No Speed Bumps

A Day at the Aquarium - Dugongs and Things

Nice how sitting round can turn into a walk can turn into a day at the aquarium ... depending of course on the direction the wandering takes.


Inside, we looked around a bit - and then realized the blog post potential of the outing. Though these images and the footage do not pretend to be anything other than dead dead ordinary!

I made a bee-line for the dugongs - a kind of ocean-going version of my favorite land-dwelling mammals, the orangutans ('Traveling Round The Philippines - Zambles, Vigan, and 100 Islands').


They are one of four species in the order of Sirenia - with another being the manatee, whom I love equally - or perhaps even more cos of their common name of 'sea cow'.

And cos their closest relos are elephants and hyraxes - somehow this adds to the warm fuzzy feeling.

These herbivores always seem so friendly and gentle and empathetic and cuddly - no mean feat for an aquatic creature! Obviously lots and lots of anthropomorphizing going on here!


From the excessive amount of footage I took, I've put this together ...

... with what I think is just so right as the audio track - the Gregorian Chant 'Kyrie Eleison' - seems to match the slow majestic movements of these lovely creatures.

Then on to the more ordinary denizens of an aquarium ...

... which in fact included the less-than-ordinary weedy sea dragon ...

(Not my photo - Included to give a better idea of how beautiful dragons are)

... and some of its more flora-imitating relatives ...


We then fortuitously meandered into the anemones and sponges department ...




... before we plunged into reef fish ...






The big finale was the bovver boys of the seas - the sharks.


I thought I'd been over-exposed to these guys but up close and personal they still managed to send a chill ... just about everywhere.


This last image has a curious resemblance to mid-nineteenth century naturalistic animal painting ...


... don't you think?

Okay, now for the scary stuff ...

... which I felt needed a counterpoint music track - and so George Michael's 'A Different Corner'. It works so perfectly - just listen to the words with images ... and chuckle! And it wards off the chills - very nicely!