Landlocked Mermaid

With it being less than a week until Hallowe'en, I thought I'd give you my top five... Spooky Fish! 5. Blob Fish Picture from Earth Touch News Blob fish just look so strange! They look like sad, sentient jelly. They do look a little more normal in their natural habitat, 2,800m (9,200ft) below the surface. The reason they look so blobby at the surface is because their bodies are built for high pressure living. The have developed gelatinous bodies to withstand the pressure as well as a buoyancy aid. If they used regular buoyancy techniques of other fish, they would run the risk of vomiting out an organ or two whenever they experienced a change in pressure. Isn't nature amazing? Still, I think it would scare the bejeezus out of me if someone wanted to spook me with a blob fish! 4. Giant Squid Picture from The Independent Giant Squid are spooky because we have known about them for a really long time, but they have only recently been caugh...

- Ursula from The Little Mermaid . It's Hallowe'en soon. Do you see where I am going with this? No? I'll be clear then, I am going as Ursula, badass sea witch, for Hallowe'en. Because, you know, she is scary to mermaids. Photo from a Buzzfeed article arguing that Ursula is actually a hero! I have been umming and aahhhing about my costume this year. I contemplated going as Rebecca Bunch from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend , as we have similar builds, hair, and wardrobe. But I figured that would mean I was just going as myself, effectively, just with a few more songs thrown in. While I love a good sing-song, I felt like there was something more creative I could do. And then it hit me. Ursula. She's badass, has a great villain song, and has a costume that shouldn't be too hard to replicate. I let Charis gut my wardrobe recently, so I have lots of fabrics to play with. I thought I still had a strap-less dress which I could just attached tentacles to, but...

Marine Creature of the Month Famous Fish: Dory Photo from Wikipedia Kingdom: Animalia Class: Actinopterygii Conservation Status: Least Concern (LE) WHAT IS DORY? Dory, from Finding Dory , is commonly known as a Regal Blue Tang. She is a surgeonfish, indigenous to the Indo-Pacific ocean. They are flat fish, with a circular shaped body that ends in a pointed snout, the average adult blue tang growing to 30cm (12in). They have the distinct blue and black colouring, with more yellows coming through in the central Indian ocean populations. With their home being in the Indo-Pacific ocean, blue tangs are found in reefs around many countries, such as Japan, Indonesia, and the Great Barrier Reef around Australia. They are a common and abundant fish in these areas. They live in either pairs or small groups between eight and fourteen. The males are generally bigger than the females, on average an adult blue tang weighs only 600g (21oz). Photo from Live Sci...

September 21st-22nd, my partner and I joined Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club for a dive trip to Porth Ysgaden. Most folk went up on the Friday night and enjoyed an early Saturday dive. Between general exhaustion, work commitments, and life we chose to join them later. If we'd have traveled down on the Friday night we'd have got there gone midnight. Add in the 6am start, it was just a recipe for a bad dive. I have enough of those and feel like I have ruined plenty dives by crying. So we decided to join them for the Saturday afternoon dive and stay for one on Sunday. As per usual, best laid plans and whatnot, but more on that later. Saturday was beautiful for diving. The sea was calm, the sun was shining, and thanks to the autumnal breeze it was not too hot. Perfect conditions. The dive in the morning had been great by all accounts, there were even sightings of an octopus! Despite our sensible decision, I was a little jealous we missed it! Bay view at Porth Ysgaden The ...

I have made a decision with Shark Experts. I am going to give my experts a shark to research and look up, it's up to them how they present the information. So without further waffle, here is what my favourite Shark Experts have to say about Lemon Sharks! From Addy: ✦Lemon Sharks have two dorsal fins of equal size on their back. ✦Lemon Sharks rarely attack humans. Only 10 attacks have been reported and none of them were fatal. ✦Lemon Sharks are mainly active during dusk and dawn. ✦Lemon Sharks spend their days sitting on the ocean floor whilst fish remove parasites from their skin. ✦Lemon Sharks are solitary but can occasionally be found in groups of up to 20 members. This provides safety against predators. ✦Female Lemon Sharks' pregnancy lasts 10-12 months and ends with 4-13 babies. ✦Lemon Sharks can survive up to 27 years in the wild. ✦Lemon Sharks are found from New Jersey to southern Brazil  in the western of the Atlantic Ocean. ✦Lemon Sharks sometimes feed on t...

Marine Creature of the Month Orcas aka Killer Whales Photo from Defenders of Wildlife This was originally going to be a proper MCotM profile, but I have had bad brain this week. But rather than not post at all, I thought I'd give you the bullet point version - provided I can read my terrible hand written notes! I am also apparently going for a famous fish theme - Nemo last month, Free Willy this month - so if you know of a famous fish you'd like me to look into, just let me know! Anyway, enough pre-amble, enjoy some facts about Orcas. Kingdom: Animalia Class: Mammalia Conservation Status: Critically Endangered (CR)/Data Deficient (DD) - I will explain. Photo from ThoughtCo   Orcas, while known as Killer Whales, are actually dolphins. They are even the largest species of dolphin with males growing between 6-8m (20-26ft) and females being slightly smaller at 5-7m (16-23ft). They live across the world, from tropical to cold waters. They prefer ...

Ancient Seas Photo from Curiosity Helicoprion Helicoprion is an extinct shark, which lived 290 to 250 million years ago. This was during the Early Miocene to the Late Pliocene. They were found in oceans across the globe. It is believed they ate squid. "Helicoprion" means spiral saw. Can you guess why? Yep, because of that impressive jawline. They were discovered by Russian Andrzej P. Karpinski, in 1889. Only its teeth have fossilised, because soft tissues and cartilage do not fossilise. The spiral shape caused much confusion at the time of discovery! It is now widely agreed that they went in the shark's mouth, though it had been postulated that they were attached to the shark's fin! Although referred to as a "shark", helicoprion is more likely to have been a chimaera which was a cartilaginous fish. They grew up to 7.5m (25ft) and weighed 453.5kg (1,000lbs). The helicoprion survived a mass extinction which wiped out 90% of marine life a...

A while back, my mum and I went to the Chinese supermarket in Birmingham. I went with the goal of getting condensed coconut milk (for fudge) and dumplings (because I love a good dumpling). As well as coming away with a few other gems, I came back with gyoza skins with the aim of making my own dumplings. I decided to have a go this week. Pretendy Duck Dumplings I figured I should start with something simple, in case it all went horribly wrong. It was also a little bit of an impromptu decision, so I hadn't shopped specifically for it. But I remembered that we had the Linda McCartney vegetarian shredded duck in the freezer. Nothing says simple like hoisin duck dumplings. At the very least I know the flavours work, and that I'm not likely to make myself sick from not cooking it properly! All you need. INGREDIENTS Linda McCartney vegetarian shredded duck, Hoisin sauce, Gyoza skins. These are so simple to make, it is hardly worth writing out a method!...

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...