Wednesday, October 31, 2012
HMS Bounty - Tallships
HMS Bounty...at one with the sea...global voyager...movie star...dedicated to preserving the fine art of square-rigged sailing.
The HMS Bounty is one of the most famous ships in the world. Known for the storied mutiny that took place in Tahiti in 1789 on board the British transport vessel, the current Bounty, a replica, has survived to tell the tale. Built for the 1962 movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Marlon Brando, HMS Bounty sails the country offering dockside tours in which one can learn about the history and details of sailing vessels from a lost and romanticized time in maritime history. Since her debut in “Mutiny on the Bounty”, HMS Bounty has appeared in many documentaries and featured films such as the Edinburgh Trader in Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest with Johnny Depp.
UPDATED NEWS!!!!!!!! We received a distress call for Bounty at 1830 Sunday evening October 28th that the Ship lost power and the pumps were unable to keep up with the dewatering. At that time we immediately contacted the USCG for assistance. A C130 was sent to there position approximately 90 miles SE of Cape Hatteras. Sunday morning approximately 0400, the Captain ordered all hands to abandon ship. There were 16 Crew on board. The USCG dispatched helicopters to rescue the brave crew. At this time, 14 of the 16 crew members have been safely returned to land and are in good health. We are saddened to report that there is still one crew member missing and one crew member that did not make it. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of the crew member that is no longer with us. The USCG is continuing their efforts to search for the missing crew member and we are praying for a safe return. Please keep them in your prayers! We will keep everyone informed as info becomes available.
We apologize for the site being down. The large flow of traffic caused technical problems, which caused the down time.
The HMS Bounty is one of the most famous ships in the world. Known for the storied mutiny that took place in Tahiti in 1789 on board the British transport vessel, the current Bounty, a replica, has survived to tell the tale. Built for the 1962 movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Marlon Brando, HMS Bounty sails the country offering dockside tours in which one can learn about the history and details of sailing vessels from a lost and romanticized time in maritime history. Since her debut in “Mutiny on the Bounty”, HMS Bounty has appeared in many documentaries and featured films such as the Edinburgh Trader in Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest with Johnny Depp.
UPDATED NEWS!!!!!!!! We received a distress call for Bounty at 1830 Sunday evening October 28th that the Ship lost power and the pumps were unable to keep up with the dewatering. At that time we immediately contacted the USCG for assistance. A C130 was sent to there position approximately 90 miles SE of Cape Hatteras. Sunday morning approximately 0400, the Captain ordered all hands to abandon ship. There were 16 Crew on board. The USCG dispatched helicopters to rescue the brave crew. At this time, 14 of the 16 crew members have been safely returned to land and are in good health. We are saddened to report that there is still one crew member missing and one crew member that did not make it. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of the crew member that is no longer with us. The USCG is continuing their efforts to search for the missing crew member and we are praying for a safe return. Please keep them in your prayers! We will keep everyone informed as info becomes available.
We apologize for the site being down. The large flow of traffic caused technical problems, which caused the down time.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Still Waters Of The Fundy
I took this photo this afternoon and the Bay was calm with dark skies above with drizzle and rain falling all day. Two days of rain ahead but mild temp .
Tragedy on the Bounty
UPDATED 8:10 a.m. Searchers have found no sign yet of missing Capt. Robin Walbridge, the last of the 16 people who were aboard HMS Bounty before it went down Monday in hurricane Sandy off the eastern U.S. coast.
"I haven't received any information as of yet," Petty Officer 3rd Class David Weydert, spokesman for Fifth Coast Guard District in Portsmouth, Va., said early Tuesday morning when asked if searchers had found a life-jacket or anything belonging to the missing man.
"Hopefully he's still wearing his life-jacket."
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Elm and a HC-144 Ocean Sentry medium range aircraft scoured the waters by air and by sea Monday night and into Tuesday morning for Walbridge.
"At first light, it (the plane) is going to be returning to base and a HC-130 aircraft, which is a four-engine high-range aircraft, is going to take over the search," Weydert said.
He didn't yet know the size of the search area, but said the cutter crew and plane flying overhead would've been following a search pattern that got larger and larger as time passed.
One crew member of the tall ship HMS Bounty died in a North Carolina hospital Monday night and while the fate of the vessel’s missing captain is still in doubt, 14 others were alive and safe after a dramatic ocean rescue during hurricane Sandy.
