Aquarium weekend completed

Pretty much immediately after getting home from the sneak peek into the new bit of the aquarium, I headed down to Agulhas for a functional, pre-winter maintenance visit on the cottage. Truth be told, there wasn’t a lot that needed to be done, just really checking up on things. Still, it needed doing.

Before I headed back to Cape Town on Sunday morning, I took a wander along the beach, getting some fresh air in an effort to clear out my still-thick sinuses. I saw birdlife and a fisherman. I took some photos.

It was while I was ‘togging a couple of African Black Oystercatchers at Piet se Punt that I noticed the little fellow stuck upside down in the rocks by my feet. He was flapping feebly. But this was no bird, it was a loggerhead turtle hatchling. Picking him up, I immediately recalled that “a good throw back in” is not the answer. No, the advice should you find a little turtlet [is this right? – Ed.] stranded on the beach in the Western Cape is as follows:

The first thing to do is to remove the turtle from the beach and place it in a dry container where it cannot drown.
Keep it at room temperature to warm up slowly. These turtles are most likely suffering from hypothermia, which makes them weak; in most instances they are so weak that they cannot lift their heads.
Turtles breathe air, just like us, and if a turtle cannot lift its head out of the water, it cannot breathe and will drown.
Call us as soon as you can on 021 418 3823.
Remember to take note of where the animal was found. It will help us if you could let us know the accurate size and species of the turtle. That way, we can prepare a specific rehabilitation tank for it, before it arrives.

I did all of this. Textbook, mate.

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2km back to the cottage, 1 ice cream tub and a 230km journey back to Cape Town, where I met up with two very excited kids, we found ourselves back at the Aquarium, where we handed Houdini (so-called because once warmed up, he mustered enough energy to get out of the tub and escape into the passenger footwell) over to aquarist and all-round turtle-repair specialist Michelle for rehabilitation.

Once he’s fixed up, well fed and a bit bigger, they’ll take him back to the warmer Indian Ocean on the east coast and he’ll be released in Spring/Summer, along with the approximately 200(!) others that they will probably get in during winter. Bearing in mind that loggerheads grow to an average of about 140kg (although the record weight is over 500kg!), that’s a lot of potential turtle to be sending back out into nature.

Hamba kakuhle, Houdini Turtle.

A problem shared

In great news for the shareholders of Grundheimer Schnauzerbeagle (Pty) Ltd and all the other pharmaceutical companies out there, I have infected my wife with my lurgy.

As the first signs of my recovery shone brightly like a light at the end of a two day long tunnel this afternoon, Mrs 6000 came home from a tough day at the office (and beyond) with a look that suggested germs, disease and – almost certainly – infection, had taken hold.

My insistence that I was merely testing the theories of Lister, Pasteur, Koch et al. (and al‘s theory was particularly good) don’t seem to have impressed her much. I may be in trouble here.

Still, it was just yesterday that she was telling me how good it was that I was ill this week, “getting it out of the way” before we head off on holiday next week.

Maybe if I tell her how fortunate she is to be feeling so rough right now, it’ll make her feel better.

Yeah. I think I’ll go do that now.

Tyre ski jump

You, like me, have often wondered which sort of tyre would fly furthest when sent down a (snow-free) ski slope. I know this, because a recent study on the causes of insomnia indicated that wondering about which sort of tyre would fly furthest when sent down a (snow-free) ski slope was given as a factor by almost 100% of respondents (n=1).

Don’t worry: you can sleep easy tonight: we’ve got you covered.

The six tyres you wanted to see tested are tested right here, and they’re each travelling at some considerable speed (like 140kph) when they reach the bottom end of the slope.

Yep, whether it’s the 11kg, low profile sports car tyre or the 225kg rubber from a monster truck, you’re going to know what sort of tyre flies furthest when sent down a (snow-free) ski slope, simply by watching this video.

And you also get to see what happens to the tyre once it has done its jump. Because stopping a tyre with that sort of mass, velocity (and therefore momentum) might prove to be quite a task.

So, so good.

Egyptian Space Dagger

New research suggests that the find of an “unusual” iron dagger entombed with King Tutankhamun might have come from outer space.

Seriously.

Italian and Egyptian researchers analysed the metal with an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine its chemical composition, and found its high nickel content, along with its levels of cobalt, “strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin”.

But those researchers then went off the obvious trail of the Stargate movie franchise – which would conveniently and completely answer all queries about the ESD – and instead reckon it came from “Kharga”. Sadly, it turns out that Kharga isn’t a planet in the Alpha-Centauri system (or something).

They compared the composition to known meteorites within 2,000km around the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and found similar levels in one meteorite. That meteorite, named Kharga, was found 150 miles (240km) west of Alexandria, at the seaport city of Mersa Matruh, which in the age of Alexander the Great – the fourth century BC – was known as Amunia.

But yes. Jokes aside, King Tutankhamun had a dagger that was made from space rock.

The iron dagger - picture 1

It would obviously have been better if the meteorite that they matched had been from somewhere on the other side of the world. Or one that they’d found on the moon or something. That would have got people talking.

But, that aside, an ESD in an ancient tomb?
Pretty cool.