Davy Jones’s locker sent up a WWII mine

THE other night in the pub in the quiet seaside village of Courtmacsherry (in September, it returns to its native peace) we had young Brian O’Donovan tell us about what he and his brother Barry, joint skippers of their trawler Sea Venture, caught in their nets a few nights before. He made a great job of the telling. The item wasn’t exactly nature, although it was encrusted with nature. It was a World War II mine.

I take the liberty of retelling the story second-hand and hope my birder and butterfly readers, and my editor, will bear with me. The story has everything to do with that absolutely outdoor element, the sea.

It must indeed be an anxious moment to find an egg-shaped pod, with a few spikes protruding from it, suddenly appear over the side of one’s 15m boat. That means you and your brother cannot be more than 14m from it, short of jumping overboard and swimming.