Nature is Beautiful - Flying Fishes (animal, sea, ocean, amazing, rare, Auckland, davidlim)

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Yatch Club, Mission Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

The view of a yatch club located on Mission Bay, Auckland, New Zealand. Took this picture with Fujifil 1000fd from the top of Mt Eden, September 2009.

Amzing News: Two survive month at sea in ice box!

Two Burmese fishermen have survived almost a month in shark-infested waters in an ice box after their ship sank.

The men, both aged in their 20s, had been on a 12m Thai wooden fishing boat with 18 others when it sank in heavy seas off Australia's north coast on December 23.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins said: "They had no safety equipment, no beac More..ons, no means of communication and they'd been drifting for 25 days.

"For them to have even been spotted in a huge body of water is amazing."

The men were spotted by an Australian coastal patrol aircraft on Saturday and were winched onto a rescue helicopter and taken to hospital on Thursday Island, off Australia's northern coast.

"They were desperately keen to get on. When they got up they skolled (drank) 2 litres of water each, within seconds," helicopter pilot Terry Gadenne said.

A photograph taken by Customs aircraft showed the pair standing in a high, red-sided ice box used by commercial fishing boats and desperately waving at rescuers.

Hospital officials said the pair were hungry and dehydrated after surviving cyclonic storms in the region, but were recovering well and would be released soon.

The pair would then be questioned by immigration officials and police, who had not yet determined how the pair survived and what they did for food and water.

Ms Jiggins said the others on board the boat would certainly have perished and no search for other survivors was planned.

It was also unclear where the Thai-based fishing boat, crewed by Thais and a handful of Burmese, sank and how far the pair had drifted before they were picked up 60 nautical miles northwest of Horn Island.

Australia has one of the longest coastlines in the world and the country's search-and-rescue patrol zone covers a tenth of the world's surface, or 20 million square miles of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans.

The Torres Strait, between Australia and Papua New Guinea, is infested by sharks and the area is regularly fished by both licensed and illegal fishing vessels, many from Asia.

Easter Sunday: Trip to Port Waikator, New Zealand

We went out for a short trip to Pokeno and visited the local Sunday market and I am the only one who had a serving of ice-cream as the rest of them said the weather is too cool for that!

Along the way, we stopped by a bridge after crossing the Waikato River. It reminds me of the bridge we have to cross going to Penang Island during my childhood years.

We drove further on and visited Port Waikato. The sand is black but the view is splendid even it was cloudy day.

Barry the giant sea worm discovered by aquarium staff after mysterious attacks on coral reef

By Daily Mail Reporter. Last updated at 4:27 PM on 31st March 2009

Aquarium staff have unearthed a 'giant sea' worm that was attacking coral reef and prize fish.

The 4ft long monster, named Barry, had launched a sustained attack on the reef in a display tank at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium over recent months.

Workers at the Cornwall-based attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and - in some cases - cut in half.

After staking out the display for several weeks, the last resort was to completely dismantle it, rock by rock.

Halfway through the process the predator was revealed as a four-foot polychaete worm.

Staff eventually lured it out with fish scraps, but not before it bit through 20lb fishing line.

The tropical worm is capable of inflicting permanent numbness on humans with its sting.

Matt Slater, the aquarium's curator, said: 'Something was guzzling our reef but we had no idea what, we also found an injured Tang Fish so we laid traps but they got ripped apart in the night.

'That worm must have obliterated the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he must have just digested.'

He added: 'It really does look like something out of a horror movie. It's over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws.

'We also discovered that he is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness.'

Mr Slater said Barry, who has now been relocated to his own tank, probably arrived as a juvenile in a delivery of living rock from another aquarium.

Glyceridae - The Smallest Sea Monster! (Aukckland, New Zealand, David Lim, GDI)

Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, about 17 miles off Sapelo Island, Georgia, is home to a variety of strange creatures. The Glyceridae, or bloodworms, are ferocious epi- and infaunal polychaetes that prey upon small invertebrates. They are errant burrowers that build galleries of interconnected tubes to aid in catching their prey.

TheKiwi.Ws

Man attacked by shark at Auckland beach (New Zealand, Monavid)

(Source: NZ Herald)9:38AM Saturday Dec 20, 2008, Auckland, New Zealand:

A man believes he is lucky to be alive after a shark attack at a popular beach near Auckland.

Keen fisherman Ken Lindberg says he was checking his net at Maraetai, when he felt something clamp around his leg.

He waded back into shallow water to take a look and found a big gash in his leg.

";Doctors and nurses held my leg right up to stop the bleeding. On the outside of the left leg there are eight to ten stitches in that gash. Underneath the Achilles tendon is severed and I';ve got about four stitches in that.";

Mr Lindberg says he has not been out to set his net since he was bitten.

Source: Newstalk ZB