Strange creatures of the darkness
Published: Wed, 03/07/18
On Sunday afternoon I paid my second visit to the Deep, the sea life centre in Hull. The Deep is a rather posh and hi-tech version of what we used to call an aquarium. Venetia and I visited in September and the ticket entitles us to as many repeat visits in the 12 months following as we want. I wanted to see if the gift shop might have some suitable toys for some young relatives, which did turn out to be the case. You can’t go too far wrong with a cuddly penguin for a baby.
Not that I really need an excuse to visit such an amazing place. I always have been fascinated by marine life, not sure why, maybe something to do with being a Pisces? Anyway, The Deep has a lot to see. In the huge central tank there are sharks, turtles (although I am not sure where they were hiding on Sunday), extraordinary looking saw fish and I can spend ages watching the graceful rays ‘fly’ through the water. The jelly fish are extraordinarily beautiful when you really look at them. The penguins are always fun to watch and the colours of some to the tropical fish are so bright that it is hard to believe that they are actually real and not just cartoon characters.
Then there is one tank which is so dark that I am not quite sure if I have seen its occupants or not. I can just make out three or four round objects in the gloom about the size of coconuts. They are apparently Nautilus, which are a species of marine mollusc very similar to the ammonites whose spiral shells are the archetypal fossil. Indeed, the nautilus, or creatures very like them, may have been swimming in the oceans for as long as 500 million years.
The tank is dark because the nautilus can regulate its buoyancy by regulating the quantity of gas in chambers in its shell. This means the creatures can sink into the darkness during the daytime and then float to near the surface to feed at night. So, the tank has to be pretty dark since the nautilus generally avoids the light. The nautilus also moves by jet propulsion. You probably thought that submarines with buoyancy tanks and jet skis were modern inventions, it seems like the moluscs got there first by a few hundred million years.
As you might gather I would like to be able to see these creatures properly. Neither would I want to cause them distress because of bright lights. I guess I just have to be pleased that such extraordinary animals are just the other side of a plexiglass wall even if I can’t really see them.
Sometimes a new project feels a bit like trying to see a nautilus. You know the idea is good, it is worth working on but you can’t clearly see how it will eventually look. I have just completed the ninth module of the Foundation Programme I have been working on. Today I went back through the previous 8 modules and did my best to make the format as consistent as possible. The ninth module goes out to the first group who signed up for the project on Monday. On the 24th of March we will have a day with six of the participants when we can check what has been learned from the distance modules, ask questions and share experiences.
My next task is to create an autoresponder sequence which will deliver the nine modules without me having to manually send an email to each participant. I am also planning a second foundation day on the 26th of May. If you are interested there will be a maximum of 6 places and you will need to sign up and start receiving the weekly modules by the end of March. Details at https://iceandfire.org.uk/foundation.html
regards
Graham
PS I have also worked out the programme for martial training over the next three months, dates and details here https://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html The staff training on the 21st of April is the course I was going to teach last Saturday but the weather made training outside a bad idea. So we had a good CQC session instead.
PPS If you do want to know what a nautilus actually looks like there are some good pictures here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus