipe for the sauce. My favourite thing about home made pizza is overloading on the toppings. Yeah, shop bought and takeout pizzas have structural integrity but they never have enough toppings. I have been overloading pizzas since university. Sometimes they don't always come out circular. DOUGH INGREDIENTS 500g plain flour or OO flour. (The OO is finer, but Morrisons have stop...

This #MCotM is going to be a little different as I am still not quite 100%. As much as I would love to do an in depth study of this month's creature, I just don't have the brain power for it. But I can squeeze out 10 fun facts for you. So enough about how crappy I am, here is the creature for July... Mantis Shrimp Photo from Fact Animal Fun Facts   Mantis shrimp are colourful little things. Their colours include blues, greens, reds, and oranges. They are usually between 5-17cm (2-7 inches) long, though some species can be larger. Mantis shrimp have incredible eyesight and the ability to move each eye independently. They can also see in ultraviolet and polarised light. They attack foes and prey 50 times quicker than the blink of an eye. Their punch packs the power of a .22 calibur bullet. Mantis shrimp are either Spearers or Smashers. Spearers have spiny appendages for stabbing prey or foes. Meanwhile, Smashers have club-like appendages for smashing prey...

This weekend we celebrated all the birthdays, maybe a little too much as original plans had to change due to over-tired party people. So this post was originally going to be a fun video of us making fools of ourselves at the Crocky Trail. However, we ended up not going so maybe another video. We did have some fun playing frisbee at the local cricket ground. Getting ready to throw. Running to fetch the frisbee. Thumbs up from Addy. I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce the new and improved Sharks @ 7 & 3/4. The kids thought it was high time the name changed, especially as Dylan is nine now! (Jeez, that makes me feel old.) So starting next month, the kids and I will be bringing you... SHARK EXPERTS! Each month, I will give the kids a mission. It will be their task to complete the mission and film their efforts. I will put together what they find and share it here, a lot like the last few videos on Sharks @ 7 & 3/4. The kids alway...

Today it is Dylan's 9th Birthday! So to celebrate, I decided to let him pick this month's Final Friday Top Five. He wanted to go for his Top Five... Photo from WildAid Sharks! Honestly, we are not surprised. So here are Dylan's top five sharks, with a couple of facts to go with them. 5. Mako Shark Photo from Discovery Why does Dylan like them? Because they are super fast and cool! The shortfin mako can reach speeds of at least 31 mph. Male and female mako sharks avoid each other until they are ready to reproduce, so that the females do not get harassed. 4. Great White Shark Photo from Oceana Why does Dylan like them? Because they are really big and have awesome, sharp teeth. Great whites are the largest predatory fish on the planet. They have 300 triangular teeth, which are all sharp and arranged in up to seven rows! This creates the conveyor belt effect when they lose a tooth, it just gets replaced by one behind. ...

Capernwray Over the last six months, Chris and I have been training for our Sport Diver course with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua and BSAC . The Sport Diver qualification means that we can dive up to 35m and lead less experienced divers. It takes the knowledge we learned on our Ocean Diver course and takes it to the next level, as you probably could have guessed! It began back in January with...  Ready to learn! BOOT CAMP Over the course of a weekend, back when it was faaarrrr too cold to dive in British waters without a drysuit, myself, Chris and about four or five others learned everything there was to know about Sport Diver theory. We covered six modules over the two days. It was very information intensive, but a good way to learn as we could discuss the more difficult bits with less of a time constraint than when we learned before the practical session.  The modules were taught by members of the club, sharing their expertise and experience which makes ...

Last year, Carole introduced me to the 30 Days Wild challenge, run by the Wildlife Trusts . She invited me to join her and her kids on a litter pick around our town, and explained to me what the #30 Days Wild project was. Litter picking on a sunny day For the last few years, Wildlife Trust have run the project during June challenging folk to do "something wild" every day for the month. This can range from eating your lunch outside, to going on a big woodland adventure. Anyone can sign up for free - which they are still offering, twenty-one days into June! The digital pack includes downloads of the wall chart and the Random Acts of Wildness booklet. I'm guessing the posted version would be hard copies of these. All wild acts are encouraged to be shared across media platforms with the #30DaysWild hashtag and there is a Facebook group open all year round! I am a member of that group and people share some pretty amazing wildlife pictures. And the odd tip on goi...