Month: January 2020

I could tell you about the amazing adaptations they have (the camouflage for example doesn’t only include the beautiful carpet sharks like the wobbegong or the whale shark, all with decorative patterns on the skin, but even the great white when you consider the white belly and darker back so that when looked at from above or below you easily lose them), or the fact that their skin is actually made of tiny teeth- dermal denticles (so that as they swim, each little tooth creates its own vortex, therefore reducing drag as they cut through the water), or the fact that the majority of shark species have a brain as complex as that of mammals. Plus not only do they use the same five senses that we use, in addition they also sense electrical currents which helps them locate prey as well as orientate themselves using the earths geomagnetic field and they sense pressure changes. They have something called a  lateral line- a small row of pores running the length of their body. As water flows through the pores sensory cells calculate pressure change. It gives the sharks spatial awareness, the ability to navigate and to create a pressure map of the area around them.

The only downside I can see to their incredible senses is that when they use ‘touch’ they don’t have hands, so instead use their teeth, which contain pressure sensitive nerves. A little tester nip to a shark can sometimes be fatal to a human or unpleasant at the very least! It’s why a second bite is very uncommon however, as we aren’t their intended meal and don’t taste particularly good to them!

That brings us to their teeth- sharks have rows of teeth which they replace every two weeks. For some species this means they will shed about 30,000 in their lifetime. They aren’t all the same, scary teeth everyone pictures either, their teeth are adapted to their diet. This means flat crushing teeth for those eating shellfish. Pointed teeth for gripping fish. And sharp serrated teeth for larger prey, such as seals.

You can learn so much from looking at sharks. The shape of their fins for example (particularly dorsal fin) which indicates speed and lifestyle, and even their mood.

Some people think that sharks have to always be on the move or risk drowning- true for some but not all. Swimming forward, water is driven in through the mouth and pushed out over the gills where they absorb the oxygen. Some species of shark however are able to suck the water into the mouth and squeeze it over the gills while laying stationary.

Sharks are also sometimes believed to be cold-blooded, hence the ‘cold blooded killer’ title. While some are cold blooded, however, others are not. The great white is actually as much as 10’C warmer than the surrounding water due to a network of tiny capillaries which act as a heat exchange system, keeping the muscles warm making them far more efficient predators.

Ok, I know I’m going too far now. Unless you’re a shark ‘fin’atic (sorry!) then you probably didn’t need to know all this, but, truthfully, I hope that the more people who learn just how incredible, how misunderstood and how beautifully evolved and adapted these creatures are, the less people will fear and dislike them – avoiding news like the headline ‘Killer Sharks Swimming To Our Shores’ which drove Greg into a rant in this video:

Despite surviving 5 mass extinctions, many shark species are threatened with extinction once again today. It’s all down to human activity which has led to sharks becoming one of the most threatened groups of animals on the planet. You look at the huge rate of over-fishing and the demand for things like shark fin soup. Even as that slowly declines the demand for shark meat increases. Plus Chinese medicine want shark teeth, shark liver oil is used in cosmetics, their cartilage is a health supplement and their jaws are sought after ornaments. Every year tens of millions of sharks are caught and it greatly harms not just the shark population but the marine ecosystems they are such an important part of.

Add to that the fact that sharks are slow growing. Taking things to the extreme is the Greenland shark, it can live for 400 years and doesn’t reach sexual maturity till the age of 150. Many are caught before they’ve ever reproduced, and reproduction is not quick for sharks either! Shark pregnancy averages between about 9-12 months, but it can be as long as 31 months. They don’t produce many young and often rest a few years between reproducing.

I don’t want to preach to those that don’t wish to hear it, but I hope to spread the word to those capable of caring in the hopes of making a difference to these incredible creatures that should be admired rather than killed.

Anyway, this is a travel blog, so on to our adventure…

The intention was to dive with bull sharks while in Mexico. You must be careful with this for a few reasons. The first is that it has become relatively popular in Mexico and some companies use food to encourage the sharks into the area they wish to swim in, even though this area is not safe from shark fishing, thus putting the sharks at great risk. The second is that the bull shark is not only the shark famous for being able to swim in fresh as well as salt water (specially adapted gills), but also for having the highest amount of testosterone, meaning that it is naturally the most aggressive of shark species. Bull sharks, tiger sharks and, largely due to mistaken identity when hunting, the great white, are the only sharks that make me especially nervous. So, of course, I was crazy enough to want to swim with them.

Greg’s perforated eardrum (which you’ll have hopefully read about in part 1 of this post HERE) put a stop to this plan. I was disappointed till we discovered what else we could swim with instead.

