17/05/2026

theSunday Special V ON SUNDAY MAY 17, 2026

Elementary, my dear tourists I mmaculately dressed in Victorian costume, Sherlock Holmes devotees gathered at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland to recreate the intrepid detective’s fateful duel with his nemesis Professor Moriarty, 135 years on. Sherlock Holmes fans recreate fateful duel at Swiss falls Doyle killed off his beloved detective at this spot in his 1893 short story The Adventure of the Final Problem . “absolutely” brings Sherlockians closer to the story.

But such was the public outcry, Doyle was forced to resurrect him, and the affection for Sherlock endures to this day. ‘Tears in my eyes’ With a magnifying glass in one hand and a pipe in the other, motoring author Philip Porter played Sherlock. He hailed the “unique appeal” of Doyle’s stories, “full of Victorian atmosphere, the triumph of good over evil and some wonderful characters” to draw in devotees. “We have very little in common in real life, but we are brought together by the Sherlock canon,” he said. Recreating the duel, Sherlock and Moriarty grappled, finally holding the stance depicted in Sidney Paget’s 1893 illustration as the pair seemingly tumbled. Doctor Watson then walked by, his shouts of “Holmes!” echoing off the rocks, before discovering the letter the detective left for him to find, and realising his dear friend had plummeted to his doom. “When Watson found the note, frankly I had tears in my eyes. I found that really moving,” said Helene Vrot, from near Paris, who dressed in the 1895 “very short-lived fashion for huge sleeves”. “It’s an opportunity to make memories with people who have the same kind of mind,” she said of the trip. For JeanMarie Zubia, from the US state of Washington, “it’s a total immersion” into the Victorian era. Her character was Laura Lyons from The Hound of the Baskervilles and she revelled in the collective for the detective. “It’s amazing to be surrounded by all the other Sherlockians here, because

into a pool below. Hats of all varieties, twirled moustaches, lavish dresses and walking canes abounded, as each came dressed as an individual character from the stories, including the missing rugby player, the king of Bohemia and Mrs Hudson, Sherlock’s landlady at 221B Baker Street in London. “It does transform you, just wearing the clothes and hunching a bit,” said British lawyer Peter Horrocks, top-hatted and clad in black as the sinister crime lord Moriarty. “This is so atmospheric,” he said amid the roar and spray, insisting it

Captivated by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle’s evocative world of villains, sleuths, fog, gas lamps and tweed, about 60 members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London made the pilgrimage to the hallowed destination. The spectacular scene is where Sherlock and Moriarty clashed on a precarious high ledge, apparently falling to their deaths on May 4, 1891. The group’s three-day journey through Sherlock-related sites in Switzerland wound up at Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland for a funicular ride on Sunday up to the thundering Reichenbach Falls, which tumble 120m

Porter, dressed as Sherlock, strikes a superslueth pose at Reichenbach Falls. they get to talk non-stop about what I’m so passionate about... the minutiae that goes into every single story,” she said. ‘My dream place’ One sweat-soaked trail runner did a double-take as he dashed straight into the costumed throng while Chinese first time visitor Kitty – making her own solo anniversary pilgrimage – could not believe her eyes. Wearing a Sherlock-style deerstalker hat, the 24-year-old Sherlock fanatic suddenly walked right into beloved characters come to life. “Wow! It’s very lucky of me to meet Sherlock and Watson and Moriarty and Colonel Moran! This is my dream place. It’s beautiful, just like Watson wrote in his diary,” the enthralled Manchester University robotics student said. The organised visit was celebrating the more than 1,000-strong London society’s 75th anniversary. Trip coordinator Markus Geisser said nearly half the visitors were on their first Sherlock trip, showing “travelling to Switzerland in a Victorian costume is still something that people actually like to do”. Dressed as the devil-may-care German spy Von Bork, he said the multinational society and its events were a chance to meet likeminded people, adding: “In my case, I met my wife.” – AFP

Sherlock devotees embark on a journey to the falls to recreate the detective’s fatal duel with his nemesis Moriarty. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

Colombian ex-fisherman swaps trade to save Caribbean coral reefs

Yerson Granados used to fish off Colombia’s Caribbean coast for a living, but when he discovered the havoc he was wreaking on coral reefs, he changed his ways. The 56-year-old from the city of Santa Marta now earns his keep saving coral, which is vital for marine biodiversity. “We used to destroy them. “We didn’t know it was a living structure. They looked like rocks to us,” Granados told AFP, his body half submerged in the sea and diving goggles concealing his face. Forty-four percent of the world’s coral species face extinction, mainly due to climate change, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated in 2024. When he discovered the pressing need to preserve corals, Granados swapped his dynamite, nets and anchors for a diving suit, which he uses to plunge to the depths of the sea to attach coral fragments to an artificial reef in a bid to repopulate the area. He was the first fisherman to retrain as an environmental defender under a pioneering project to replenish the

A speckled moray eel (Gymnothorax moringa) is seen near an Acropora cervicornis coral. Caribbean coral ecosystem. CIM Caribbean Foundation estimates that it has planted 1.5ha with 20 different coral species, thanks to a team of former fishermen. The NGO is hoping to plant 36ha of coral by 2030, which scientific director Diana Tarazona calls reviving “underwater cities”. “Working with them (the former fishermen) means gaining insight into what lies beyond the literature, which is

Granados poses next to a structure with Acropora cervicornis coral to be planted under the sea in a nursery. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

“houses for the fish,” he said. Kevin Monsalvo, 26, has followed in the footsteps of Granados and said things are different for him since he learned more about the organism threatened with extinction. “Life has changed quite a lot for me, because we didn’t know what a coral was. For me, a coral is life now,” he said.

that innate knowledge they have about the sea,” she said. A typical workday for Granados entails diving 10m below the surface with an oxygen tank to monitor the precious gardens. The corals spend months growing in an incubator before transplantation. Once underwater, they become