Coral Reef Painter: Let's go for a snorkel!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Let's go for a snorkel!

Hum, This is my view from my house, lucky me! What's down there, in that little bay? The old plantation there is named Rust-Op-Twist, which is old Danish for rest after work.
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Grassy and shallow, and the water's warm and greenish. A few "Sea Egg" urchins in the turtle grass.
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A juvenile French Angel fish, picking parasites off a Bar Jack. "Cleaning' it's called. The jack comes to where the little angel lives, and poses, jiggling his fins, "Please help me, get these bugs off me!" And the angel gets a meal.

A group of Spiny Urchins. The bottom is quite rocky here. Still only about four feet deep, a little more than a meter.

A Checkered Puffer fish. These guys live in this habitat, rather than on the reef. Sometimes they dig all the way under sand with only the top of the head showing. He's really looking at the camera! Moving very slowly won't frighten him, so he wouldn't dart away.

A Redstripe Parrotfish, surprise! They look completely different when they are out on a coral reef! Again, I was so careful to not make him run away.

Here we are all the way out by the barrier reef. The waves were tossing us around some, but not unpleasantly.

Let's swim to a rubbly place, and stand up where we might not hurt anybody by standing on them. This whole snorkel has been this shallow. The weather has been overcast for a week now, not usual! And there's Sahara dust, and it's a little late in the day. That's why this looks so dreary. Those breakers are only about a foot high, haha. 1/3 meter for my metric friends.

Creepy looking on top, let's get back underwater.

There's one huge coral, a star coral of some sort. About the size of half a little car. It might be four or five hundred years old, or even older. And it's in surprisingly good condition, considering all it's been through lately, hurricanes and hot water bleaching. Beautiful!