Jersey

After sailing from Belgium, we stopped on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. In three days, we visited three different sights: the Maritime Museum, the Jersey War Tunnels, and the Durrell Conservation Park.

On our first day, Mama, Daddy, Jack and I went to the Maritime Museum. It was just as much about the science of the ocean as the history of the island's interaction with it. There were a variety of hands-on displays in addition to objects with descriptions. The most memorable thing I learned is that the bottom of the English Channel is now covered in wrecks. Some date back to the time of the Romans and others to a few months ago. A remarkably well-preserved wreck was once owned by Julius Caesar. The interactive displays about the tide, wind, water, and ship design were very fun and informative. There were also a few great ocean-related pieces of art.

Here is a statue of a man made completely of metal fish while he spears one made of yarn.

Jack is getting this little boat to sail along the bar by using a blower in the place of wind.

Here Mama is building her own boat. She has put together the ribs, bulwarks, and mast.

Here I am trying to tie these knots with my eyes closed. I succeeded with three-quarters of them.

My favorite piece of art around the museum: a cod head on the wall.

The Jersey War Tunnels were a set of barracks, a hospital, and a large bomb shelter carved into the island. They were built during the Nazi occupation of Jersey by slaves, prisoners of war, hired laborers, and well-paid locals. The inside of the tunnels now holds a museum about World War II in general, Jersey when occupied by the Nazis, and the history of the tunnels. It was very well done.

A timeline about World War II taught me many details. The fact that we had just been along the coast where much of the war happened made it more interesting. Life during the occupation took up about half the museum. The occupation seemed like a rough time for Jersey. Food was confiscated and then rationed with coupons delivered to each house. Things like jam and coffee were made using strange ingredients. Jam was made of smashed beets. And coffee, well....

Anybody who knows my parents understands why this was more striking than the jam.

Here is a display representing a Nazi soldier offering an ice cream cone to you. The head on the screen started talking to you, so the display was a little less weird than it appears in the photo. It shows the dilemma all the islanders had: should they accept the offerings of the Nazis and face the disdain of their neighbors, or ignore them and face hunger and possible punishment from their occupiers?

Here we are in the 100-meter long main tunnel.

The entrance.

Although these tapestries were at the Maritime Museum, they are about World War II. These needlepoint tapestries were stitched by the hands of hundreds of people in honor of the occupation of Jersey. Every little part of them means something.

This tapestry represents the people deciding whether or not to evacuate Jersey and go to England, the bombing of the island, and the soldiers' arrival. 

When you look at this photo of one of the tapestries, you can see that the teacher is teaching German to the students. Also, you can see Nazi soldiers in both boats and on the truck. The occupiers confiscated all motorized vehicles and accompanied every boat that went to sea. The bottom left corner also has a bunch of men walking to work on the tunnels.These are just two of the ten or so tapestries that depict the 5 years that the Nazis occupied Jersey.

On our last day in Jersey, we went to the Durrell Conservation Park. It is a zoo dedicated to keeping endangered animals in case they go extinct in the wild. The mascot is therefore a Dodo bird, an extinct animal. From 11 am until 1 pm, there are 30-minute animal talks. The animal talks consist of a zoo-keeper, Fiona for that particular day, talking about the animals and answering questions. On the day that we visited the park, there was nobody else so we felt like we were on a private tour, walking with Fiona through the zoo.

The first animal habitat visited was that of the gorillas. We learned about the dynamics of a gorilla family. The silverback, or commanding male, leads a group of four or five females and his children. When his sons became adults they were kicked out to fend for themselves. The females live in a hierarchy, all about struggling for higher rank. If you are the highest ranking, you get the better choice of food, sleeping place, and any other commodity. The three year old gorilla's active exploration of the enclosure was also amusing. He was just like any three year old you have ever seen.

The silverback eats a peanut thrown by the zoo keepers.

Another gorilla eats her morning lettuce.

Here we are watching the gorillas while Daddy talks with Fiona, the zoo-keeper.

The three-year old hanging out in a tree.

A gorilla in its playground is behind me.

Two female gorillas sitting and having breakfast.

We next learned about an exceedingly curious corn snake, named Bernard. As Fiona told us about Bernard, he looked inquisitively around the room. He tried to slither up her sleeve, off her hand, and into her hair. Bernard was a pet that was abandoned. Living at Durrell, he is treated better than at most animal shelters. He also is used for training new employees how to handle snakes.

Jack feeling the snake's scales.

The third animal talk was about orangutans. The family dynamics were similar to that of gorillas. What was interesting about these primates though, was watching one of the young apes get told off by his mother. He repeatedly tried to leave the indoor section of their enclosure. His mom caught him each time, baring her teeth at him after each escape attempt.

  An orangutan huddles under a blanket with her daughter.

Three orangutans eating lunch.

The final, and most interesting animal talk was about fruit bats. They are rarely kept in captivity. This zoo has half of the captured population world-wide. The fifty-two bats were in a heated enclosure. They hung and climbed on the netted roof and walls. Their faces were bear like and their wings were exactly like Batman's cape. The two species were from an island where they are rapidly dying out from loss of habitat.

Here is the bat enclosure. You can see them all along the walls and hanging from the roof.

Here you can see the shape of the bat's head.

Notice the color of the fur on the back of this bat. It is different on each bat.

Two bats chatting on the net of their enclosure.

After we heard all the morning talks and had eaten lunch, we went to explore the rest of the zoo. The lemur's antics and curiosity were my favorites. Another was the Golden Lion Tamarins. These orange little monkeys scampering across ropes through a little forest were adorable. Jack also enjoyed going into a dark room where we could barely see. Eventually our eyes adjusted enough to see a large squirrel like creature called an Aye-Aye. The meerkats were also very fun to watch. They even posed for a picture.

Unfortunately, taking the picture at exactly the same moment that everyone looks at the camera and
smiles is a challenge.

But kick out the troublesome ones and try a few times, and you get them all looking at once!

The Durrell Conservation Park was far more fun to visit than we had anticipated. Learning about all the animals and hearing about the park's mission was interesting. Our time on Jersey was extraordinarily fun, and I did not even write about our visits to the local pool that had three long tunnel slides or our family excursion to see the new James Bond film, Spectre, in an actual theater. With some interesting places to visit every day, we were never bored.- Porter