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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