Entry 16 - A floor in our plans...

Hello all,

We finally have a floor!

It’s been a long time coming, but now we’re finally at this stage the building’s going to shoot up (hopefully) By January we should be able to think about sticking some tanks in there. Next stop, baby seahorses.

Other than the floor it was a pretty quiet week at work, I got confirmation that the seahorse tank is in pretty good nick when I saw a couple mating, unfortunately I didn’t have the camera with me at the time. It’s basically an extension of the dance that I put up in an earlier blog, at the end of which the female deposits eggs in to the males brood pouch and then it’s all pretty much done. Whilst one would expect that the male would fertilise the eggs in the brood pouch, due to a quirk of evolution he still has to eject his sperm into the water and then gather it in the brood pouch, not the most efficient process ever!

I’ve just come from the penultimate panto rehearsal, it seems to be coming together surprisingly well at last. We had the first dress rehearsal on Wednesday and my costume is quite possibly the sweatiest thing I’ve ever worn, given that December is one of the hottest months out here it’s going to be a nightmare when performing, plenty of liquid refreshment’s going to be needed I think!

I’m now in my last week out here until January, I’ve managed to get in touch with a guy in Dublin who raises seahorses and is willing to host me for a while to get a grasp of how he does it, which should be really interesting. I’ll then spend a week abusing the university library to make sure we’re using the most up to date research I can get hold of when we finally get started. The cold’s definitely going to be a massive shock, I’m definitely looking forward to it though, I very rarely stop sweating at the moment, even just sitting down, shivering is going to be a welcome relief!

That’s all for this week I think, I’m not sure what my updating schedule will be from the UK, partly as it’s all going to be quite rushed, but also because I can’t see there being all that much to write about. I’m still planning to keep it at least weekly and keep you guys updated with any gobbets of interest that may occur, but who knows how that’s going to work out!