Whitby, England
This morning we made our last Zodiac excursion of the voyage. Our destination, Whitby, England, an important place in nautical history, as well as ours too. It was here that all of Captain James Cook’s ships were built including the Endeavour Barque. This is also the site that our ship, the MS Endeavour, had its naming ceremony. On a Sunday morning this picturesque city is fairly quiet, just perfect for exploration. Most everyone spent some time in the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. However, for those interested in the wild side, it’s in the water, baby.
I usually consider wrasses a common component of tropical reefs; they are colorful, inquisitive and voracious, but there are a number of species in the Gulf Stream warmed waters of the British Isles. Pictured here is the Ballen wrasse, the largest of the wrasses along this coast, about a foot and a half long. Color and pattern are not very good characteristics for identification, I picked one of the most exotic morphotypes to picture here, one should rather note the large sensuous lips. But sensuous is as sensuous does, and these kissers enclose massive teeth used to pry barnacles and encrusting mollusks from rocks, which they then easily crunch up and swallow. Wow, does that sound familiar, I mean efficient! Like many other species of wrasse, the Ballen wrasse begins life as a female, then after a few seasons some of them become male. Just one more story from beneath the ship.
This morning we made our last Zodiac excursion of the voyage. Our destination, Whitby, England, an important place in nautical history, as well as ours too. It was here that all of Captain James Cook’s ships were built including the Endeavour Barque. This is also the site that our ship, the MS Endeavour, had its naming ceremony. On a Sunday morning this picturesque city is fairly quiet, just perfect for exploration. Most everyone spent some time in the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. However, for those interested in the wild side, it’s in the water, baby.
I usually consider wrasses a common component of tropical reefs; they are colorful, inquisitive and voracious, but there are a number of species in the Gulf Stream warmed waters of the British Isles. Pictured here is the Ballen wrasse, the largest of the wrasses along this coast, about a foot and a half long. Color and pattern are not very good characteristics for identification, I picked one of the most exotic morphotypes to picture here, one should rather note the large sensuous lips. But sensuous is as sensuous does, and these kissers enclose massive teeth used to pry barnacles and encrusting mollusks from rocks, which they then easily crunch up and swallow. Wow, does that sound familiar, I mean efficient! Like many other species of wrasse, the Ballen wrasse begins life as a female, then after a few seasons some of them become male. Just one more story from beneath the ship.
