I was at work last week (finally!) and while taking a break I was watching the fish swimming around the ship. It was a beautiful calm clear day, one of the few like that I saw in the month I was offshore. It was entrancing watching the fish swim around.
They mostly moved together, it looked like some sort of order. Was there a boss fish leading them all around? If there was, I sure couldn’t tell which one it was. They all just seemed to be meandering around, then all of a sudden they would change direction. All together. Weird. Spontaneous order.
I know some people don’t believe in such a thing (especially when it comes to human society). I see it all the time.
There have actually been studies done on how fish school together like that. On birds too.
The science behind it is pretty interesting, but I think just watching is cool. Too bad we seem to have lost the ability to just sit and observe nature. That’s one of the things I love the most about working at sea. I haven’t even been home a week and I’m already missing it.
Check out more on “order” from the Daily Post here.
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Such a thoughtful observation. That is a large pack of fishies swimming together. As you mentioned, birds do the same too and sometimes they like to make an angled formation as they fly across the skies – which is fascinating because it seems each bird has its place in the flock and they have to all stay in their spot so to speak in order to fly together. Same goes with these fishies you saw. Agree that many of us seem to have lost the ability to sit, watch and appreciate nature. This is something I like to do of a lot – I’d be out taking photos, and then I’d put the camera aside to observe the view and scene in front of me before moving along 🙂
Thanks Mabel.
Yes, I like to watch the birds too.
Nature is very interesting and usually calming to watch.
One of the things I really enjoyed about working at sea is the fact that for 8 hours a day my job mostly consisted of ‘looking out the windows’. Number 1 priority is to be “lookout”, make sure that we weren’t going to run into anything. It gave me a lot of time to observe, and a lot of time to THINK. I wonder if that’s why so many former mariners went on to become writers?
I can just imagine what a view you had each day when you were out at sea – all the skies and clouds you could see. When you have all that time to think, you learn to think for yourself without anyone else telling your otherwise – you become confident enough with your own thoughts, hence maybe confident enough to pen them down.
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Beautiful! Order indeed!
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Love that you this. Once, the entire media room after an NFL game I covered seemed to stop to watch this incredible flock of birds moving together in the sky. There must have been a couple hundred, and in incredible sync. Glad I found your spot from Sandra’s Weekly Roundup.
Thanks Eli,
I’m glad you liked it. 🙂