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Displaying items by tag: octopus

Divers off the coast of Cornwall captured the remarkable moment when they encountered a ‘giant’ jellyfish the size of a human being.

As the Irish News reports, biologist Lizzie Daly and wildlife cameraman Dan Abbott were filing for the UK’s Wild Ocean Week at the weekend when they came across the barrel jellyfish.

While not rare for a marine wildlife species, Daly says they are more usually “dustbin lid sized” than the enormous specimens Daly and Abbott shared on social media.

Elsewhere, and going from large to little, TheJournal.ie reports on a potentially lethal encounter an Irishman had with a tiny octopus in Australia.

Tourist John Paul Lennon had been led to believe the minuscule cephalopod he put on his bare arm in the water at Bunaberg, north of Brisbane, was harmless.

But it was actually a blue-ringed octopus, a highly venomous creature whose sting can cause total paralysis.

“It’s been on my mind constantly thinking what could have happened,” he said. “It’s just lucky I didn’t keep it on my arm for the photo.”

Published in Marine Wildlife
Tagged under
Deep sea fishing is alive and well off the west coast of Ireland, and not only is it a hugely enjoyable sport - just one catch can be enough to feed the whole family.
That's what The Irish Times' Elizabeth Birdthistle discovered in the last of her series on catching your dinner in Ireland.
Birdthistle set out for the waters off Inis Boffin with John Brittain, who has been skippering his angling boat Bluewater for 20 years for the charter fishing season between April and October.
The boat takes up to 12 anglers who are more than eager to pay €70 a head to catch large cod, pollack and mackerel in abundance. Even novices are welcome, as the fee covers all rods, tackle and tuition.
Squid and octopus are also on the cards, as are some larger quarries such as sharks and ray - though these can only be fished in a tag-and-release programme. Smaller catches also get thrown back to propogate.
"The biggest shark caught here weighed 150lbs," writes Birdthistle,  "and, as with all sharks caught, Brittain must tread with caution to release the giant hook or else the shark returns to the deep with part of his hand.
"The tagged sharks have been caught as far away as the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and the Cape Verde islands.
The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Deep sea fishing is alive and well off the west coast of Ireland, and not only is it a hugely enjoyable sport - just one catch can be enough to feed the whole family.

That's what The Irish Times' Elizabeth Birdthistle discovered in the last of her series on catching your dinner in Ireland.

Birdthistle set out for the waters off Inis Boffin with John Brittain, who has been skippering his angling boat Bluewater for 20 years for the charter fishing season between April and October.

The boat takes up to 12 anglers who are more than eager to pay €70 a head to catch large cod, pollack and mackerel in abundance. Even novices are welcome, as the fee covers all rods, tackle and tuition.

Squid and octopus are also on the cards, as are some larger quarries such as sharks and ray - though these can only be fished in a tag-and-release programme. Smaller catches also get thrown back to propogate.

"The biggest shark caught here weighed 150lbs," writes Birdthistle,  "and, as with all sharks caught, Brittain must tread with caution to release the giant hook or else the shark returns to the deep with part of his hand. 

"The tagged sharks have been caught as far away as the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and the Cape Verde islands."

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Angling

The Dragon was designed by Johan Anker in 1929 as an entry for a competition run by the Royal Yacht Club of Gothenburg, to find a small keel-boat that could be used for simple weekend cruising among the islands and fjords of the Scandinavian seaboard. The original design had two berths and was ideally suited for cruising in his home waters of Norway. The boat quickly attracted owners and within ten years it had spread all over Europe.

The Dragon's long keel and elegant metre-boat lines remain unchanged, but today Dragons are constructed using the latest technology to make the boat durable and easy to maintain. GRP is the most popular material, but both new and old wooden boats regularly win major competitions while looking as beautiful as any craft afloat. Exotic materials are banned throughout the boat, and strict rules are applied to all areas of construction to avoid sacrificing value for a fractional increase in speed.

The key to the Dragon's enduring appeal lies in the careful development of its rig. Its well-balanced sail plan makes boat handling easy for lightweights, while a controlled process of development has produced one of the most flexible and controllable rigs of any racing boat.