Let's go deep again--blue pictures

A Feather Worm, and a tiny fish, on top of a Grooved Brain Coral.  If the photo wasn't in natural light, with a flash, the worm would be a deep wine purple, the coral gold and green, and the fish a pale metalic orange.
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Seen from a little distance, the coral is right in the middle.  I named this one Featherhat because the coral is about the size of a hat.    This place is fairly deep, for scuba anyway, 110feet, 34 meters.  There is a long sandy slope, and a sort of curve along a little vertical drop off that's maybe twenty feet high, before the slope continues down to the depths so close to St Croix.  At that depth, a diver has sixteen minutes  of 'no decompresion' time, a straight ascent to the surface, nice and easy, should result in not getting 'bent', the injury from staying too long, too deep.

Sixteen minutes.  Such a brief stay!
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Featherhat.  I haven't been to visit for a while, maybe two years.  I hope these guys are still there.

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A neighbor, a big Purple Tube Sponge about 39 inches tall, one meter.   I bet this colony is fifty years old!  At least.  Remember, it's a slow growing animal, not a landweed.

I would like to know a marine biologist who is a sponge specialist, I have so many questions.

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A little plate coral.

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Along the edge it's easy to see the polyps budding new little polyps.  The parents seem to be dancing along, holding the young ones' hands.  And they actually are, in a way.  All the polyps are just a thin rug of living tissue spread across the surfac of their skeleton, the white stony part of coral that is seen in stores for sale.

Wouldn't it be fun to see a time-lapse movie of these fellows growing bigger!  No, I don't even have a camera that could do such a thing.  It'd take at least six months, or a year's time to see much movement!

Ah, to go see if my camera's come back from Mr. Fixit, boohoo I miss it so much.  I feel like I've lost half of my eyesight.

Thanks for stopping by, and see you Monday!
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