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A round sponge, perched on a bit of hard substrate, out in the sand.  Sponges have holes.  Sponges are animals!  They are filter feeders.  Very simple, and in an evolutionary 'dead end' because of this simplicity.  They are made of cells that act as a kind of skin, cells with little whips that draw in water, cells that distribute food particles, and interior cells for structure.  No circulatory system, blood or lymph, no lungs, no senses, eyes or ears.  Yet somehow, they do reproduce, all at the same time.  The male and female sponges simultaneously releasing eggs and sperm into the water.  They look like they're smoking, sometimes a very dense 'fog' rising up from the central hole.

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A very old 'clump of sponge...

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Silt is always a problem I'm not sure how sponges deal with silt.  Corals make slime and silt falls off.  A lot of effort for the coral polyps.

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A yellow Tube Sponge, a very large, old animal. And a brown tube sponge on the side.

Hmm, all for today, see you tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by.

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A most amazing rainbow Christmas morning, seen from my front deck.

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Go for a car ride, folks enjoying the beach.  I don't 'beach' much, I dislike sand!!

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Some folks laugh at the tiny beaches here,  they're used to the humongous continental beaches that are  thousands of miles long.  But I say we have 'Designer Beaches', each with a special charm of it's own.  This is Cane Bay Beach, where I most often dive.  I get in the water by that boat ramp.

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This another beach, Butler Bay Beach.  I went to Thanksgiving day dinner here, a great picnic!  The big blizzard that snowed in the USA a few days ago came here in the form of big ocean waves, washing away a lot of sand, see the edge?  The sand will slowly build back up, a natural process.  Ha, big waves here are two feet high!
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Lovely big brown Senepol cattle.  A breed created here on St Croix, from Angus, Brahma, and some others.  They don't mind the tropical heat, and they get huge!

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These cows were shy, and turned away, this is a sort of telephoto photo

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The road leading on past the estate where those lucky cows live.  The big trees are Mahogany.  Most roads are two lanes here, and the Island speed limit is 35mph, for the most part.

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Another estate, I've been inside this one.  The construction is massive.  The outside walls are four feet thick, and the interior walls are three feet thick, solid stone.  You feel like you're going through a tunnel between rooms!

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The entrance to the estate.  Old old walls built by slave labor two hundred years ago

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More old stuff, ruins of a rum factory.

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Another driveway.  The families that own these estates almost never sell them.

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Oh boy, these pretty pink blooms are on the Coral Vines.  An invasive plant from South America.  Pretty, but it takes over like Kudzu and Wisteria

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A view of the Carambola resort.  A very nice golf course, and expensive homes.  There are two other golf courses on St Croix.

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One more 'ruin' they seem to have filled in a doorway.  I guess the slaves with the donkey cart went off to find stone, brought back a load, then went off in another direction for more building material.  Old buildings are made of every kind of rock on the island, and coral 'stone' also.  The bricks are Danish, brought from Denmark as ballast in the sailing ships long ago.  When the ships left, they left the yellowish bricks here, as they were loaded heavily with rum.

OK, all for today!  Thanks for stopping by.  My next lot of photos will probably be topside also, as the sea is so stirred up with the high surf that underwater photography won't be very successful for the next few days.  I'll be gardening for the most part.  Cheerio!

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Christmas morning

Well, surf's up, dude.  I uploaded all the photos at once, and don't yet know how to work with them, maybe I can't.  Ah, well.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll get moving again eventually.
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try again...

try again...

A sandy place

Hop off the boat, descending slowly, floating slowly down in forty feet of depth, 12 meters, here comes a Southern Ray. Big ray, about four feet, more than a meter, from wingtip to wingtip. I guess you call them wings! He's really green.

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Cruising on by, several Jacks in attendance. When the ray stops to dig in the sand, the fish hope to grab anything that the ray stirs up, that the ray misses; crabs, little bottom fish that hide in the sand...

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whoa! smelled something? turning quickly...

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found something to check out...

