Tag: sea

Aliens

It was when I was stroking the jellyfish that the thought crossed my mind that possibly not all life on this planet might necessarily have originated here.

We took Thomas to the Baltimore National Aquarium today. He was actually pretty excited about it, and kept saying “we’re going to see the fishies and the sharks with the big scary teeth!”

(Which we did. We saw many fishies and a number of sharks with big scary teeth, so all of his expectations were met today. Thanks Uncle Kellan!)

It was a little crowded and it’s a wee bit of a hike to get to the Aquarium, so we were only there for a few hours…much longer and we would have risked major toddler melt-down. I would have liked to have spent more time there, I think, but I was perfectly okay with leaving when we did. People (kids especially) are exhausting.

One of the cool things to do at the aquarium is the touch tanks, where you get to gently stroke a ray or a crab or whatever. One of the tanks contained a large number of Moon Jellyfish. We get large numbers of these strange creatures at Camp sometimes; usually washed up the Chesapeake Bay and in to the river by tidal or storm surges. I have always been wary of them, as I think that’s probably a healthy reaction to have to most jellyfish, but was intrigued at the prospect of being able to touch one, so I did.

As the name implies, it was a soft, yielding, jelly-like texture. Smooth, almost slimy but not quite. Not unpleasant but definitely unusual.

I was mostly taken aback by just how alien they are. Almost nothing on Earth is like it. Its body is almost entirely made of water, making it barely definable from the medium it exists in. It has no recognizable sensory organs, no respiratory or circulatory systems. Some species are even biologically immortal, capable of regressing to an immature state and starting over from scratch.

How strange life under the sea is. Horseshoe Crabs (which aren’t actually crabs) first evolved 450 million years ago and tend to swim upside down. Some octopus species can change the colour of their very cells at will. Mudskippers are fish that can walk around on land as long as they stay moist. An Electric Eel (which isn’t actually an eel) gives off small pulses of electricity to sense its surroundings. A Portuguese Man o’war isn’t a single creature but a colony of several symbiotic creatures living as one. (Also, despite appearances, not a jellyfish (which aren’t actually fish…you know, taxonomy is hard.)

Fish that swim upside down, fish that look like rocks, fish that have no eyes, fish that are transparent…it’s like evolution got to the ocean last, went “fuck it,” and just started making stuff up.

But you have to wonder if even Evolution was drunk enough to come up with Jellyfish. They are just so unreal that you can’t help but to wonder if they did somehow just wound up on Earth by accident.

We also saw some dolphins, which are their own kind of joke. Strong, streamlined, perfectly designed for mastery of the sea.

Breathes Air.

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Terminus

The term “Gate” was a misnomer; the complex served as Atlantis’ Main Transport Hub and Port of Entry. Everything going in and out of the city had to go through The Main Gate, and as such, it was always extremely busy.

“Length of stay, Sir?”

“Two weeks.”

“Any animals traveling with you?”

“Just Sebastian,” Sven nodded to his companion floating languidly above them.

The Customs and Immigration clerk glanced up and tutted.

“Leviathans need a Class L visa. That’ll be 300 wampum.”

Sven started. “What?! I thought Whales came through on a waiver!”

“Sperm, Fin and Blue Whales fall under Leviathan Class Marine Creature Classification, as per Atlantean Immigration law. Further information can be found on our website,” the clerk intoned, reciting the words by rote. “Please fill out the form and direct the creature onto the scales to be weighed and measured.”

“This is daylight robbery!” Sven fumed.

“I don’t make the rules sir. Once you filled out the form, take it to the Special Immigrations desk to be processed. Thank you, and enjoy your stay. Next!”

After what seemed like an eternity, Sven and Sebastian met up with Carla outside The Main Gate.

“There you are! I though you would have got out an hour ago!”

“Freaking Immigration Control took forever.” Sven sulked. “The lines in there are so long!”

“I told you!” Carla admonished as they headed downtown. “It’s always busy at the Whale-Weigh Station!”

