Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Wildlife Wednesday - Turtle

Spot the turtle!
Can you see the turtle in my picture? The shell has speckles on it and it's about the middle of the photo. This was taken on our WA trip, at Exmouth. It looked much better in real life - the water was murky though, which has caused the blurriness.

I used a turtle in my scuba diving story (Deep Diving) and I said that the turtle slowly poked its head out at them. When I was editing/rewriting, I looked at that and scratched my head. I've seen a few turtles in the water but I hadn't actually seen them poke their head out at me. So I did a Google hunt and found that they don't have the ability to retract their head or limbs! I'd messed up my land turtles and sea turtles in my writing flurry.

It's those silly little things that can make or break a book for me. If an author gets something wrong that I notice, then I begin to question the book. I worry that I have these types of mistakes because my brain doesn't fact-check when it writes. It only switches on to analytical mode when editing (and it's sooooo mean then - but it's not infallable).

I love seeing turles underwater. The first time I took Mr E snorkelling, I shot off after a turtle all excited, only to realise he was nowhere near as excited or interested. In fact, without his contacts, he could hardly see! I've made lots of modifications to my snorkelling-with-Mr-E routines since but turtles still bring me the biggest buzz of excitement.

Are you a turtle fan? A snorkelling or diving enthusiast?

2 comments:

  1. Yes - I could see him in the picture.
    No - i'm not much of a snorkelling/diving enthusiast. I wear glasses and that makes swimming a bit of a problem as I could never see what's two feet in front of me. plus I hate cold water!
    But I just bought a springer wetsuit (top half) because I do want to get in the water more this summer with the kids, and I'm sick of sitting on the beach because it's just too cold in the water for me. So we'll see how that goes!

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    Replies
    1. So glad you could see the turtle. I was worried it was more my imagination than real!

      Good luck with the springer. I hope it lets you get in the water more. And I hope the kids appreciate you freezing for them :) and often the water is only really cold for the first few moments and then you get used to it (or numb!). Happy summer, Lily!

      Love Cate xo

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