A helicopter crew searching the storm-lashed waters off North Carolina located crew member Claudene Christian and whisked her to hospital but she died at about 9:30 p.m. Atlantic time, said spokesman Patrick Detwiler of Albemarle Hospital in Elizabeth City, N.C.
“She was unresponsive when we located her," Petty Officer 1st Class Brandyn Hill of the U.S. Coast Guard command centre in Portsmouth, Va., said in an interview at about 7:15 p.m.
Coast guard helicopters and an HC-130 Hercules searched the roiling seas throughout the day for Christian and Bounty captain Walbridge, who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“At this time, we’re continuing our search efforts to try and locate him,” Hill said.
He said later Monday evening that the air search had been called off for the night due to poor visibility but would resume today. The coast guard cutter Elm had arrived and was to search for Walbridge throughout the night.
The Bounty’s crew of 16 had to abandon ship in the pre-dawn darkness Monday morning after the historic replica vessel began taking on water in extremely rough seas.
Monday evening, Hill said the Bounty was submerged but at least one of its masts was visible.
Christian, 42, was a former Miss Teen Alaska whose parents now live in Oklahoma. Her Twitter page says she joined the Bounty crew in May.
Walbridge, captain of the Bounty for more than 20 years, turned 63 last Thursday, the day the ship left New London, Conn., for its winter port in St. Petersburg.
Walbridge’s wife, Claudia McCann, told CBC News her husband was trying to skirt the hurricane.
Christian’s mother, also named Claudene Christian, of Vian, Okla., told CBC News her daughter contacted her before heading out on the voyage.
“She says, ‘We’re heading out and I just wanted to tell you and Dad that I love you.’ And I said, ‘What are you saying that for?’ And she said, ‘Just in case something happens.’ ” The younger Claudene Christian posted a photograph of herself on the deck of HMS Bounty on her Facebook site. She is a descendant of Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate who seized control of the original Bounty from Capt. William Bligh in 1789.
“I’m sure my ancestor would be proud,” Christian wrote on Facebook. “However, this time, there will be no Mutiny on the Bounty . . . at least not at the hands of me, a new generation of Christian family sailors.”
She was in Lunenburg this summer when HMS Bounty visited, and she met some of the men who built the vessel in 1960 at the Smith & Rhuland shipyard in Lunenburg.
The ordeal for the crew of the 54-metre, three-masted Bounty began Sunday night.
The ship contacted its New York owner, HMS Bounty Organization LLC, via satellite phone at 8:30 p.m. Sunday to say it was “trying to steer clear” of hurricane Sandy as it approached, Tracie Simonin, director of the Bounty organization, said in a telephone interview from New York on Monday morning.
But the Bounty started to take on water, Simonin said.
“One of our pumps was not working properly,” she said. “We just could not dewater it fast enough — water, normal sewage water that a boat of this entity takes on — and once the pumps stopped working, the generator stopped working. They just could not keep up.”
Simonin contacted the coast guard, and the rescue service in Portsmouth later received a distress signal from the Bounty. Its emergency beacon indicated its location, about 145 kilometres southeast of Hatteras, N.C., and about 250 kilometres west of the eye of the hurricane.
An HC-130 Hercules aircraft was dispatched to the scene to establish communications with the Bounty crew, Petty Officer 3rd Class David Weydert of the coast guard said Monday morning.
The Bounty was originally thought to be carrying 17 people, but the coast guard later said the manifest showed 16 aboard.
At about 5:30 or 6 a.m. Monday, “the crew told the coast guard that they were going to have to abandon the ship,” Weydert said.
“They all donned cold-water survival suits, life-jackets and boarded two 25-man lifeboats before launching away from the Bounty.”
The vessel and the canopied life-rafts were being tossed about in 5.5-metre waves and hit by winds of more than 60 kilometres an hour, he said. Visibility was about 1.5 kilometres, he added.
In the life-rafts, the Bounty crew had radios and some emergency communications equipment, Weydert said.
The first of two MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City arrived on the scene at about 7:30 a.m. Atlantic time. One lifeboat carried seven crew members and the other, about 1.5 kilometres away, carried six. One person floated alone in the water.
Survivors told coast guard officials that three of the crew were thrown overboard while they were getting into the liferafts. One man was able to swim to a life-raft but two others were pulled away.
