News from the Atlantic Dragons
As we can’t publish a daily report on the Atlantic Dragons, we are trying to keep up to date with sporadic reports from them. You can find the Atlantic Dash update on Facebook daily. Great adventurous stuff… but that boat looks very small. Eeek!
C-MAP Atlantic Dash is at Atlantic Ocean.
Adrian dashing across the Atlantic
The Dragons have slowed down recently for a couple of reasons… Adrian went overboard, not because Dan had had enough of Dark Side of the Moon playing on repeat, but to inspect their dirty bottom… Once in the “deep but warm” ocean, Adrian discovered they had thousands of little hitchhikers stuck to the hull in the form of gooseneck barnacles.
These barnacles stick themselves to hard surfaces and filter feed. They multiply and grow quickly – which will cause a significant drag on an ocean rowing boat, slowing them down enough to add a few extra days onto their crossing.
So Adrian went for a swim and spent about 20 minutes scraping all the barnacles off the bottom. They are already seeing the benefits.
Gooseneck barnacles are edible and in “ye olden days” the hulls of ships were scraped on arrival and the barnacles sold for food. In Spain and Portugal a certain species of them, called Percebes, are an expensive delicacy.
In Spain, Percebes are lightly boiled in brine and served whole and hot under a napkin. To eat Percebes, the diamond-shaped foot is pinched between thumb and finger and the inner tube pulled out of the scaly case. The claw is removed and the remaining flesh is swallowed.
Sounds… erm… delicious?
