This is a Guest Blog, our very first, written with Mystery and Intrigue in mind by Michael Dann who has been scuba diving in Lanzarote for 30 years and has a keen interest in Angel Sharks.
There was a time when underwater photography was an expensive novelty for writers,
film makers, and scientists. Nowadays it seems every diver has a waterproof camera resulting in lots of photos being taken every day. Yet that does not mean necessarily that the photographers ‘know’ when they have taken something really good. For such is our limited knowledge of what happens under the sea that the story of any photo taken could be ‘really good’
Which is what we have here, the most interesting photo of an Angel Shark taken in Puerto Del Carmen this Season, it is, on the surface a simple photo. But, like the tennis match in Antonioni’s film Blow-up, closer examination, ‘blows away’ the simplicity.
To leave us in mystery writer territory – who done it and why.
Let us examine the evidence (get those little grey cells working). There are two Angels in the photo. On the right is a girl, she is very pregnant having no energy to pit (throw sand over her to hide) instead she has nested, wriggled into a shallow depression in the sand. She is one of the twenty plus girls who have come this year and she has what she came for.
But on the left is actually a boy – girls do go about together. So what is he doing there? His whole life experience – he was born just near where he was photographed, grew up here and has been coming here all his grown up life, tells him in which ‘condition’ he has found the girl. He knows. He knows. He knows.
Then why isn’t he off down The Harbour chasing the girls I saw this morning? Maybe he has chased them! Or maybe one of the other two boys has! Or they are up to this time un-chasable! And for the moment he is hanging around this one.
Why? The question cuts to the centre of the case. Why is the boy where he is? Why is he taking any interest in that which cannot interest him?
But she does, why? Is she ‘his’ girl and he is just checking she is OK? Or because she is any girl in that condition and he is ‘obliged’ to check up and maybe ‘look out’ for them? Because this is somehow ‘built in’ to what he is doing? ‘Supposed’ to be doing to comply with the breeding Model the Angels have developed.
Is this what is happening? Or is it just a fluke? Does the photo make it seem more than it is? Or is it much more than it seems?
There was one other occasion when two boys were seen lying either side of a very pregnant girl, this sighting gave rise to the almost blasphemy of the idea that sharks can look after each other. For as everyone knows sharks are ‘axe murders’
How sharks behave is a trial by a largely uninformed public opinion
But Agatha’s Belgian super sleuth is on the case and a book has been written
Watch this space.
Thank you Michael, we are looking forward to reading your book.
