Squid!

Coming in from yesterday's dive, I happened into a school of Squid. Lots of divers never see them, because the Squid seem to prefer shallow water, ten to fifteen feet. Often I see divers surfacing way out there, and coming into shore not looking at what's under them. Same for going out to the dive, paddling along on the surface not knowing they're missing many delights. I even had one fellow say he thought you had to go to eighty feet to dive!
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Some were staying together in pairs. I was amazed that I could get so close to these normally shy creatures.
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Wow, did I take this picture??? Such an eye! I'm glad they're small, 12 inches, 30 cm.

Did you know ---if you need to change measurements like that, you can write, "12 inches to cm" in the search box/window, and it'll give you the answer.
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.There were smaller Squid up higher in the water. They were about one third the size of the others that I was watching.
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Ha! The camera and computer sometimes see more than I do! There is a function called Quick Fix that I use sometimes, and this is what it showed me. The Squid could be emitting light, like fireflies. They do not look this bright at all, to my plain eyes.
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A Coral! Must have a coral here, hey? This is a Mustard Hill coral, a very nice one.
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And a close up of the teeny tiny polyps. I don't know the size, other that really little. So cute.
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Tomorrow we'll look at this thing. Totally strange. Really. Haha, this is not photoshopped!
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Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

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A dim dive.

 

There's that horse.  I need to make a Tshirt!

 

A sort-of nice scene.  I was trying to take a picture of that big Dog Snapper swimming away.  Very late dive, dim light a half hour before sunset.  I'm going at noon today.

 

Another dim photo.  I might paint this guy's portrait.  Really dim at a half hour before sunset, hey?  The rest of these photos are much shallower.  This is about fourty feet, 13m deep.

 

Ah, Maise coral, or sometimes called Butterprint.  

 

Funny photo, a young Brrel Sponge being overgrown by a Mustard Hill coral.  Look like his fist to the right,  I'm being silly again!  And some disembodied hand to the right.

 

Ah, pretty pretty.  A Magnificent Featherduster (worm).  As big as my hand with my fingers stretched out wide. 

 

You might recognize this beastie.

 

And lastly, an octopus peeking out of a crevass.  Such a cutie.

OK, thanks for stopping by!

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Another dive!

Looking back as I paddle away from shore. The sea under me right here is about fifteen feet deep, 5m. That's Calvin's Spratnet Beach Bar and Restaurant. I've had some great meals there, and met some nice folks.

It's really beautiful the way the mountain is free of buildings and development. There are deer and iguanas living up there, and one kind of orchid that cannot live anywhere else. A precious place, that mountain!

A Giant Barrel Sponge, X. muta. This one is unusually even with it's jagged exterior walls. This beastie, an animal, is hard and brittle, not like your kitchen sponge at all. It's more than three feet tall, 1m, and has grown at about a half an inch, one centimeter a year. More than seventy years old.

A Blue Tang fish, and some other creatures that are usually ignored in a picture like this, hey?

Ah, just what I was looking for. Two corals battling it out for living space. One is losing, big time. Poor guy. If he'd settled just a little over that way, he wouldn't have this bully overgrowing him.

A closer look at the front line. Squashhhh! lol I once saw a time lapse movie of two corals beside each other, and it blew my mind. The polyps, all together, were huffing and puffing, getting larger and deflating, and whipping each other with their stinging tenticles. A terrible battle in a tiny size.

This is a little different, as the lighter coral is really beating the other one. I'm going to be watching these two in the months and years to come.

OK, see you tomorow! Thanks for stopping by!

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Schools

Schools today. I miss school, though I really hated it. During youth, it's a great mixing pot of people, in the USA anyway. Unless you're in an area where the rich folks send their kids to a private school. Hum, Private and Public are opposite from the British system, and they don't mix like Americans.

The above are Bluehead Wrasses, all females. The male is the namesake. I don't know where he is. I clicked something and the photo went to the side, and now I cannot make it go back to the center. Owell!

Down deep, a small school of Horse Eye Jacks. Every few seconds one will flip onto his side, and flash silvery in the sunlight.

The Jacks on down, behind the little Brown Chromis.

Back up in the shallows. Sometimes Blue Tangs get together in a feeding mob. Power in groups, they mow over the reef. Too many for the little territorial Damsel fish to be able to protect their little gardens. Other fish mix in with the Tangs, Doctorfish, and Surgeonfish. It is impossible, for me anyway, to get any closer to these schools. They are aware of The Bubbling Monster, and keep just ahead of me.

Squid. Lots of them. There are three or four kinds of Squid on the reef, I'm not sure which these are. They keep a distance, also. Bubbling Monster. I don't blame them! I'd like some way to divert my exhaust breath to the back of my head. I've heard that the fish aren't quite so frightened of that system. Plus the noisy bubbles wouldn't go right past my ears. Noisy, noisy bubbles. I was so disappointed when I first started diving, at the noise.

Squids usually line up in a row. They swim gracefully undulating their side fins. They go both ways, forward and backwards. If they need to flee, they go big-end first, here it'd be to the left. If I'd frightened them, they'd turn pale, and be gone, maybe leaving puffs of ink.

