Writer Seeking Info About Guernsey & Other Channel Islands

[ep_haury]

As far as the bioluminescent dinoflagellates go, I have received the suggestion (or came up with; it was part of dialogue and I can't recall who thought up what) mermaids using recovered, corked bottles to contain water with dinoflagellates. They just have to shake the bottle to make it glow for a few seconds. (This is how the original torches/flashlights worked; batteries were so weak, initially, one could only turn them on for a brief flash of vision, hence the American name.) But the dinoflagellates probably would be shaken by the process of being carried while swimming, so the bottles would be best as tools kept in the colony for when the mermaids must see or hear something approaching.

On the subjects of seeing and hearing:

Seeing: How many of the Sark caves have permanently dark rooms, or are they small enough (or arranged in such a way) that there are openings to the outside all over?

Hearing: In the youTube theflatfishking's channel, I hear sound from the dives in the videos. Is that a good representation o the things one hears while diving, and how much of that was caused by air bubbles, which wouldn't work for my mermaids. (Except when they are breathing air, which they must do.) Any sounds you can her from fish?


Oh, and, on dinoflagellates: how often can their glow be seen in the C.I. waters? Large patches or small? Regularly located of a variety?

 

[ep_haury]

Would cod have been plentiful in the 1700s?

 

[Spaniard]

Cod were plentiful in the North Sea then and if sea temperatures were slightly lower than they are now then cod would certainly be more plentiful in CI waters than they are now. One was shot in a Jersey spearfishing competition a few years ago, in August.

 

[ep_haury]

A few more questions:

1) You probably don't go diving just to sit down on the and and rocks under the water, but can you give me a sense of how rough or smooth the rocks near and under the C.I's waters are? Is it easy to find rocks that it would be comfortable to recline or sit upon? I'm thinking of making the tail be less sensitive than skin and therefore what one could sit on wearing thin-ish trousers should be fine for a mermaid to sit on.

3) What about dolphins and seals? How prevalent are they in the Channel Islands area? How do they tend to behave towards people?

4) About those caves. I'll be contacting the Société Guernesiaise to get a pamphlet on one of the caves, but before that happens: How far does the light go into those caves? Only the first chamber, if even that far?

 

[Leo101]

I dont know much about the rest of it but last year when i was fishing on my boat off the back of sark it was not uncommen to see dolpens what kind thay wher is beond me but thay never got to close to the boat.
But as i understand it years ago it was not uncommen to see dolpens swiming close to the herm ferry witch ferrys people from gernsey to the little island of herm about two/three miles apart so theres somthing there for ya and over the years thay have beached themselfs a lot so thay are about.
Allso last year a friend of mine cought a poor beagle off guernsey and basking sharks are about too.
and in deep water off sark i hear and beleave it to be true you can get big deep water fish like ling and there are a couple of others that i cant remember the name of so all im saying is we as spearo fishers see alot but we dont get deep enough to see the real monsters and thay are about ber in mind mermaids would go all over the place and iv not heard the herd deep mentioned yet another line of investigation for you. in my opinion mermaid would be more likely to live in places like that and come up to see and help fishermen then thay would to live in caves that dry out allso you got to take into account alltho your book is a work of fiction as you know a eliment of trueth needs to be applied so in inorder for the mermaids not to be hunted and killed thay would need to be able to retreat to the deeps like the herd and outher areas like that around the channle island allso you got the golf stream witch passes os thats the stream of warm water from the golf or i think its mexico all the things iv sed hear need to be looked into by you but these are all things i would take into accout any how if iv got anything slitly wrong im shure the guernsy lads will correct me but i hope iv helped if even a little.:t

 

[Leo101]

O and most of the rockes around guernsey are grantie and alot are sharp jaggered things alltho there are some flat areas allso a lot of the coastle grantie are red but it differs around the island. ill go out at lowe tide in the week and take some pics for you frome diff coasts and post hem so you can see what sort of rocks we have.