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Ok, a bit of digging, they use their whole body rather like a plunger, making a vacuum under their noses, where the mouth is located. Some sand stirred up, and then awayyyyy he goes!

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Pertty Sea Star! Their eyes are on the ends of their arms. This one isn't soft at all, very 'hard'. I don't handle them, but sometimes just touch with one finger, lightly.

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LOL, the next photo comes on top, so I need to write backwards in time. This blogging is something else.

The little yellowish fuzzy thing is a small Pillar Coral. A big old one looks like a Disney castle. If you look close(I'll get a better photo soon) the polyp's tentacles look like a wheat field, waving in the breeze, or sea currents.

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Ok, what do we have here? Confusing, this blogging. I find I must upload photos one at a time to be able to write in between them. Next, to learn if they will post under, or above as I go along. I guess a blog is a permanent learning curve. Every time I get used to Blogger, they change a little, improving?

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This coral is one of my (many) favorites. One name is Maze, but I like Butterprint, maybe because it's food. I haven't photoshopped these pictures, too blue! I'm still getting accustomed to this new computer, but very happy with it!

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OK, off to do a slow slow dive, to get lots of photos to share with you. That big snowstorm that pounded the East Coast of the US will be sending me big ocean waves from the west, hum. Small world!

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Thanks for stopping by!
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A few photos...

.Some photos from yesterday's Lionfish hunt, unseccessful, which is good. I paddle along taking quick shots of everything I see.  Well, not really, I see a lot more, but cameras are limited.  I'd rather be off by myself, people underwater aren't very interesting to me.
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So, some scenery, some closer photos of just stuff, you know, coral and sponges.  When i go on these Lionfish hunts, I have to stay with the group, and they go so fast!  wowee, I smear a third of my photos because I'm not holding still long enough.

OK, Holidays fast approaching, Guess I need to go diving!
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Cheers, and thanks for stopping by!

A couple of sponges for you this morning.  I just don't have any decent photos for this blog right now, I MUST go diving!  Especially before the sea cools down for the winter.
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I'm trying to get my painting studio all finished with the remodel, so it'll be an enjoyable place to be.  The floor needs paint!!  it's stained, old, black and white squares of linoleum, I dislike it intensely!  makes me nervous or something.  I'll have it finished in a few days, a nice, light neutral.  Funny, i found that old linoleum was made from linseed oil and chalk.  I use linseed oil in oil painting.
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OK
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Thanks for stopping by!
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Hum haven't posted in a while...

Oooo, is there a Lionfish in there? We haven't found any in a while here on St Croix(croy). Seems there were nine or ten caught, over a year's time. Each one was bigger than the last. The very first sightings were one one dive by a tourist that took photos of eight or more, all about three inches long. These were reported, not caught, booo. It's looking like that was an isolated invasion.

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The Island of Bonaire is having the same thing happen, all of a sudden there are little Lions all over the place. The park people there are doing their best to catch them.

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In the Bahamas, the Officials didn't realize what a devastating effect these fish have on the population of reef fish, and they dawdled with any attempt at control. There was a Lionfish Rodeo a few months ago on one of the islands, and in one day, 1,400 lionfish were brought in.

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OK, all for now. I'm designing my studio to be able to paint efficiently, so I'll be an artist someday soon!

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Thanks for stopping by!

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A blurry image of a Pillar Coral.  They can grow to be ten feet tall, or maybe even more.  The polyps, when extended, feeding, look like waving fields of grass or wheat.
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A Barrel Sponge, they do this sometimes, grow in a group.  The bushy-looking things aren't plants, they're Gorgonian Corals,  Animals.  Hum.

Oh boy!

Experimenting here, still learning the new computer. We're having "discussions" Does no good to disagree with a computer!!

How about some salad?

Oops! Two of the same image! I don't know if Blogger has changed, or if it's this new computer that I'm still learning. Can't seem to delete, owell!

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Sometimes photographer call these kinds of photos 'salad' because they don't have just one big subject splat in the middle. This-is-a-fish This-is-an-octopus

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I rather enjoy the mess.

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Thanks for stopping by!

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