When doing my initial research I had found out that Mexico is a good place for swimming with whale sharks… in July and August. This didn’t work for us as we were going in February-March for the grey whales in Magdalena Bay (see HERE). When we started looking at what we could do instead of diving around La Paz, however, we found a snorkel tour where you can swim with not just whale sharks but sea lions too!

I like a lot of different shark species but I must say, whale sharks are one of my favourites.

As I mentioned earlier, they are the largest non-mammalian vertebrate alive today. They are certainly the biggest fish in the sea. Their life span is estimated between 70-150 years.

They are migratory animals, they like warm water and will follow their food source. Like other sharks, they have a mouth full of teeth, about 3,000 to be exact, all in a mouth that can be between 4-5 feet wide. They don’t use these little teeth to feed though, they are one of only three species of filter feeding shark (the other two being the megamouth and the basking shark) and have gill-rakers (long, comb like structures on their gills) to trap and filter krill, crab larvae, jellyfish etc.

To be honest, they are probably one of my favourites because they are gentle giants and so beautiful. Their skin is a beautiful blue/ grey and decorated (carpet shark, remember) with bright white speckles. These speckles seem to glow against the blue background and are as individual as a humans fingerprints. They are stunning.

The trip itself was with Karla from MexPlore and I highly recommend it. It has three parts, they take you to a location where the whale sharks are feeding and get you close enough to swim with them. You are then taken to the sea lion colony where you can swim with them and admire the beautiful corals and parrot fish there. Lastly they take you to a gorgeous Sandy bay where they set up a picnic for you to enjoy before taking you back to the harbour where the tour began.

I mentioned earlier that you have to be careful when booking the Bull shark dive as some companies encourage the sharks into areas where they are not safe. To be honest, for any experience where you come into close proximity or contact with animals, please do your research first – for both your safety and theirs! I have even found some instances where a place is claiming to be a sanctuary, but they are still training animals (think Elephants, big cats and whales and dolphins) and treating them appallingly to do so  – and those are just the ones I’ve found. The worst places have no problem with lying about their activities, so dig as deep as you can before booking anything.

Especially when coming into contact with wild animals you should be an observer and not interact, unless the animal instigates it – and even then it should be done cautiously.

That’s why I was pleased when Karla used our boat ride out of the harbour not only to kit us up (wetsuit, fins, snorkel if you didn’t have your own), but also to give us some general information about whale sharks and to go through some rules with us about not getting too close and certainly not touching the sharks. The area of the bay is also strictly controlled, only so many boats out there at a time and only so many people are allowed in the water with the sharks at once. Only five people in the water per boat, that sort of thing. It stops us from overwhelming the sharks, amongst other things.

Sliding off the boat and into the water, my first glimpse of those beautiful spots and then the size of her enormous tail as she swam past me, that distinctive shark tail… left me breathless.

I quickly recovered and started to swim alongside her, making sure I was at least the instructed distance away. Her movements were graceful and unhurried but she was apparently a ‘quick’ one. Greg and I could keep pace, but the other two in our party were not swimmers. Karla called us back to the boat to locate a slower moving shark. We did this relatively quickly and off we went into the water again.

This next shark actually started vertical feeding!

Whale sharks have three methods of feeding:

The first is passive- swimming slowly with mouth open to get the plankton. This is most common and what we saw most of.

The second is vertical feed- where they stay almost motionless and use a suction method to pull in the food.

The third is active or ram-filter-feeding where they suck the water in as they swim to filter feed it at higher velocities.

Watching them do the things I had heard about was fantastic. We were so absorbed watching this shark feed, we failed to notice another one swimming towards us till it collided with us. It actually happened to us twice!

The sharks mouths are unusual in that they are on the front of their face rather than beneath like most sharks. The position of their eyes, to the sides, also means they can’t see anything in front of them. We were in their blind spot and they were in ours. On the first occasion Greg and I both felt the impact but were quick to swim back, trying to get out of her way. On the second occasion she bumped into Greg who was quick to alert us so the other swimmer and I could move before the shark caught us too. We both agreed afterwards that you can feel the strength in the sharks, they are moving slowly, drifting and feeding and yet when they collide with us you can feel the size and strength of them. The fact it didn’t hurt, they really are gentle giants.

The sharks seemed as surprised at the collisions as we were yet they didn’t panic, like us they just tried to adjust course to get past us. You should never try to touch them, in fact you should try very hard not to touch them, it’s not natural for them, but I was pleased that the experience didn’t cause us or the shark any harm. How could anyone want to harm such an amazing creature. The fact that some people do, it baffles me.