OK, have a good day, and thanks for stopping by!

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Shallows

 

Up close to the shore, but a ten foot, 3m drop, rather than a sandy beach.  Hum, I didn't take a photo of the place I got into the water, a little sandy bit amongst the rock.  This is about a half mile, one km  east of my usual Cane Bay Beach entry into the sea.  Not many people here.  Plus it's only safe on calm days.

Bumpy bottom, hey?  Some different kinds of seaweed are obvious.  And that little yellow thing is a Mustard Hill Coral.  Part of Cane Bay is like this, and folks walk on this barefooted.  nuts.

 

This area is right along the shore, only five feet deep, 2m, and less.  There ar urchins down amongst the crags and crevasses.  This is actually a fairly solid bottom, the urchins   They're called Rock Boring Urchins, because they actually bore thee holes to live in.  I don't know how.

 

Most of the urchins are dark, or black.  Small, would easily fit in the palm of your hand.  Yes, you could get a puncture wound, too!  Not nearly that from a Spiny Urchin, but let's just keep enough distance to avoid damage to ourselves, and the urchin, too.

 

About ten percent of these Urchins are red.  I think it's just a color variation.  Fish manage to eat these guys, so they hide during the day(sort of) and come out to graze on algae at night.

 

Ah, paddling along a little deeper, a Brown Encrusting Sponge covered stub/skeleton of an ancient Elkhorn Coral, with a brain beside it.  Aha, I see a Jewelfish!  I try to get a photo-- twenty six times I click, such a pretty little fish!

 

OWELL!  So much for that!  Maybe I'll set the camera down, put it on one-shot-a-minute, and hope to get a decent photo of one of these shy, quick fish from 200 images!  hahaha.  They are juvenile Yellowtail Damselfish, the adult fish is brown and has a yellow tail, and just a few tiny blue speckles.

 

And one picture of a Redstripe Parrotfish.  In his namesake colors.  This fish can really change colors.  I'll have to make a collection of the different ones.  They're not very cooperative subjects, though.  I wish they could understand English for just three minutes!  Oh.  But underwater that'd be blurb-blurbble-blurbble, wouldn't it?  Sigh.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Miscellaneus again---

 

White Star Sheet Coral.  Oh, my, such a lovely name.  I think they're beautiful the way they sometimes grow in spirals. 

 

.The little star shaped polyps, I don't have a better photo right here--  A tiny fish, and the stupid flash shadow.  Most underwater photographers have a setup with strobe lights that are on movable arms, attached to the camera, a bulky and delicate contraption.  I just have a little snapshot "point and click" camera.

 

.A French Grunt, looking bored or something.  The little cactus looking plants are not plants, they're Gorgonians of various kinds.  Corals.  

Oh, Grunts are called that because if hooked, and yanked out of the water they make grunting noises.  Yes, they're in pain.  I am amazed that scientists and people don't believe that animals, fish, even ants and bugs do not feel pain.  We're nor supposed to give creatures human feelings, maybe that's why animals and plants are treated like unliving things from the hardware store.

 

A Feather worm beside a Mustard Hill Coral, and algae and a red sponge and and and

 

.Ah, a blue picture!  I didn't have the camera's settings right.  This is what used to be a crab, but is now an Octopus's messy kitchen.  And Mr. Eel peeking out at the giant bubbling monster looking at him.   The octopus probably didn't leave him one bite.

Mr. Eel, a portrait.   They have funny little extensions on their noses, all the better for smelling dinner.

OK, I hope you're having a nice Fourth of July.  I'll be at Sylvie's. 

Thanks for stopping by!  See you Monday,
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Camoflage

I love how the critters fool me sometimes!  Here comes a Peacock flounder.  Zoom!  He's flying!

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.I have never seen one all dressed up in gold colors.  Wow!

 

.Sure wish my focus had been better.  There's always a confusion between watching fish, buoyancy, and how to maneuver to get a decent photo. and being able to hold still, and the button on my camera is a little stiff.

 

.But wait, there's another flounder.  They are head-to-head. Or head on head.  For sure, not making babies, they're both males, I could tell by the long pectoral fins, that don't show up in my blurry photos.  Boooo.  Maybe the golden one is angry and trying to chase the other one away.  Fish really change colors with their emotions, fear, pleasure(eating) being relaxed, being competitive.

Someday, they'll invent a cap with sensors that are hooked to our eyes and the camera. THEN I'll be able to take good potographs!

 

 I eased closer to get another (blurry) photo
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And then the fish swam a bit, and settled on the sand.  ???  Yes, there he is.  (hahaha)  I made this easy, he's right in the middle of the  picture.

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Whew, this is an easier fish, a Mutton Snapper.  Big guy, maybe fifteen pounds, five kilos.  They come inshore to feed.  And I don't keep an eye out far enough ahead to see them until I've made them cautious and they swim away.  I've been told that they have a lot of curiosity.  If they aren't frightened, and if you see them soon enough, you can stop, and start digging in the sand, and they'll come right to you to see what you're doing.

