Spots

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Calm water!  Looks like I'm a long way offshore, hey?  I thimmk someone is starting to build a house on the pointy top of the mountain.  If it was MY house, I'd be really happy.  But otherwise, I don't want a house up there!







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Stop a minute to take a photo of this little spotted guy.  Smooth Trunkfish.  They usually have a honey comb pattern on their side.








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Puff, puff, puff, what's for  lunch!?












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Where the sand meets the dropoff.  There is an edge of corals, then the 'wall' that goes down, down, down.  Can't be photographed, really.  You had to have been there.  Oh, or maybe you've stood at the edge of a tall building, a skyscraper, and looked over, down.  Like that but you cannot fall!




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A Spotted Moray Eel.  I do believe he's showing his teeth.  They can get a little aggressive sometimes.  The only kind of eel that's been a little pushy with me, but only when I pushed first, by trying to take too many photos, too close.  But I've never come anywhere near to being bitten.  People who hand feed them sometimes get bitten.


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A Squirrelfish.  Just plain old Squirrelfish, no descriptive name.  His, her?? dorsal fin, spines, are yellowish.  That's how you quickly tell them apart from the other kinds of Squirrelfish.  I'll have to start collecting photos of the different kinds.  Most of them that I see are the Longspine, that have white tips on the dorsal spines.  Hum.


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Off to the post office with me.  Need that new camera housing!  Thanks for stopping by!
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Hmm, what to post?

Funny how I am a bottomless pit for new images.  My poor computer has only 6% of its' space clear.  200 to 450 photos in every one hour dive, clickkity click.  Tho' I await a new housing for this trusty little camera, the shutter button just refused to work again.  No dives for days and days now, "oh poor me"  And poor you, because I've decided to go for colorful pictures, but haven't a stock.  Most of my photos aren't very bright.  Haha
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Some Flower Coral.  Hmm, I need a nighttime photo, when they have extended their tentacles.










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Nearby, Two little Blue Chromis fishies are checking me out.  The Big Bubbling Monsters don't usually go so slow. 
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The juvenile Grunts in the background are pretending to ignore me.  And I don't know what that Brown Chromis is dive bombing.





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Glaring at me with his other eye.  Looking as grouchy as a Barracuda!

Brown and purple sponges, a Star coral that seems to have  expelled some of it's zooxanthellae.  The fuzz is a Damselfish's garden.






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Now the Grunts are openly staring.  Pfft, French Grunts.

Even the finger coral seems to be peering at me with surprise and suspicion!







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A discussion, and a decision...










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"We're outta here!"
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Ha, away they go.










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And away I go.  Have fun when you can, and thanks for stopping by!
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Another shell,

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Now I've got me going ever more slowly over the sand.
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Hum, a pointy bit!  I wonder if it's a...










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Yes, a Carrier Snail.  They must go dormant or something occasionally, because their shell gets bits of coral or sometimes shells embedded on the surface.  They'd have to be stationary when the shell grows, to have the the coral or shell stick so completely to the snail's shell.  This little guy is actually as big as I've seen them.  His collection is so heavy!
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OK, Gastropod.  It's a Gastropod.
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His portrait, upside down, then I turned him over and left him to struggle along under his heavy load.

I saw one (the shell, the critter was long dead and gone) in a sea shell store window once that had a $200 price tag!  It was amazing, a perfect spiral of pretty little sea shells.  No lumpy dead coral like on this fellow.

I always wanted to get a lot of these guys and keep them in a bin of shells, so they'd all have pretty collections.  But I've never figured out how to do that.
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What else do we have here?
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I see you!












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Swish, swish away some sand, then gently and carefully dig my hand under the side, and...










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Ta Da!  A Red Heart Urchin.  A big one.  They shove their way through the sand just under the surface all day.  Using all their zillions of short spines for propulsion, somehow.  They come to the surface at sunset, something about there not being enough oxygen in the sand without sunlight.This guy really is big.


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Upside down, to his dismay.  Or are we a her?  Ha, I can't tell, and don't really care.  I'm not even really sure what's the front end!  But I think it's at the top of the photo.  The spines are wriggling frantically in a slow sort of way.  Red Heart Urchin races would be terminally boring to watch!

The spines on the bottom are in patterns for moving about, and picking through the delectable eatery in the sand.  I read that Urchins as a whole are picky eaters.  And one more thing, that white spot on the right?

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A tiny crab that can often found on this kind of urchin.  Called, what else, a Heart Urchin Pea Crab.  I've seen two on one urchin, but usually only one, never several or many.