When we went on our honeymoon, we didn’t know we would be filming a documentary or that it would start us on the documentary making path. It was just our incredible honeymoon. Greg filmed the experience for a while and then returned the camera to the boat.

We then swam hand in hand, keeping pace with this fantastic fish. She knew we were there and she didn’t mind. We kept a reasonable distance but kept pace with her for quite a long time. It was something I want to return to Mexico to do again. It was incredible.

I could have happily spent all day swimming beside those sharks. But it was time to move on to the sea lion colony.

Sea lions are Pinnipeds – carnivorous, fin footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. Sea lions are the ones with the visible, external ear flaps and can actually move well on all fours.

Again we had the safety and rules briefing. While sea lions are not normally aggressive to humans, incidents are not unheard of. The males often stay on their rocks, but if you approach the males on the rocks you’re invading their territory and they don’t look on that kindly. The males are a lot bigger, stronger, more agile not to mention faster in the water than us and have a powerful bite with sharp teeth.

Being respectful of the creatures and the environment around us sounds so obvious but you’d be surprised by how many people seem to think everything around them was put their purely for their own amusement and that they are entitled to do what they want, when they want.

Once in the water, the female sea lions turned into water puppies. They were everywhere. Dashing around, above, beneath us. Floating upside down having a good look at us. It became a bit of a game, diving down, spinning around, they would almost mimic us. Where the sharks had been majestic, full of grace and beauty, the sea lions were boisterous, inquisitive and playful. I was so careful to try to tuck arms and feet in so as not to accidentally bop one but looking back at our footage, there was no danger of that. They were in control in that water, coming only as close as they wanted. I couldn’t have touched one without it’s wanting me to even if I had tried. (Which you never should!)

The smell of the area isn’t pleasant, at one point my snorkel clearing wasn’t good enough and I got a mouth full of… I don’t even want to think about it. Yuck! But overall it was such an amazing experience, just the kind of interaction I want. You should never chase an animal down, forcing it to interact with you. It should always be on their terms.

The whales in Magdalena choose if they want to surface beside a boat to say hello. The sharks here had the ability to swim away at speed if they didn’t like us being near them. The sea lions can certainly either swim quickly away or return to their rocks if they don’t want to be near us. In each place, these animals were fine with our presence and some even chose to play and interact with us. It makes the experience special and meaningful.

The thought of marine parks (I’m not going to open that can of worms here but I highly recommend everyone watch the BlackFish film documentary!), where animals are badly treated and forced to perform and interact with us when it’s not what they want, it’s beyond terrible.

Watching Greg spinning underwater and having two inquisitive sea lions swimming around him, the beautiful reef behind him and the sound of the nibbling parrot fish in my ears… memories I will treasure forever.

Again, I could have stayed with the sea lions all day but other people’s tummy’s were rumbling. Another quick ride on the boat took us to our final destination.

The sandy bay with its warm, shallow, clear water, warm gold sand and a quickly erected table and vegetarian friendly (on request) wraps, salad and crisps with a selection of soft drinks… what a lovely way to end an incredible experience. It was the last day of our honeymoon and what an incredible way to end it.

SCUBA and Cenotes

A post by Lady Felicity

A post by Lady Felicity

After a quick practise (despite what Greg tries to make out in the video, ‘Turkey – Fairy Chimneys and Underground Cities, available on the links at the end of this post)‘ on their test track I was confident enough to give the tour a go, so long as Greg and our guide didn’t mind my cautious approach.

Our tour lasted two hours and included a visit to the areas main valleys: Rose Valley, Girls Monastery, Red Valley, Swords Valley and Love Valley. At each of these valleys we would park up and hop off of our ATV’s for a quick look around and a picture or two before carrying on to the next one.

Each valley was special and distinctive in its own way, whether for the colour of the stone or the shape of the chimneys. All of them were beautiful.

As the tour went on I gained in confidence enough that our guide took us on a few bumpy, hilly, fun paths, much to Greg’s relief. Greg wanted to play and by the end, play we did!

While Greg wanted and enjoyed the bumpy, twisting, hilly paths when on an ATV, he was less keen on them when on a horse. Greg and I are not experienced horse riders by any stretch of the imagination – you can count the amount of times we’ve ridden horses on one hand – and still have a few fingers spare.

The horse riding tour offers views which you cannot see in any other tour because the places they take you are only reachable by horse. This is why some companies will not take you unless you have some riding experience.

When we booked our tour, we explained our inexperienced position to the owner of Moonlight Horse Ranch and he reassured us that we would be in safe hands, that he would show us how to ride the horse and, like the ATV’s, his horses are practically automatic.