OK, off to my day!  This post took only 55 minutes, I'm getting quicker,  wheeeeee.

Thanks for stopping by!
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The Big Bitie

The guy with the TEETH. And Barracudas have the grouchiest of expressions, you could believe they haven't slept or eaten in a week!

Almost always they do the same thing, come for a look, and then turn and go away. This fellow was about a meter, three feet long. They get to six feet, two meters, but by then, they live out in the open sea or ocean. Or in very remote Islands. They don't really enjoy Human's company. I'm respectful, not afraid, of them. I do keep an eye on them.

I saw him, or rather, he came to look at me on my way out, and then again on my way back.
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.Hey, Ray. A Southern Ray. See the pit just behind him? They form a vacuum with their edges, wings and nose, and kind of whooomph up and dow, sand swirling all around. This way, they catch critters that live in sand for a meal. Snails, clams, worms, even some fish.

His wings were all aflutter, probably because of my approach

.I glided lower, to get a better photo angle. His head is down, maybe munching on something. Their mouth is right under their eyes. Their cooks don't have to worry about visual appeal while preparing dinner!

.Ah, well, didn't like me, bye bye!

.And awayyy he goes!

.Aha, another ray. This one is young, about fifteen inches across the 'wing span'. The previous ray was about umm, three feet across. They get to five feet in diameter. I've seen one that was every bit that big, he looked like a living dinosaur!

Slow and easy approach, but they both must have been chased by other scuba divers.. Owell. The minute they take off, I turn away and go off in a different direction. There's no way to catch up with even the slowest of sea cratures, except a seahorse, maybe.
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OK, all for today! Get this online before I get distracted by the homeplace. I haven't fed my Guppies yet, nor watered all the plants. Have a great day, and enjoy everything you can. I'm a lot happier when I remember to always do that.

Thanks for stopping by!
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Shallowest of water.

Often scuba divers, when their time is up, and their dive is done, will inflate their Bouyancy Compensating Device (like a life jacket) and stay on the surface until they climb onto the boat, or they get to shore.  Sometimes there are other people getting on the boat, or it's a bit of a way to the shore, so these divers are hanging out in the water, but not looking at what is under them in the water.

Once I took a liveaboard dive trip that was an organized fish population counting seminar sponsored by REEF.org..  About twenty folks got on the 100 foor boat, and off we went for a week of  nothing but diving, eating and sleeping, and counting fish.  I paid for this trip because onboard was Paul Humann, the man who has created the most comprehensive and easy to use Fish, Creature, and Corals identification books for the Caribbean Sea.

Such an amazing man!  His accomplishment with this set of books is wonderful.  Hundreds of precise photos, mostly film, and the books are easy to use, and scientifically accurate.  He's working on other books now, for places in the Pacific.  The fish are completely different there.

He invented the liveaboard dive boat. because of his love of diving and underwater photography.  Dissatisfied with having to go back and forth from resorts on uncomfortable little boats, and diving only twice or three times a day, and not being able to go to places very far from the resort, he got his own boat, and started taking other (paying) divers for week long trips.  This idea of his spawned many liveaboard dive boats, in just about every place on Earth that there's diving.  You can get in as many as five dives a day, maybe eight or more hours in the sea, every day. 

I learned one special habit from this man.  I saw that as long as he was in the water he had his face down, looking. He'd done thousands and thousands of dives, and yet still he was enjoying every minute that he could.

Here's what I saw yesterday, right at the ramp that I climb onto to leave the sea.  This in about 18 inches of water, 1/2m.

 

.Wow, a zillion Bar Jacks!  Well, maybe between one and two hundred.  Little guys, just a few inches long, not big enough for a human to eat, maybe one bony bite per fish

 

.They were just milling around, almost not moving, and not afraid of my slow, almost stationary movements.

 

.Ah, but you'd better believe they knew I was there, and they were keeping an eye on me, and judging if I'd suddenly pounce.

 

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.Aha, a Wrass acting as a cleaner, looking for a fishie flea to eat.  Doing the fish a favor, and getting a meal too.  But all those dozens and dozens of Jacks trying to get one little Wrasse's attention!  Even a fish can eat only so much.

Owell, thirty seven images, did I take enough?  Did I miss something? 

In the background is the edge of the boat ramp.  I must stand up, once I have my fins in hand, and try to gracefully walk over those loose rocks to the ramp.  Then teeter totter at the edge until a bit of a wave helps, pushing me out of the water.  I'm wearing about fifty pounds, 21k of dive gear

 

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One last look back, and it's out of the sea, and back to gravity.  A dear friend nicnamed Deja once said, "Life is diving.  All the rest is just surface interval."

OK, thanks for stopping by!
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Off topic, Humming Birds

Here's a link to a series of photos of a Humming Bird on her nest, her eggs, her babies. The final picture is amazing, be sure to click 'next page' to see the whole series.

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/

Oh, dear, not a hot link, I don't know how to make it work, booo. But worth a copy/paste effort.
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