School's Out

 One more from the Altered Board Book.

There's always an individual who insists on swimming against the current, isn't there? I'm sure we all know someone like that.

Image created using acrylic paint, potato bag string, home made stencils printed on rice paper using the gelli plate, Japanese washi origami paper, and Goldfish Crackers ad from a magazine.

Fishing at Quidi Vidi

Quidi Vidi (pronounced Kiddy Viddy) was known as a little historic fishing village with a small harbour near St John's, but it's all part of the larger city now. When I first visited the area it was a collection of little homes and fishing stages, and lots of fishing boats, but now there are monster homes and affluent condos.
When by the Atlantic, I wanted to catch fish, so I booked a fishing trip with QV Charters. It was a calm sunny day, ideal conditions for a landlubber like me.

Heading out of the gut towards the open Atlantic. The captain knew exactly where the fish were so we didn't stay far from the shore.

I caught the biggest fish of the trip, a cod weighing around 15lb, but of course there are cod much larger than that in the ocean. In all I caught about 5 or 6 fairly large fish, I lost count. At one point we were above a school of cod 9 metres deep.

The rods were weighted with a large lead weight. Just drop the weight into the ocean and let the line go all the way to the sea bed, then jig up and down. The cod are easy to catch, no need for bait just three hooks. The fish were lucky.... we weren't fishing for food that day, all the fish got returned to the ocean to grow bigger. There's a limit to the amount of fish that can be caught for food.... the rules are here.

This is a sculpin, a bottom feeding fish, also known as bullhead or sea scorpion. It's not going to win any beauty prizes, but has a certain fishy charm. It also went back in the ocean.

It's whale watching time in the North Atlantic, and these three humpbacks passed very close to the boat. They went on their way after giving us a good look and then all dived down, showing their tails off. What a sight!

A great way to spend the afternoon out on the North Atlantic.

Jelly Time

Jellyfish are soft-bodied, free swimming aquatic animals with a gelatinous umbrella shaped bell, and long tentacles. Jellies have floated along the ocean currents for 500 million years, making them the world's oldest multi-organ animal.
The creature is an invertebrate made mostly of water, and has no heart, brain or bones.

Tiny stinging cells in the tentacles stun their prey and provide an easy way to catch dinner which can be fish, shrimp, crab, or even tiny plants. They move by squirting water from their mouth.
The jellies at the Planet Jellies exhibit at the Aquarium are translucent and are enhanced by the changing coloured lights.... a fascinating ballet of delicate movement.

Anenome

Time for some of the more static creatures of the oceans.
Sea anenomes are close relatives of jellyfish and coral, and may look like plants, but are actually aquatic animals. More than 1000 different varieties found throughout the world oceans. When I was growing up near the beach in England, the rock pools were full of red and green anenomes, looking like round lumps of jelly stuck to the rocks when the tide was out, but waving their tentacles menacingly when under water.

They may look like pretty flowers, but beware.... they are predatory! They are able to release venom through their many tentacles surrounding a central mouth, and stun their prey, making it easy to enjoy dinner. Sea anenomes can live up to 50 years, and most varieties are anchored to one place and unable to chase their prey. They'll ensnare and eat fish, zooplankton, larvae, worms, in fact whatever comes along.

Afterthought.... and nothing to do with sea anenomes.... Happy Birthday to my Dad, he was born 135 years ago today!

Big Fish, Little Fish

A trip to Ripley's Aquarium of Canada is always fun. I was there with the family a couple of years ago, here, and this time I met with some English friends who were on vacation and joined them in being a tourist for the day.
The Aquarium opened in October 2013. It's right downtown in Toronto, located at the foot of the CN Tower. Lots of big numbers here: 16,000 marine animals; 135,000 square feet; 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million litres) of water; 17 habitats; more than 100 different species of fish; the world's most extensive jellyfish exhibit.

It was the perfect day to see the fish. No huge crowds to battle as the children are still in school. It will be a different story next week during March Break.

Feeling Very Sad

YoungerSon has taken off with his fishing buddies on their annual ice fishing weekend in the frozen north. Personally I can think of better ways to spend a few days then sitting in an ice hut out on a frozen lake, talking about fish and cars, but they like it.
But he left three very sad children behind. There were loud tears from all of them when he left.... as if they were never going to see him again.
And after school, Max drew this heartbreaking picture to illustrate his deep feelings of abandonment.

Don't worry, Max, Daddy'll be back on Monday!

Cottage on the Lake

At the cottage, we had use of two kayaks and a canoe. YoungerSon is a keen fisherman, and went out on the water every evening to see if the fish were biting. I think he had plans to try his luck at 5:00am every morning, but plans don't always get acted upon at the cottage, specially when snoozing in a nice comfy bed.

The children loved going out fishing. Callum was excited to catch his first fish ever. Emma caught the largest fish of the week, she said it was five feet long but somehow I doubt that. But as I wasn't there to witness it, perhaps it was! She also caught the smallest fish.... about the size of a goldfish. Max is a bit nervous in the canoe so he didn't fish, but he did some fishing off the dock.

On the final fishing expedition, Isaac had a large fish on the line, but the fish got away, taking his fishing rod with it into the water. He was so upset. A new bigger and better rod is in Isaac's future before they go on the next fishing expedition.

 One by one they all got brave enough to jump from the canoe and the kayak into the deep water... PFDs compulsory!

Max really wanted to jump in too, but he's a cautious soul, and held back for a long time, but eventually jumped into the water with a little help from Mummy. I told him he was very brave, but he shook his head. "No! I'm not brave," he said. "Mummy threw me in!"
Lots of happy summer memories being made here.