And one fish.  This female Peacock Flounder is either full to bursting with eggs, they're in mating season now, or she ate a fish that she could only barely get into her mouth.  Fish do that all the time, take really big bites.  They don't have my Mom around to tell them not to.

Ah, well, sorry I'm so late this day, gosh, it's afternoon!  Where does time go?  Thanks for stopping by!

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Yeow! What happens to empty shells.

Another kind of Conch, or seashell, or Gastropod, a Milk Conch.  Doesn't look quite right.  The sand is stirred all around.  Conchs don't do that.

Queen Conchs are larger, have a more flared 'skirt', and are pink/yellow inside.  Milk Conchs have a soft white color inside, until they get really old, then the nacre that the animal puts down starts turning  gray.


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Suspicious me, I slowly turned up the shell.  And, found like I thought I might, a hermit crab!  A most ambitious crab, to be in a shell that big!  He had gone all around digging food from the surrounding sand.  I put the shell back right, but a few inches away so crabbie can find some food.  Should I take him a shell that'd be a better fit?  I don't know if he would move out of his 'ego shell'!

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And some activity in an empty Queen Conch shell, some little Cardinal Fish have found shelter.  And down in front, a rather long way out into the sand, a yellow Banded Coral Shrimp.

I settle and watch for a bit...





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The shrimp sensibly got back to the shell.

There was one larger Cardinal Fish deep inside the shell.  The smaller fish would try to go inside, and the bigger fish kept chasing them out.






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The shrimp inside the shell.  I should have extended my hand, and maybe th shrimp would have come for a meal, they are amongst the little critters that 'clean' bigger critters of lice and fleas and whatnot.  I don't think I had any flea for the shrimp.

Both the shrimps.  Sorry, guys, no food from me.

What a life, nothing to do all day but try to find something to eat.









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OK, all for now, and see you Monday!  Thanks for stopping by!
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Let's have some color!

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A Bicolor Damselfish darting around the Maize and other corals and sponges.  Sponges have holes, y'know.  I've said that before!










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A white Fan Worm of some sort, living with the orange Elephant Ear Sponge, and the stick-like Arrow Crab.










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A closer look at Mr. Crab.  Looks grouchy, 'crabby' hey?  Pretty blue claws, which I respect.  One of these guys drew my blood once with those sharp-as-razors claws, even though they're only about 1/8 an inch long!  A couple of mm's?  five, maybe.

The crab has all sorts of stuff on top of his pointy little head.  I wonder if he cares?


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.More orange Elephant Ear Sponge, holes?  And a coral, a Massive Starlet, or Siderastrea siderea.  Red Cyanobacteria, that I used to think was algae.








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A Star Horseshoe Worm.  Bright little guy next to the hairy looking tentacles of the Encrusting Gorgonian.
Bluish sponge below, and star coral above. 

This is a little piece of healthy coral reef, life squabbling and pushing over every bit of space.





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Whee, a blue sponge that's actually a lumpy form of Branching Tube Sponge, Pseudocerantina crassa.  This sponge comes in different colors, sometimes yellow mixed in with the blue, purples, browns and yellow orange mixes.  But always with that peculiar texture.

Not really much blue color on the reef.


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Another Branching Tube Sponge, different colors.  Beside a Maize coral, one of my favorites.  Also called Butterprint coral.  This one has the polyp's tentacles extended some.  After  dark, when they're really extended, feeding, the coral is white and fuzzy, like a shag rug.




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OK, all for right now!  I'll look for more colors tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by!
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The rest of the story...

So, I'm dtzzing along, I need some new words here, and taking pretty pictures as they occur to me. 
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I like how the sunlight is shining from the other side of this Gorgonian.  It's purplish, the 'flesh' color of the "rind" it's called, the body of the coral that the polyps live in.  In which they live.  But, anyway, the brownish colored polyps aren't out feeding today, wonder why?  I don't know.
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Aha, a type of 'plate', or 'sheet' coral, in a shallower, sunlit place.  Usually this is found in deeper water, where a flash would be needed to catch the color.  Their skeleton, the hard white part, forms flat, like, well, dinner plates.  I know my photography is not what I'd like, as for detail in an image like this one, so I stop to try to get some detailed close ups.


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Just for fun, I include a little fish, a cleaner Goby of some sort.  There are maybe fifteen different kinds, with sometimes very small differences.