Seconds after pilot Steve Bonn stabilized the Jayhawk helicopter, rescue swimmer Daniel Todd leapt into the raging ocean. He swam to the raft of six people, grabbed onto it and spoke to put all at ease.
“Hey, I’m Dan. How’s it going?” Todd said, according to the Virginian- Pilot newspaper.
Battling nine-metre waves, Todd began taking one person at a time from the life-raft to the rescue basket that flight mechanic Neil Moulder operated from above in the hovering helicopter.
“It was like swimming in a washing machine,” Todd, who was in the water 45 minutes, told the Virginian-Pilot. “Those were the biggest-sized waves I’ve ever been in and the most people I’ve hauled into the helo.”
With a cabin full of nine survivors, the helicopter headed home.
Another Jayhawk picked up the remaining four from a life-raft and the person in the water.
The 14 were flown to Elizabeth City, where paramedics checked them out.
Listed as rescued are: Daniel Cleveland, 25, John Svendsen, 41, Matthew Sanders, 37, Adam Prokosh, 27, Douglas Faunt, 66, John Jones, 29, Drew Salapatek, 29, Joshua Scornavacchi, 25, Anna Sprague, 20, Mark Warner, 33, Christopher Barksdale, 56, Laura Groves, 28, Jessica Hewitt, 25, and Jessica Black, 34.
A third helicopter and a Hercules began to search for Christian and Walbridge. One of the choppers involved in the earlier rescue also returned to the scene, Hill said.
Simonin said the crew members are from all over the U.S. and are trained, experienced and paid sailors. Most of them were in Nova Scotia when the ship visited during this summer’s tall ships festival, she added.
Walbridge has been with the Bounty for more than two decades and “knows that ship inside and out, which is why we have the utmost confidence in him during this time,” Simonin said.
Walbridge and the crew were aware of the weather and received updates from the National Weather Service every four hours, Simonin said. The administrator of an online HMS Bounty forum posted Friday that the ship was heading to Florida after spending some time in Connecticut with members of the U.S. navy on board.
“While we were there this week, we took out the crew of the USS Mississippi for a sailing lesson,” the post says. “They were part of our crew climbing the rigging and furling sails. It was great! Thank you for joining us.”
The Bounty was planning to avoid the storm by sailing east before heading south, says a Facebook post from Thursday. By Saturday, the ship reported it was 400 kilometres east of Chesapeake Bay, and a post said the captain expected to encounter bad weather that evening.
At 9:30 a.m. Monday, the forum administrator posted: “This is a sad day. The storm hit the ship pretty bad. One of the generators failed and the ship was taking on more water than it wanted. Distress call was sent out.”
The post went on to say: “To our wonderful Captain Robin: You did a great job and the very best that you could. Thank you for your efforts and keeping the crew safe. God bless you, sir.”
With files from Eva Hoare, Beverley Ware and Ian Fairclough, staff reporters
HMS BOUNTY
- Square-rigged, three-masted ship
- 55 metres
1960: built by Smith and Rhuland of Lunenburg
1960: launched from Lunenburg
1962: appears in 1962 Marlon Brando film Mutiny on the Bounty
1986: media mogul Ted Turner buys the ship
1993: Turner donates it to the Fall River Chamber of Commerce in Fall River, Mass.
2001: sold to Long Island businessman Robert Hansen
2001: ship takes on water, begins to sink at its berth in Fall River, Mass.
2001: Long Island-based HMS Bounty Organization buys the ship to use it for educational programs
2006: appears in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2006-07: ship undergoes extensive renovations
2010: ship reportedly listed for sale for more than US$4 million
Click here for more information on HMS Bounty and the original HMAV Bounty, commissioned in 1787.
Bounty in pictures | The Chronicle Herald
Bounty in pictures | The Chronicle Herald
Slideshow of the Bounty, that was so rich in Nova Scotia history, Just click on the link above.
Slideshow of the Bounty, that was so rich in Nova Scotia history, Just click on the link above.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Tracking Sandy
Cindy Day
Published Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 12:07PM ADT
Last Updated Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 12:43PM ADT
Published Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 12:07PM ADT
Last Updated Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 12:43PM ADT
Sandy is quite the storm! At 11 am, the eye of the category 1 hurricane is 480 km SSE of New York City. Over the weekend, the storm was tracking north-eastward and that made a lot of people here a little nervous. The anticipated turn to the NW has begun with a more westerly turn likely following landfall this evening.