Flatrock - Newfoundland

It was the first day of the recreational groundfish fishery, which is a limited length of time when the public can fish for their own use, with a daily bag limit of five groundfish per day (including cod) and a maximum boat limit of 15 fish when three or more people are fishing. 
Inshore commercial cod fishery is still under a moratorium, to increase the cod stocks after years of overfishing.

It was a rare sunny day,  so we took a trip to the community of Flatrock, just north of St Johns. Flatrock is a pretty little village, with yes, you guessed it.... a lot of flat rocks, although the rock in this picture doesn't look very flat! You can read Flatrock's colourful history here. 

This gentleman was planning to go out and catch a few fish for supper, so he spent about 20 minutes preparing his boat and getting his fishing lines ready.

 Not a view of his best side... but he probably won't read this, but just in case he does.... I'm sorry!

Off he goes, out into the harbour. I wished him good luck. Nothing like fresh fish straight out of the ocean for a tasty supper.

More pictures of Newfoundland to come.

Fine Dining on The Rock

If you are lucky enough to take a trip to Newfoundland, you have a taste treat coming to you.  Some of these traditional foods are definitely an acquired taste..... so I'm not actually recommending them.... just saying....

Traditional Jiggs Dinner. Consists of salt beef, potato, turnip, carrot, cabbage, and peas pudding. A few years ago, OlderSon and I went to a Sunday Jiggs Dinner at the Irving gas station cafe in the Donovan's Industrial Estate. A gas station restaurant doesn't sound like the perfect location for fine dining, but there were people lined up outside for their Jiggs Dinner, and very good it was too! As they say in Newfoundland, some fine scoff, b'y!

Seal Flipper Pie. I haven't actually sampled a seal flipper pie, but maybe one day, when I get very very brave. Or very very hungry. I think it would taste really fishy.

Cod Tongues. These are not actually tongues, but are a small muscle from the neck of the cod. Usually breaded, then fried in pork fat with cubes of salt pork. I've eaten them..... but once was enough.

Salt Cod Vins. I have to admit I don't have a clue what this is, or how it is cooked. It looks like fins and tails and bits of cartilage, all the leftover bits after preparing the cods tongues and the flipper pie. Maybe for soup? I think I'll pass on this one.

 Ginger blueberry cake with brown sugar sauce. Now this looks a lot nicer. This was dessert when we stopped for lunch in Brigus. Highly recommended!

And now the dish that Newfoundland does best.... Cod and chips, the fish straight from the ocean. We went into the little restaurant on the harbour at St. Philips just to get a coffee, but the aroma of fish'n'chips proved too much to bear, so we stayed for supper.  Delightful.... especially with this view of Conception Bay from our table.

More pictures of Newfoundland to come.

Fisharama

More incredible sea creatures from our visit to the Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto. It's a magical place, filled with sights from an underwater world that most of us will never get to visit in person.


The Aquarium uses 5.7 million litres (1.5 million gallons) of water showing marine and freshwater habitats from around the world. There are over 13,500 different ocean species to look at here, including jellyfish, tropical fish, seahorses, and stingrays. There's a predatory shark display with sand tiger sharks, largetooth sawfish, some as long as 12 feet.

The Aquarium is well worth a visit, but it's not cheap! And it's a busy place. We went on a weekday, but I can imagine it is even busier at the weekend. The grandchildren loved it and they are still talking about their trip to see the fish.

A Fishy Story

We planned a Family Excursion to the new Ripley's Aquarium in downtown Toronto. I bought tickets on line a couple of weeks before we went, saving a long line up at the ticket booth, not something we wanted to experience with excited children.  It's not a very big building, but there's lots to see and do. The Canadian Waters Gallery features 17 exhibits totaling over 665,000 litres. And that's just the first gallery, there are 7 more!

A giant American lobster. Surf and Turf, anyone? He was enormous!

The Rainbow Reef featured colourful fish with imaginative names; Picasso Triggerfish, Humbug Dascyllus, Emperor Angelfish, Pajama Cardinalfish, Unicorn Surgeonfish.

Callum and Isaac tried swimming with the fish. No, not really, they crawled up a tube into the middle of the tank.

Halfway through the aquarium there's a children's play area and a snack bar. We took our lunch with us, so we ate on the benches next to the kids area, giving us all a break! The aquarium has only been open since late 2013 so it's a very popular place and quite busy. More pictures in a day or two.....

Something Very Fishy Going On Here

A few days before Christmas we made our annual family pilgrimage to downtown Toronto to see the Pantomime. Not such a large family group this year. Callum was the only child in attendance, as Isaac couldn't be there, and the twins are still too little.
The annual Christmas Pantomime is a time honoured tradition in Britain, usually vaguely following the theme of a nursery story or nursery rhyme. Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a visit to the Panto.

This year's offering was "The Little Mermaid - Ontario's O-FISH-AL Family Musical"..... definitely not the sweet Walt Disney version but something far more fun. Lots of audience participation, booing the baddies, cheering the goodies, shouting warnings... "Behind you! Behind you!" No need to keep the kids quiet in this production.

Ross Petty took the form of the evil fish monster Ogopogo who lives at the bottom of Lake Ontario... and he certainly makes a very believable bad guy. He was almost BOOOOed off the stage and he loved every minute. Ogopogo wanted to develop a Marineland Casino and nightclub featuring all the mermaids, and was eventually defeated by Panto regular Dame Plumbum von Botox, the mer-maiden aunt of the Little Mermaid herself, and the underwater residents of the lake, including Shelly the Shrimp, Carl the Clownfish and Sponge-Bill-Triangle-Pants.

Lots of slapstick belly laughs for the kids, lots of slightly off-colour references to keep the adults laughing. Lots of dancing, singing, colourful costumes, talented comedy.
Will we go again? "Holy Carp!" You bet we will, I can hardly wait till next year!