Island 2000 Trust Blog

Saturday saw the re-opening of Yarmouth Pier after months of work replacing piles and improving the look of the pier. Alan Titchmarsh officially opened the pier, and unveiled a plaque listing donors to the pier appeal. Meanwhile Island 2000 provided all manor of excitement in Pier Square and at the end of the pier, including arts and craft activities, a Gribble hunt, pier wildlife safari and a display of the New Pier Archive including an audio-visual presentation. In the evening an estimated 500+ people returned to light the pier and enjoy a fantastic fireworks display.

Some pictures below courtesy of Cat James

No Ian, Alan Titchmarsh is opening the pier, get down!

The second sexiest man on TV charms the crowds by discussing piles before opening the pier.

and then unveils a plaque, assisted by Richard Gribble, who is very proud of his curtains. A member of Island 2000’s crack security detail hovers to the right, hiding behind a silly grin…

…while another guards the image of Roger Herbert. Don’t let the smile fool you, this man is SAS trained you know.

On Monday, Island 2000’s bio-tech department reported the results of the latest stage of its GM trials. A joint investigation with Yarmouth Harbour Commission is seeking to establish whether splicing DNA extracted from the gribble (Limnoria lignorum) into the human genome can impart the ability to breathe under water.

Samantha Buck, who has been running the trial said “There’s nothing unusual about breathing in an aquatic environment. Lots of species do it. We just need to make some minor adjustments to the way our bodies function. If we can crack this one, it could provide a significant boost to the Island’s tourist industry and would be the perfect accompaniment to the launch of our Isle of Wight snorkelling guide. Although results up to now have been disappointing, we must remember that this study was very small and we cannot be sure that the results are statistically significant.”

The trial recently ran into controversy when three volunteers were admitted to St Mary’s A&E suffering from water on the lung and two others developed an uncharachteristic urge to gnaw wooden objects.

We currently have a part time job vacancy and a volunteer position available within the Gift to Nature team. If you would like more details please take a look at the Gift to Nature site where you can download an application pack.

I had the pleasure of meeting Marine Archaeologist Paola Palma today (pictured left, with pier project manager Richard Gribble on the right). No, she wasn’t boring, far from it. The Piddocks were boring. We were inspecting some of the sections of old pile retrieved from Yarmouth Pier. They show damage from Gribbles and Piddocks. Ship Worm are suspects in the whole affair too, though possibly not in this section of pile. Boring though the Piddocks may be, along with the Gribbles they were credited by Paola as intelligent creatures, and that was immediately obvious to me as they have carefully mapped the Isle of Wight in the pile. Clever stuff.

Artists and friends of the ‘Gift to Nature’ scheme will be at Dimbola Lodge Museum at 11am on Sat 8^th March to view a new range of unique and specially commissioned donation boxes for the scheme.

The wooden donation boxes were made by Vestas as part of an ‘Arts & Business’ supported project. These blank boxes were then given to six commissioned artists for them to redesign, decorate and transform into beautiful boxes that would encourage people to donate money to Gift to Nature.

Anne Bodemeaid, Michael Forrest, Gemma Bell, Miranda Amapola, Jeff Dyson and Chris Jenkins have collectively produced a great array of inventive and novel designs. Such was the appeal of the design challenge that a number of other boxes will be on display that have been designed by friends and staff members of Island 2000 Trust too.

The boxes will be on display in the tearoom at Dimbola Lodge for a further week if you would like to go and see them for yourselves. To find out more about the Gift to Nature scheme and how to become a ‘friend’ please visit www.gifttonature.org.uk . After the display the boxes will be put to use and find their way into Island businesses and Tourist Information Centres

We don’t have much to grumble about weather-wise on the Isle of Wight. Sandown Bay is the sunniest place in the UK, winters are mild and life is good. But there is hardly ever any snow. Which leaves us with thousands of children (and adults) deprived of one of life’s finest pleasures - building snowmen. This is such a fundamental of humanity that last year Island 2000’s revered leader, Ian Boyd, decided he had to do something. Sandman Snowman was born. For more on last years event see this post. The event was so successful we repeated it this year, but relocated to Shanklin. While it was rather chilly we had a fantastic sunny day, with around 60 people joining in over a couple of hours. The standard this year was possibly even higher than last years, with some truly stunning contributions. Participants also made generous donations to Gift to Nature, supporting our ongoing conservation work across the Island. More pictures are available on our special Sandman Snowman Flickr pages.

My overdue attempts to make a listening post for the Troll Trail led me to try something new today - blacksmithing. That’s a bit of a grand word for it; all I needed to do was to open out the jagged end of a scaffolding pipe a bit, but it was still a rewarding feeling when the metal squashed out into something more ear-friendly.
My Dad’s wood-burning stove, made from an old Calor Gas bottle, was perfect for heating up the metal until it was red-hot. Then I hit it with the round end of a ball pein hammer while my dad held the glowing pipe and tried to avoid the sparks.

Here it is …a triumph of modern engineering!

Hello everyone - just a reminder that you can so loads more of our stuff (well quite a lot more - we’re gradually bumping it up) by visiting our Flickr sites for arts, Gift to Nature and conservation:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/island2000conservation/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/island2000arts/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gifttonature

I have just returned from a family trip to Frankfurt’s Christmas Market, where we spent much time marvelling at tat from a different culture. I was very taken however with the fantastic painted bird boxes on offer at one stall. I now feel we have done the poor old Grey Wagtails and House Sparrows a dis-service with our 1960-esque concrete carbuncles. I wonder if we may find tiny burned out cars lining the Troll Trail before long, and the better off birds emigrating to Germany where they can buy a stylish pad for a few Euros.

Thanks to the virtual ranger, diligent microscopist Cat and the wonders of YouTube you can now see a genuine Isle of Wight gribble in action, just play the clip below! (if you’re viewing this in a blog reader, you might need to visit our website to see the clip)