I'm famous...in my neighbourhood back home :)

Hi Sea Fans!

A friend of mine sent me a newspaper clipping

Abby’s still exploring the globe

ABBY’S STILL EXPLORING THE GLOBE

By André Bakkes (@andrebakkes)

2014-10-29 00:00

Abby chills in the Antarctic sun.

(which I also happened to find on the internet for you guys to have a look at:

http://www.tygerburger.co.za/articles/articledetails.aspx?mode=news&id=201241)

with some news of my adventures!!  Seems people are interested in all the folks I've been visiting.  Yay!

Keep checking back with me, you never know what you're going to read!
Have a great week Sea Fans!

Cheers
Abby
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Pipe cleaner penguins

Hi Sea Fans!

For those of you who were looking for a previous post that was removed, here are the instructions again for making the pipe cleaner penguins (you can use pipe cleaners or chenille sticks, your choice):

PENGUIN

1. Use 1 orange, 1 black and 1 white chenille stick (CS)

2. Wind the black CS around a pen 5 times, leaving a short straight piece at the end for the wings (if you'd like, you can wind the entire CS and use a separate one for the wings)

3. Cut the straight piece off and bend it in half for wings.

4. Bend each side around your finger to make a loop and twist the ends around the middle to attach. 

5. Push these wings into the coil made earlier about 1/4 of the way down (about 2 twirls)...all the way through to the other side so that they stay in place.

6. Cut a white piece of CS and bend in half.

7. Bend both ends over slightly so that they can hook onto the twirls of the black coil made earlier (at the bottom and just below the first or second twirl to leave space for a beak).

8. Put aside and make the feet with an orange CS.  Bend the end of the orange CS in 3 waves as shown, 

squeeze them together as shown and you have your first foot (curling the end around the base of the foot will hold it in place).

9.  About 1 cm away from the foot, bend the CS and form the second foot about 1cm from that as shown:

10. Twist the end around the second foot so that it can be bent upward from the middle of the feet and put this end into the bottom of the penguin so that the tip pokes out underneath the first twirl of the black coil body (leaving space for eyes) as shown:

11. When the feet are in the correct place at the bottom, bend the beak as shown and trim any excess.

12. Glue on eyes and you have a penguin!

Hope you have fun with these!

Till next time.

Cheers

Abby

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Junior diving

Hi Everyone!

I was asked the other day how old you need to be to dive.  Well, here's the long answer:

PADI - 8 years old+ - Skin diver

          - 8 years+ - There's a Bubblemaker course where you learn about and use scuba diving equipment and you get to take your first breath underwater.

         - 8 years+ - Seal Team is a course that can be taken to get an introduction to wreck, navigation, buoyancy, underwater photography, environmental awareness and more. Once you've learnt more, you get to go on Aqua Missions using your new skills.

         - 10 - 14 yrs - Junior Open Water: this certifies you as a diver but with age-related restrictions.

         - 12 - 14 yrs (all these have age-related restrictions)

                              - Junior Advanced Open Water

                              - Junior Rescue Diver

                              - Junior Master Scuba Diver

For more info, check out www.padi.com

NAUI - 5 years+ - Snorkelling for Kids of All Ages - no certification

           - 8 years+ - Junior Skin Diver

           - 10 years+ - Junior Scuba Diver

           - 12 years+ - Junior Advanced Scuba

          - 15 years+ - Master Scuba Diver

For more info, check out www.naui.org

Hope this helps. 

Cheers

Abby 

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What barks but lives in the sea?

Hi Sea Fans!

Having visited with some seals lately, I feel a little homesick. It reminded me of an amazing dive I did in in Plettenberg Bay on the South African east coast. 

Cape fur seals (Copyright Hans Hillewaert)

The visibility was bad (I reckon 2 metres, but my dive buddy reckons 3 or 4m), we were being pushed around by a surge in shallow water, it was freezing cold (15°C is not my kind of temperature for diving) and the instructor said that usually there are more seals, but hey - we had fun!  They're such curious, cute animals.  We only spent about 15 minutes with them, but it was great. You really appreciate nature when you're up close to animals (not too close mind you!).  I'm so used to seeing them in the aquarium and if I see them in the wild, I'm usually on a boat, but under water...they're quite magical. 

Did you know that the male Cape Fur Seal is the largest of all the fur seals?!  They reach 2 - 2.3 metres and weigh 200 - 360 kg!!  The Cape Fur Seals are found along the coasts of South Africa and Namibia and are not migratory, but will move within their range.  Their diet varies with the seasons, but some of their favourites are maasbanker (pronounced: maahs-bunker), pilchards, hake, squid and cuttlefish.  At the aquarium, the seals get a variety of fish and squid, also depending on the season.  Sometimes I think I should have been an animal in the aquarium, their lunches are often better than mine!  Well, I guess it's off to eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch then.