Upon arrival at the ranch we donned our helmets, mounted our horses (the stunning, eager Cappadocian Caradot in my case and the stubborn Arabian beauty, Caramello in Greg’s), he explained the basic commands and off we went with our guide.

This tour also lasted for about two hours with a short rest stop in the middle. That rest stop was in the middle of nowhere… a nowhere that was an incredible journey to reach.

At times we were on flat or gently sloping tracks, enjoying the fairy chimney and valley views around us (when Greg’s horse wasn’t planting its feet and completely ignoring his words and nudges of encouragement!), while at others we were completely focused on our horses and the incredibly steep inclines or, worse, declines in front of us. Often with a cliff edge on one or both sides of us. I’d never seen a horse’s back legs resemble a frog’s before, but I have now. Watching the guide’s horse jump in that manner to ascend a steep incline and knowing mine was next was one thing, but when it came to the declines I quickly learned that I didn’t want to even look at his horse, didn’t want to see the crumbly, dusty floor which made the horses look as though they were stumbling and slipping as they descended.

When we reached the rest stop I suspect Greg and I were more in need of the rest than the horses were! Perhaps Caremello wasn’t just being stubborn so much as knowing what was coming and wanting no part in it!

Considering the rest stop was in the middle of nowhere and accessible only by horse, it was all remarkably civilised. A fresh fruit juice bar station, canopy covered seating, a blanketed, cosy cave room and, up some frankly disastrous looking steps (May once have been a wooden ladder but when it’s got that much glue and that many nails at odd angles trying to hold it together, I’m reluctant to call it even that!), a cave church with beautifully preserved, colourful frescos.

Greg was so shaken, he opted not to test the steps or his knees, and left me to explore the church while he sampled some juice and enjoyed the fantastic view across the valley.

While at the rest stop, another group of riders joined our small party of three. While some were experienced riders and were exhilarated and loving the views, one couple were as inexperienced as us and quite frankly terrified. The poor lady didn’t want to get back on her horse, she just wanted to stop. Her guide was reassuring, explaining the steepest parts were now over but also had to point out that the horse is the only way out of there, much to the lady’s dismay.

I had thought that Greg and I were afraid but not like this. While we were truly frightened at times we were still giggling rather than crying. Excited as well as scared. Enjoying the incredible views and experience even though it made us gasp in my case and sound like a religious sailor at times in Greg’s. If we had known what it would be like beforehand, we may not have been brave enough to do it and that would have been an incredible shame. It was an amazing, terrifying, exhilarating, extraordinary experience and, having both survived it injury free, I’m so very glad we did it.

If you have never been on a horse and have a real fear of heights, just don’t do this one. It’s not for you. Stick to the ATV and unless the fear of heights means you struggle in tall buildings, try the balloon too. Both are excellent and purely enjoyable.

If you are fine on a horse, however, this is an experience not to be missed.

If you’re like us and inexperienced but want to give it a try, do it but don’t be surprised when you break out in a cold sweat or question your sanity for doing it!

At the end of the day, remember that the horse doesn’t want to fall over the cliff either and they tread this path regularly, they know what they are doing. So long as you don’t fall off the horse, you’ll be perfectly fine and have a chance to see some stunning views and have an experience like no other.
I’m less sure if Greg’s legs (or Caremello!) would let him but I would certainly be willing to do it again.

The Fairy Chimneys are incredible and however you wish to explore them, I doubt you’d be disappointed. We certainly weren’t. Just fantastic.

Thank you for reading, and safe travels.

Felicity

A post by Lady Felicity

Another adventure and another chance to try something from my ‘bucket list’.

Thank you for reading, and safe travels.

Felicity

I can distinctly remember being in my childhood home and sitting down to watch a film with my father and older brother one evening – we’re going back nearly thirty years here. We’d watched all of the James Bond films to date (an era pre-Brosnan, let alone Daniel Craig), and I had enjoyed them, but they were never to be one of my favourites when it came to films.

That night we were going to watch a film called ‘Raiders of The Lost Ark’, which was apparently the first film featuring a character named ‘Indiana Jones’. I didn’t know it at the time, but sitting down to watch that film was going to be a life changing experience, and one which gave me a dream in life, one that would take nearly three decades, and Felicity, to fulfil!

As soon as the opening shot appeared of a mysterious figure in a fedora in a South American jungle, I was hooked on the idea of adventure. As his story unfolded over three films (the fourth would not come out until much, much later in my life of course) I watched a world of history, adventure and travel unfold before me. The only other film that reaches these heights in this way for me (and is, arguably, a better film), is ‘The Mummy’ with Brendan Fraser – which I won’t go too deeply in to at this point or Felicity will bring up the fact that I will watch anything with Rachel Weisz in it. That film, released when I was fourteen felt like part of the storytelling journey that had begun for me with ‘Raiders’, an adventure story which continued to inspire me.