Sandy’s impact on the Maritimes will be felt overnight and tomorrow. The winds are picking up now with gusts to 55 km/h being reported along Nova Scotia’s south shore.
I believe that Sandy’s biggest impact will be felt out a sea. Storm surge is expected to range from 4 to 6 m. Residents along Nova Scotia’s south shore and on either side of the Bay of Fundy should be vigilant at high tide. We have a full moon tonight, so our high tides will be more significant than usual.
Read more: http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/ctv-news-at-5/weather-blog/tracking-sandy-1.1015002#ixzz2Ai1DyPNA
Sandy's Power
Twitter and Instagram users are posting their shots of the storm surge and flooding that are occurring ahead of Hurricane Sandy on the U.S. eastern seaboard, including CBC's David Common on Coney Island. http://cbc.sh/sUDBgpV
.
At least 2 missing as Hurricane Sandy sinks HMS Bounty
16 crew members were in 2 life-rafts off North Carolina coast
CBC News
Posted: Oct 29, 2012 6:49 AM AT
Last Updated: Oct 29, 2012 11:00 AM AT
HMS Bounty abandoned in storm
At least two crew members of a Nova Scotia-built replica vessel are missing after abandoning ship off the coast of North Carolina in high seas brought on by Hurricane Sandy.
Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard told CBC News the 16-member crew of HMS Bounty decided to abandon ship after getting caught in 5.5-metre seas off Cape Hatteras on Monday.
All the crew members made it onto two covered life-rafts but only 14 people were hoisted onto helicopters, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Brendan Selerno. He said officials have not yet had the chance to debrief the 14 survivors to find out what happened to the two other crew members.
Selerno said the two missing crew members are believed to be in cold water survival suits and life-jackets. He said the air search is being plotted based on wind direction and speed, and will be expanded.
HMS Bounty sank several hours after the evacuation.
The Coast Guard was originally told 17 people were on the Bounty but only 16 heat signatures were detected. They now say 16 people were on board. The boat's owner says there were 17 people on board.
A U.S. Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter arrived on scene at approximately 6:30 a.m. and hoisted five people from the life-rafts. A second helicopter arrived and rescued nine more people.
Helicopter rescue mission
The U.S. Coast Guard was contacted on Sunday night after the ship began taking on water. A Hercules C-130 aircraft was dispatched to try to get the crew to safety.
"We had a C-130 on scene that was running out of fuel and experiencing a little crew fatigue, so we dispatched another C-130 to arrive on scene and relieve them," said Petty Officer 1st Class Jordan Campbell.
The Hercules C-130 remains on the scene in the search for the missing crew members. A third MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter is on the way to assist in the search effort, said the U.S. Coast Guard.
Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard said the winds in the area are sustained in the 75 km/h range.
Claudia McCann, whose husband is the captain of the Bounty, said she hadn't slept since she received word the ship was taking on water.
She said her husband, Captain Robin Walbridge, was trying to get around Hurricane Sandy en route to Florida.
"He was just trying to avoid it, skirt it. Skirt through it, skirt around it," McCann said Monday.
"I'm sure he's devastated. Absolutely devastated. But the crew comes first and you have to save the crew."
'Just in case something happens'
Claudene Christian, whose daughter Claudene is a crew member on the Bounty, said her daughter had contacted her before heading out on her journey.
"She says, 'We're heading out and I just wanted to tell you and dad that I love you.' And I said, 'What are you saying that for?' And she said, 'Just in case something happens,'" Christian said in a phone interview from Oklahoma.
"She was truly and genuinely happy and loved the Bounty and loved what she was doing — and wanted us to know that just in case she went down with the ship."
The replica of HMS Bounty, which launched in Lunenburg in 1960, was made famous in a 1962 movie starring Marlon Brando — Mutiny on the Bounty. It has also appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest starring Johnny Depp.
HMS Bounty operates as a sea school and was most recently in Halifax in July for the Tall Ships Festival.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Weathered by the Bay Shown on T.V.]
Wow what a awesome last Oct. day to go for a walk along the beach in Baxter's Harbour. This is where I stumbled across this piece of weathered driftwood. My the weather , storms and waves this must have seen .
My driftwood photo is being shown on the weather network today .
Friday, October 26, 2012
Christine Callaghan of Pirate's Cove Whale & Seabird Cruises photographed Old Thom about 12 km off Boar’s Head on Wednesday, Oct. 3.