Have a great November, Sea Fans, and I'll chat to you soon.

Cheers!

Abby

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Interesting and weird creatures

Hi Sea Fans!

On my travels I get to see so many beautiful and amazing sea creatures. Two of the more unusual fish that I'd like to tell you about are the Lancer Dragonet and the Longlure Frogfish.

Lancer dragonet (Photo: JE Randall)

The Dragonet is very well camouflaged, as you can see in the picture, but the male is actually quite pretty (see http://thelivingsea.com/underwater/photos/0803201908410043/Lancer-Dragonet-Mating-Dance-(Paradiplogrammus-bairdi).html for a better picture) .- he uses his fins to attract females as well as keep other males away.  The prettier Mandarinfish (also a dragonet) is a very well-known aquarium fish because of its beautiful colours.

Mandarin fish(Photo: Luc Viatour / www.Lucnix.be)

One of the first dragonets I saw, other than the Mandarin fish, was in South Africa.  We weren't quite sure what it was at first, but when we pulled out the handy Fish ID book, we soon found out that we had found an amazing creature.  We didn't keep it though, we returned it back to where it came from in the sea because we didn't know what to feed it and how best to house it at the time.  That's one of the worst things you can do: get an animal and THEN think about the food and housing requirements.  It's the same when you get a pet, you can't just go and buy a dog without thinking about where it's going to sleep, what kind of food it will need and how much the food, vet bills and other extras will cost.  An animal needs to be taken care of properly and that is why you need to find out more about your animal before you decide to keep it.  Please keep that in mind the next time you go pet shopping, Sea Fans!

Commerson's frogfish.

The Frogfish is even more weird looking!  Very cute though, in an ugly sort of way.  It can also camouflage itself very well...on sponges.  This little guy has an interesting appendage - have a look at the picture below and you'll see the thing poking out of his head.  This is what is used to lure little fish closer so that they can be eaten.  It's like a fishing rod with a piece of bait at the end, but the piece at the end is actually attached to the frogfish.  The little fish doesn't know what's hit it when the frogfish strikes!

Longlure frogfish (www.fishdb.co.uk)

So that's my 2 cents worth for this week Sea Fans.  I hope you have a great week.  Drop me a comment on this blog if you'd like to know anything or just to say hi.

Bye!

Abby

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Crayfish or isopod?

Hi Sea Fans!

I had the opportunity to walk around the rock pools a while ago with some kids.  What fun!  When last did you go searching the rock pools for interesting little creatures?  I haven't been in a while because I've been so busy, but the memories of that visit made me want to make more of an effort to get out there.  We found all sorts of things: starfish/sea stars, anemones, mussel shells, crab moults (the outer skeleton that the crab sheds and then it develops a new outer skeleton by hardening the soft layer underneath), barnacles and even an octopus - what a treat! 

One thing that had us confused was something that looked like a baby crayfish.  The kids got so excited.  At closer inspection, we found that it was in fact an isopod.  Isopods are also crustaceans like the crab, crayfish and shrimp, and are found in virtually all marine habitats from the intertidal to the deepest oceans.  The tail-fan of the isopod is what made us think the little creature was a baby crayfish.  (Have a look at the tail-fan of the giant marine isopod below.)

Giant marine isopod that is often displayed in aquariums. (Photo: http://opencage.info/pics/)

Over 270 species occur in southern Africa.  Now isn't that amazing.  Some marine biologists study animals just to be able to classify them so that we can know which animal is which.  Sometimes there is only a very small difference between two animals, but then they are put into different categories (family, phylum, sub-phylum etc).  Fascinating stuff!

For those of you who would like to treat yourselves and see even more animals at the rock pools, find out when the next New Moon or Full Moon is.  Spring tides, which are extra high high tides and extra low low tides, occur shortly after the New Moon and Full Moon.  This is when you can see even more animals because more of the rocks will be exposed at the low tide.  Check out the following link for a cartoon explanation of spring and neap tides:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/tides/media/supp_tide06a.html

In other words, when the sun, earth and moon all line up, all the water bodies on earth (including lakes) are pulled away from the earth so that they bulge more than normal, causing the higher high tides and lower low tides that we call Spring Tides or Springs.

Enjoy discovering your rock pools Sea Fans and chat to you soon.

Bye!

Abby

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Ocean Camp

Hi Sea Fans!

Just a quick one today...I was at Ocean Camp in Gulf Shores Alabama!

It was such a quick visit, but I got there at an important time: There was an art show where kids entered t-shirt entries in art design with a dolphin, the Ocean Camp mascot and frequent visitors to Gulf waters.   

Me with Caroline - the 2nd place winner.

The winning entries!

A very cool idea!  Thanks for having me Ocean Camp and Belinda.

Have a great week Sea Fans!

Cheers

Abby

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