It was these films that started me on my interest in history, and sparked the beginning of my history shows. They were also part of the reason why I leapt at the chance in 2007 to head over to Italy, where I would spend most of seven years travelling around the country performing. The first time I went to Venice in 2008, travelling overnight on a train from Turin to get there, it was Indiana Jones visiting the city in ‘The Last Crusade’ which had inspired my journey.

That, however, is the past and a world of fiction. This blog is about our adventures in the real world!

When we sat down to plan our honeymoon, we decided on Mexico because it was a country where Felicity could visit the whales of Magdalena Bay, and I could visit some jungle ruins. My imagination conjured up that opening scene of ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ from a faraway childhood memory, and that was what I was hoping for (hence Mexico: Mayan Mystery and Marine Majesty as the title of our video!).

You may have already read about our first ruin in Teotihuacan in an earlier post, and at some point I will get around to writing about El Tajin and Uxmal. All of these were incredible sites in their own ways, and it felt through those three as though we were edging ever closer to my ‘real jungle ruin’, but each one of them just missed it.

Then we arrived at the Mayan city of Palenque.

As we pulled up in the car-park, intending to head straight into the main site to see the ruins as they have been uncovered, we met the gentleman in the photo above, Marco. He introduced himself as a guide, and offered us a guided tour into the jungles outside of the main site. He was friendly and not pushy, and after he had explained what he could offer, he left us alone to discuss it.

It was only a short discussion – we were very keen to experience something a bit different, and the price was very fair – and so we set off with him out into the jungles. A few minutes in we discovered what could have been a minor problem – in the form of a slight language barrier. Luckily we discovered the problem and the solution at the same moment.

As we first made our way into the jungle we were introducing ourselves, and in some way a mention of Italy or Italian made me mention that I speak the language. At this point in time Marco seemed to relax and, switching to Italian, explained that he was fluent in Italian while his English was basic. In Italian we could relax, chat and ask questions, and suddenly I became Felicity’s translator for the tour. It was strange to be in Mexico speaking a foreign language, but one that was so familiar to me, having been struggling thus far with what wouldn’t even pass for ‘schoolboy Spanish’.

There is a lot of mystery about the Ancient Mayan people, and one mystery involves why there was a mass departure from their large cities. In Palenque, however, their reasons for leaving were probably as simple, and recognisable to us, as climate change.

This jungle, Marco informed us, had been cut back as the people expanded their city from its origins around 266BCE. This led to climate change, and the area became a desert, without enough rainfall to grow crops and feed the ever increasing population, until the city was finally abandoned some time during the 9th Century CE. After the people were forced away by this lack of water, however, the jungle began to take back control and spread back over the ruins until they were once again engulfed the city, and water returned to the area, where now a small river runs through the jungle, and a host of wildlife has returned including monkeys – which are beautiful to see, but don’t stand beneath them in case they need a ‘bathroom break’.

Out here in the jungle, as well as watching out for monkeys, we were seeing the ruins as they had first been found. We were pleased to hear that, with all the wildlife in the jungle, that the trees are now protected. What has been uncovered of the ruins (which, we were informed, is a mere 5% of the whole city) are now preserved as an archaeological zone, while everything left in the jungle remains overgrown.

Nearly every step you took you could see, buried beneath hundreds of years of tree growth, remains of Mayan houses, temples, and other buildings. We were off the beaten track – literally, a lot of the time – and when we paused we could hear nothing but the sounds of the jungle – monkeys in the trees, a river flowing and birds singing. There was no sign that we were within a mile of ‘civilisation’, and all of a sudden we were living a dream. We were in a jungle, finding ruins everywhere – and even making our way through some of the ruins – and I was having the type of adventure which I had only imagined while watching Indiana Jones. All that was missing was a bullwhip (although I did buy a couple of these to add to my show kit while we were on Isla Mujeres later in our journey).

In my next blog post I will delve deeper into the site itself, and its discovery. This post, however, is about achieving a childhood dream. I must note, I also watched Tarzan as a boy, and Palenque did give he a chance to play at being Tarzan – but for that, you’ll have to watch the video HERE!

P.S.

If you enjoyed this blog post, please leave a comment and say ‘hello’!

Free in the USA on Tubi TV at:

https://tubitv.com/movies/678018/seeking-cetaceans-in-scotland