Old Thom spotted off Boar’s Head, Long Island
- Topics :
- New England Aquarium , Bay of Fundy ,Long Island , Brier Island
The killer whale is still here.
Two whale watch boats from Long Island saw ‘Old Thom” yesterday, Wednesday, Oct. 3 about 12 km off Boars Head.
Judging by a distinctive notch on his dorsal fin, this is the same killer whale photographed breaching off Brier Island on Sept. 18 and featured on the cover of the Sept. 27 Digby County Courier.
[Related: Killer whale sighted off Brier Island ]
Christine Callaghan had never seen a killer whale in 11 years as a guide with Pirate's Cove Whale & Seabird Cruises of Tiverton.
On the way out Wednesday afternoon some passengers asked her if they might see the killer whale they’d all heard about on the news.
Callaghan told them she hadn’t heard of any more sightings for about a week.
Then she heard different. Whale watchers on the New Brunswick side of the Bay of Fundy were talking on the radio to researcher Moira Brown about a lone killer whale over that way.
Brown is a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium who has spent the last 28 years studying right whales.
She was on the water Wednesday looking for right whales when she heard about the orca and went to see.
She said it was a big surprise.
“You see something break the water and then this huge dorsal fin keeps coming up,” she said by phone from Campobello. “It’s so great to see the whale is doing okay, he’s not skinny so he’s obviously finding something to eat, he’s surviving in an area a little bit different from where you’d normally expect to see them.”
She says the greatest concentrations of killer whales are north of here, off Newfoundland, near Greenland and in the Davis Strait.
She says killer whales are a very social species
but not enough is known about any whales to guess why this one is seen so often alone.
She actually saw Old Thom before, in 2009 off Clark’s Harbour.
The same whale was seen near Brier Island in 2010, near Grand Manan in 2011 and off Brier Island on Sept. 18 this year.
Brown says they saw the whale about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and it was headed south across the Bay of Fundy.
Although Callaghan heard the conversation with Brown and the New Brunswick whale watchers on the radio, she didn’t want to raise her passengers’ hopes.
They spent the afternoon quite far out in the Bay and were coming home late after watching finbacks.
As they neared Long Island they heard from another whale watch boat, Ocean Explorations Zodiac Whale Cruises of Tiverton, that they were watching Old Thom.
Callaghan says because it was so calm and glassy they could see the dorsal fin from a long distance.
“It was all so quiet and calm, he was gliding along so smoothly, it was just beautiful,” said Callaghan of her first orca sighting.
“That’s the wonderful thing about going out there. You just never know what you’re going to see.”
jriley@digbycourier.ca
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Banded Agate
This is a piece of banded agate my daughter found on one of our hikes on the beach last week, beautiful !
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Starfish on the decline in Bay of Fundy
CTV Atlantic
Published Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 7:11PM ADT
Published Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 7:11PM ADT
There are growing concerns about the future of a rare and beautiful sea creature.
Staff at the Huntsman Aquarium in St. Andrews, N.B. say starfish are usually the star attraction at the touch tank, but their numbers are rapidly declining.
“You’ve got the temperature of the water, whether it’s a seasonal variation, is it something that happens every once in awhile,” says Jim Cornall of the Huntsman Aquarium.
Cornall says even the starfish that live at the aquarium aren’t as healthy as usual.
“It seems to be a bacteria called vibrio, which is always present in the water,” says Cornall. “It’s just in such high numbers right now, that it is causing the death of a lot of sea stars.”
Genny Simard, senior interpreter at the aquarium, says, with a decrease of star fish in the touch tank, it will mean a longer life for the other ocean species.
“We let mother nature do its thing in the touch tank,” says Simard.
“So a sea star is a predator and so some of the other animals might benefit from seeing less of them in the touch tank.”
Several of the star fish washing ashore are either dead or missing limbs. Aquarium staff say the limbs can normally grow back, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
“It’s very troubling,” says Simard. “Although we do know that sometimes you have natural cycles that occur in the wild, where animal populations can go up and down. So without further studies, it’s hard to know what the impact will be in the long term.”
Aquarium staff say they’re not the only ones noticing an issue with star fish; they have heard similar stories through their contacts with other aquariums around the world.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ashley Dunbar
Read more: http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/starfish-on-the-decline-in-bay-of-fundy-aquarium-staff-1.996847#ixzz29sk5I8yH
Friday, October 19, 2012
Beach Buds
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/your_weather/details/3643/8139570/32/upload/1/787
Max and Stanley are on the weather network , my how they love the beach !