*

SCUBA

It’s a different world, beneath the waves. You descend slowly, air escaping from the Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) in a stream of bubbles, pausing every so often to equalize the pressure in your sinuses with a quick pinch to the nose and exhale.

The last time I went diving was in 2010 in Australia; almost ten years had gone by, but it was like riding a bike. I had obtained my Open Water Diver PADI back in 2006, and had used it several times in the following years; mostly in Thailand and in Australia. But then life got busy and the opportunities to go diving didn’t really come up that often.

But when my wife and family offered, for my birthday, to pay for a diving trip whilst we were in Thailand for my sister-in-law’s wedding, I jumped at the chance.

The dive trip set off from the floating pier in a Long Tail boat, one of those narrow wooden vessels where they mount a car engine on one end of a pole and a propeller on the other, and steer by swinging the pole. It was a half-day fun trip, just myself, a couple doing a training dive and two instructors.

There had been a storm forecast, but the skies were blue and the sea was gentle. My instructor and I dropped into the sea on one side of a small island, and descended down to about 18 meters below the surface. Down there you aren’t buffeted by the waves and the currents are gentle. We started out in the “muck”, a desolate flat area that, nevertheless, had an interesting array of life. From Longfin Bannerfish to nudibranch and several crabs, there is a lot to see if you know where to look.

As we got closer to the island, the coral reefs sprang up. Along with an abundance of boating, careless tourism, and general pollution; my instructor had told me that the big tsunami of 2004 had devastated the reefs and they were only just in the last 4 or 5 years starting to properly re-establish themselves. Coral Reefs are incredibly delicate eco-systems that take years to grow and do not suffer punishment easily.

But, despite their poor health, they were an abundance of life. I’m not even going to begin to list all the things I saw down there, but highlights included Eels, stingray, box fish, puffer fish, a rare pipefish, and shoals of fusiliers; literal walls of fish.

Life is so alien down there, like the weird, ethereal jellyfish, or the strange razor fish that swim in formation, their heads pointed down. Or even the bizarre megafauna that is coral itself; colonies of millions of tiny little creatures that bind together to create domes, tubes, tendrils, to resemble plants or resemble nothing at all. The peculiar sea urchins, that just look like balls of spikes. And in between, fish of every shape and size and color.

And in between it all is yourself, a giant, lumbering, ungainly shape. Truly it is you who is the alien here, the air-breather floating in between walls of coral, a leviathan in their micro-world.

Sensation is muted here. Sound is dulled, more vibration than anything else, save for the rushing air passing through the rebreather and the escaping plume of bubbles. Colours are muted too, and visibility reduced. The water is warm, comfortable and apart from the near constant taste of salt in your mouth, you almost forget it’s there at all. You become an entity unto yourself, a self-contained world observing the greater world around it. You are (almost) alone with your thoughts. And yet your every breath takes new significance; not only because this once taken-for-grantees resource has become limited and finite, but also because the very act of breathing alters your buoyancy. A sudden wrong move, too deep or too shallow and breath and you could go crashing into the reef, destroying habitats and killing the very coral itself.

And so, by necessity, you live in the moment. Every breath is calculated, every movement is considered. Your senses are focused on both the majesty that surrounds you and on your very being itself. It is both at once enlightened tranquility and a crushing, exhausting trial of mind and body.

We return to the surface slowly, pausing at 5 meters depth for our bodies to reacclimatize to the surface pressure. When we finally break the surface of the sea, the world comes crashing back; sound and air and colour. It is a relief to be free from the crushing grip of the mask, to be free of the rubber bit of the mouthpiece. But also a shame to be leaving that world of alien majesty, that riot of movement and rich, intense life behind.

But only for a minute. A bottle of water, some pineapple and a quick change of dive site later, and off we go again!

I love diving, especially here in the warm waters around the west coast of Thailand. And I hope it won’t be almost ten years before I descend to the depths once more.

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