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The Blog of Axel Lidenbrock : August 18th 2008

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:47:07 +0100
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

BlankMy apolgies if this entry seems rather rushed, but what has just
happened to us is simply unbelieveable. Up to this moment today was
relatively normal, another day bobbing along on this ocean that seems to get
bigger by the day. That was until about an hour ago when we were suddenly
shifted up 20 fathoms and fell a similar amount. To say that we were in a
state of panic stations would be putting it very midly indeed and my uncle
was of the opinion we must have struck land. We hadn't struck land but
compared to what we had struck I considered land to be a very good
alternative. We had collided with either an enormous porpoise (as I
suggested), a sea lizard of vast size (as my uncle suggested) as well as a
crocodile much bigger and containing more teeth than normal and a whale.

Now you may think, "Well, that's all right, so long as you don't upset them
they will leave you alone", to which I would state, "Yes, in a normal
situation but being some 700,000 feet below the surface of the earth bobbing
around on a sea that shouldn't exist is not a usual situtation" and so with
that in mind Hans shifted our position into even more trouble. This time we
encountered a forty foot turtle and a thirty foot sea serpent. There was
only one thing left to do and that was stand our ground (or in this case
raft) and hope that rifle shot could protect us from these monsters.

We stood dumb with fear. They approach us close: on one side the crocodile,
on the other the serpent. The remainder of the sea monsters have
disappeared. I prepare to fire. Hans stops me by a gesture. The two monsters
pass within a hundred and fifty yards of the raft, and hurl themselves the
one upon the other, with a fury which prevents them from seeing us. At three
hundred yards from us the battle was fought. We could distinctly observe the
two monsters engaged in deadly conflict. But it now seems to me as if the
other animals were taking part in the fray - the porpoise, the whale, the
lizard, the tortoise. Every moment I seem to see one or other of them. I
point them to Hans and he said "Tva".

"Two?" I replied hardly believing it, but my uncle explained matters. What
we thought were six monsters were in fact two as three of them belonged to
the each monster. The first monster had a porpoise's snout, a lizard's head,
a crocodile's teeth and reminded my uncle of an ichthyosaurus and the second
had a serpent's head, armoured with the carapace and the paddles of a turtle
which my uncle knew had to be a plesiosaurus. In other words we had wandered
(or rather sailed) into some kind of prehistoric gladitorial combat all of
which lasted for several hours but a winner was finally declared as the
plesiosaurus lays dead in the ocean. At this moment the camera comes out of
this box of tricks and proceeds to take a photograph, but I caught it and
pushed it back in as I believe like in the ancient days of Rome that when a
gladiator dies it should be left for their family to grieve.

Received on Mon 18 Aug 2008 - 22:47:24 IDT

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