Romance Under the Sea
Posted on Nov 02, 2009 under Juliet Archer's Diary |He can only be found in southern Australia.
He’s a great mover.
He’s choosy about how and where he’ll mate - and especially about who he’ll mate with.
No, it’s not the hero of my next book, Dr Rick Wentworth! But here you can see the love of his life (other than Anna Elliot) engaged in a beautiful courtship ritual under the sea.
Extract from BBC’s Life with David Attenborough, shown on 2 November 2009
Who says romance is dead?!
My modern version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion is called Persuade Me. In the original, Wentworth was a captain in the Royal Navy and I wanted to keep the association with the sea. So ‘my’ Wentworth is a marine biologist who did his PhD on sea dragons - only to be found off the coast of southern Australia. No wonder he’s been away for eight years - watching these beauties is compelling!
There are two species of sea dragon - weedy (as shown in the BBC clip) and leafy. So far, they’ve never been bred in captivity - and, as their habitat is increasingly threatened by pollution and climate change, they’re more in need of protecting than ever.
So it’s a great shame that Rick Wentworth seems to have lost some of his passion for conservation that Anna Elliot remembers so well. Couldn’t be anything to do with her refusing to go to Australia with him, could it?
Well, you’ll have to read Persuade Me to find out!
Thank you to Sarah for sending me this clip.