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Mild earthquake rumbles through Bay of Fundy
CTV Atlantic
Published Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012 12:00PM ADT
Published Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012 12:00PM ADT
A mild earthquake rumbled through the Bay of Fundy Tuesday morning.
According to Earthquakes Canada, the quake measured at 2.1 on the Richter Scale.
It happened around 4:30 a.m., roughly 66 kilometres south of Saint Andrews, N.B.
Earthquakes Canada says tremors are not uncommon in the Maritime region, but the vast majority of them are mild and not felt by residents.
No damage or injuries have been reported.
Read more: http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/mild-earthquake-rumbles-through-bay-of-fundy-1.997720#ixzz29Tk6AoZ4
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Rock and Crystals Finds
It was a dark rainy day but a great day to rock hunt along the fundy shore especially after the waves we have had. I love living by the Bay of Fundy !
Halls Harbour [on the weather network today]
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/your_weather/details/3643/8070100/21/upload/1/786
This was at Hall's Harbour yesterday , the Bay was still churning after 3 days of waves and white caps !
Friday, October 12, 2012
Roaring Bay of Fundy
The Bay was showing its beauty and power yesterday as the waves crashed upon the shore.. Wow I am so lucky to be able to sit on the shoreline with my daughter and the dogs to watch and listen to the waves.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Warm temperatures bring bizarre tropical fish to Bay of Fundy Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/warm-temperatures-bring-bizarre-tropical-fish-to-bay-of-fundy-1.954474#ixzz28liGsYf4
Published Thursday, Sep. 13, 2012 11:50AM EDT
Unusually warm temperatures in the Bay of Fundy are attracting exotic species that rarely venture so far north -- including a several-hundred pound flat fish that is often mistaken for a shark and can grow to be thousands of pounds.
The mola mola, or ocean sunfish, was spotted and recorded earlier this week by a tour operator who runs whale watching trips out of St. Andrews, N.B.
The fish often swims near the surface of the water, and has a large, triangular fin that resembles a shark’s. In fact, that’s what Nick Hawkins thought he was seeing at first. It wasn’t until he got closer and began recording the creature, that he realized it was something different.
“We saw a fin come up and when we approached it was a mola mola, which is a really bizarre looking fish,” he told CTV Atlantic. “This certain one was actually a small mola mola because they can get very large. I’d put this one at about three or four hundred pounds.”
Considered the largest bony fish in the world, the mola mola is typically found in warmer waters, but with temperatures in the Bay of Fundy becoming more temperate in recent months, unusual species have begun to appear, said James Upham, a public programming interpreter at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John.
He said the mola mola is a fascinating fish to see in the wild because of its flat shape, unique swimming style and its tendency to stay close to the surface.
“They get the name (mola mola, or sunfish) from hanging around on the surface of the water during the day, they sort of bask and you can see them pretty easily,” Upham said.
Hawkins said he was excited for the rare opportunity to see the fish, and quickly tried to capture the moment.
“The mola mola happened to be close to the boat which is hard to do, often you’ll catch a glimpse of them and then they’re gone but it stayed up for us and we got the pole into the water and got some really good footage of it,” he said.
According to National Geographic, ocean sunfish live in tropical and termperate waters, and can reach up to 14 feet vertically and 10 feet horizontally. The largest specimens have weighed up to 5,000 pounds.
They feed on jellyfish, small fish and plankton and algae.
“They are harmless to people, but can be very curious and will often approach divers,” said an article on nationalgeographic.com.
“Their population is considered stable, though they frequently get snagged in drift gill nets and can suffocate on sea trash, like plastic bags, which resemble jellyfish.”
With a report from CTV Atlantic's Ashley Dunbar
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/warm-temperatures-bring-bizarre-tropical-fish-to-bay-of-fundy-1.954474#ixzz28lhP86pA
Monday, October 8, 2012
Fundy Splash
Blue skies , crashing waves along the fundy shores this afternoon was wonderful. You could feel the cool breezes of Autumn in the air as I walked along the shoreline !
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Autumn Colors
The leaves are turning their fall colors quickly now and with the sun shining on the horses and the leaves makes for Autumn beauty!
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Autumn Sunset
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/your_weather/details/3643/7934740/26/upload/1/787
This was last nights sunset and is showing on the weather network today !
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)