Open Ocean

We watched Episode 2 of Blue Planet III on iPlayer a couple of days ago and a few things struck a chord with us. We’ll gloss over the killer whales (orcas) which hunted down a magnificent adult blue whale. It was reminiscent of the racer snake v baby marine iguana chase 10 years ago on Planet Earth II. Spoiler alert - outcome of this chase is at bottom of the post. 

I’ve taken screenshots from the programme to explain what we saw floating past us one day out in the Atlantic Ocean. We’d not long left A Coruna and were sailing south, but we didn’t manage to get close enough to get any photos with my phone. 

One story was about Velella Velella or ‘By the wind sailors’ as they are also known, which are free floating animals that live on the surface of the open ocean. Their small stiff ‘sail’ pouch catches the wind and they can drift for hundreds of miles across the sea. We saw two Portuguese Man O’War with translucent bright pinky-purple ‘sails’ - like a deflating floating party balloon with blue ‘ribbons’ beneath it. Although a different species, and a different colour and size to Velella Velella they look very similar and rely on the wind to transport them across the ocean. What they have in common are very long, toxin filled, tentacles beneath the surface of the sea which can still inflict a nasty sting long after they’ve washed up dead on a seashore.

Another story on the same episode was about sunfish, or Mola Mola as they are also known, trying to nibble their way through commercial fish farm nets for an easy meal. In the programme it showed small fish removing and eating parasites from their huge bodies, Sir David Attenborough described them as the size of a bathtub! Parasites thrive on sunfish because of their slow speed, very thick skin and layer of mucus. 

We’ve seen sunfish floating on the surface of the sea in the Med before now. They look like they’re dead but they’re actually sun bathing to warm up before heading back down to very deep cold waters. The ones we saw in the Atlantic this September, were floating on their sides with one fin in the air to attract seabirds. The birds then sit on the sunfish, pecking parasites and dead skin off them, a strange sight to see but a wonderful symbiotic relationship.

I’ve just ordered a free ‘Our Changing Oceans’ poster from the OU in conjunction with the BBC. I ordered one for our little granddaughter too - because at the end of the day our planets future is in their hands. 💙 

PS The adult blue fin whale escaped to live another day!