Hmm.  Where's the book?  I am sort of keeping an eye out for one kind of plate coral, called Sunray, Helioceris cucullata but I haven't noticed any since the bleaching event of 2005.  Oh, this one's Latin name has been changed lately. 

I'm guessing this one is a Agaricia lamarki  OK!
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Ha, another close up, and Mr. Fish is peeking around the corner watching me.











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And there he is on the other side.  A Coney.  A type of small grouper.  Hmm, the first photo looks more like a Graysby, but it's not really that important here.  Hmm, I think that one is a Graysby, because the spots are dark.  OK.

Coral formations look like they are solid, like hills and rocks on land, but often they have all sorts of holes, tunnels and channels running through them.  Not solid at all!

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Mr. Coney swimming around.  The blurs are tiny Mysid shrimps, an important food source for fish on the coral reef, and a blurr in many photographs!
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He's keeping a close eye on me.

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Hey, another Coney barges in, chasing the first one on away.

Coneys really change colors.  Sometimes they're brown with the blue speckles, and sometimes they're black and white, half and half.  Very strange!  And at different times of day, they will all be the same color, either brown or the black/white.  And sometimes a more pronounced version of the colors of the fish that's running away in this image.  Fish run???

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Mr Fish #2 is still keeping a nervous eye on me, and Mr. Arrow Crab has joined in the show, the little sticks-looking thing up in the right corner.

And, yes, the Mr.'s Mysid shrimps making their blurry presence known.

So much excitement, no I won't faint.
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One last look at the coral.  Ah, polyps that I adore!

Looks like some sort of worm is living there too.  Two holes in the corals, two worms.
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Pretty polyps.






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.Ah, all for today.  The camera's housing is off to the repair guy's again!!  He so amazed that he's sent me a new housing, and I'm sending the bad-button housing to him.  I guess they'll pass each other in the FedEx system today.  Phooey, it's a gorgeous day for  dive.  Should I go anyway, without a camera?  Yikes, I don't know...

Thanks for stopping by!
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Argh! Electricity's off!

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Bummer, right when I was choosing photos and resizing them for you.  One just for now, and a nice post later this afternoon!
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I'll have a bt of a story with this picture!  No Great Novel, but a nice little story.  See you when the power is back on!

Sponges!

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No, not the kitchen sink kind.  But sometimes sea sponges are used for 'artist's' sponges, and for texturing paint on walls.

A Giant Barrel Sponge, or maybe a Basket Sponge, depending on the one who is calling names. Latin is, Xestospongia muta.  Everyone agrees on the latin name. (hopefully!)  A big fellow, perhaps more than a yard/meter across.  Yes, I know, a meter is about three inches more than a yard.





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.Another X. muta.  Somehow something made the little part go odd, and it looks like it's making a face.  I've posted a photo of this guy before.  I see him all the time!







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Some sort of "Rope Sponge"  A lovely wine color, but out of the water more reddish than purple.

The fish are little, Brown Chromis.







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A Brown Tube Sponge, also called Pipes of Pan.  It takes different shapes sometimes, but usually looks like this.  Lots of this kind of sponge where I dive.









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And a fish!  A Graysby.  More light in this photo than the one a day ago, his markings plainly seen.  He's lounging on the reef, see how he's leaning on his pectoral fins, what would translate to human's hands.

Just under him is a round hole, I'm thinking that's a Preditory Boring Sponge!  Ha.  They attack living coral and burrow all through the interior of a coral's skeleton, eventually killing the coral.  Boooo

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OK, I must(you won't believe!) pack up my camera housing and send it off to the repair guy AGAIN!!!  He seems to be almost as perturbed as I.

Have fun when you can!  See you tomorrow, and thanks for stopping by!
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Check this out

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Hum, some coral out in the sand, let's see what's there...












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Fishies swimming around.













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Barred Butterfly fish, Bicolor Damselfish, a Doctorfish, some juvenile Grunts.

A Maze coral and a finger coral of some sort.  Lumps and bumps








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One of the Butterflyfish comes to look at me.  He/she turned away right after I snapped the shutter.  They are not very bold fish.









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A brave Banded Coral Shrimp.  Big fellow, sitting out in the open on the Massive Starlet Coral.  Another shrimp in the background.









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A Graysby, a kind of small grouper, hanging around the Massive Starlet coral, maybe he likes the coral's spotted sort of surface tht matches his spots.








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One last look, and time's up for me, I must go shallower, as I have been here at this depth all the way to my "no decompression limit"

Have a great day, and see you Monday!
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.Thanks for stopping by!