OK, here we go...

 

Mr. Barracuda swims on by.  I guess I just didn't look very interesting.  Kind of murky right here.  Maybe it'll be more clear on out deeper.

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Yes, much more clear.  The silty water comes around in blobs sometimes.  I think this is about eighty to 90 feet of vis-- visability.

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The fish with stripes is a young Parrotfish, munching on the coral and algae.  You can actually hear them crunching.

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Ah, coral polyps up close.  Can you see their mouths?

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So beautiful!  And can you count how many polyps on this coral, Gorgonian?  Quite a few, hum.

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Wheee, an Eliptical Star Coral.

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All the little polyps.  

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A peek at shore, time to go back to being stuck to the floor, and stuck to chairs and stuck to seats.  I do so prefer to be floating around weightlessly.  Especially when I want to pick a mango high up in the tree.  I can't just go up there and pick it.  Gravity has me well stuck to the bottoms of my feet on the ground.  When you're diving, you balance buoyancy/floating with gravity, so you're free to just go.

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One last look, some Urchins and some Fire Coral.  The sunlight flickering over the sea floor.

OK, have a great day!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Another one of those miscellaneous kind of days.

 

Little fishes swimming around in Bladed Fire Coral.  Pretty coral.  Quick fish.

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A Brain Coral that looks like some kind of thing that should be crawling along.  Or maybe blown, see the Gorgonian blowing in the breeze?

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Hmm, a mix of pretty creatures

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Another mix of creatures

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Blue photo, must be a little deeper water, and no flash.

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A sunny day.  Black Durgons flitting about, eating whatever little things they find in the sea

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The next frame, I guess to do a painting of this I'd combine the two images...

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Ooo, and a deep scene, late in the afternoon.  

Things to do, people to see.  I sure hope my camera get back from the Fixit guy soon.  I am not compelled to go to the trouble of fiddling with gear and whatnot to go for a dive without my camera.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pieface!

Let's go visit Pieface!
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In 2005, the sea became warmer,and warmer until the corals stressed, in an event called bleaching.  Coral polyps live with microscopic plants called zooxanthellae (Zoox, for ease) within there bodies.  Without the plants, polyps are as clear as glass, and their bones, what we call coral, are snow white.
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  So the living corals on all reefs are the colors of these plants.  They can be green, brown, golden,  and in many shades and combinations of these colors.  If the sea becomes only one or two degrees too hot, the algae dies, and the polyps spit out the ?? compost, and the coral then is a snowy white color.  Bleached.
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Since the corals depend on the plants for food and oxygen, without them, the corals gradually become weak and starved.  Sometimes if the sea cools quickly enough in the fall, the corals can adopt(eat) more algae and live.  But it's a rough trip.  In the year 2005, there was a terrible bleaching event here in the Caribbean, and over 60% of our corals died.  Colonies that were here and thriving before Columbus arrived died.  Whole areas were devastated.  There are some places that I still refuse to go.
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I was diving a lot that summer, and photographing more than 100 individuals, and filing the photos.  It was really depressing to watch helplessly as this happened.  To do my self-imposed work, to sort the corals, I named them, Andy, Rosie, Petunia, Pieface.  Petunia is still living, as is Pieface. 
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Pieface is in a very easily recognized place, just at the side of the channel that is straight out from the boat ramp in Cane Bay, where you usually turn left to go along the reef.  You turn left, they turn left, not me, I turn right.
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Here's a Bleached photo of the place, and Pieface is the round coral at the right.  This is about 90 feet deep, 30m.
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Ah, blue pictures!  The living, bleached corals here are light blue, instead of white, because of the sunlight filtering down through the blue sea, and my camera back then that couldn't balance the blue to white.  The darker stuff is all dead substrate, but used to be living. 
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A truly healthy reef has no dead space, it's all life crowded together pushing against and crawing over itself.  I've seen that, amazing.  Like the black and white pen and ink drawing at the top of this blog.  I doubt the Caribbean has any reef like that anymore.  That drawing is from Grand Cayman island,  25 years ago.
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So here is some of my series of Pieface that terrible summer, when the sea all the way to recreational diving depth of 130 feet, 40m,  warmed four degrees over the limit for Zooxanthellae life, 86f, 30c 
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Pieface survived.





Pieface, first portrait.
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Beginning to bleach, losing Zoox.

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October, American dates with the month first.  Pieface is mostly bleached.  There is some color around the edges.  Perhaps this is how Pieface survived.  All of the coral shares food eaten and produced by individual polyps.

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The sea begins to cool in November, and the Zoox spreads  Perhaps the spots in the middle are new algaes that the coral has adopted.  I believe that, but don't know for sure.  

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And the blue color, once again, should be snowy white, but my camera couldn't see like a human.

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The end of November, and Pieface is doing well.

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And here's Pieface about a month ago, 06/23/09.  Gorgeous color, and ouch, a hole in his left side.  A little silt to deal with.

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Here's Petunia! 

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Not the greatest photo, but I'll get better, someday, with my photography!

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OK, have a great day!  Thanks for stopping by!

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Diving sights--

 

Here they come!

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There they go!

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Sheesh, I can't get this to work today.  I hit 'large' and it goes bigger, then jumps back to 'medium' size.  Owell!!!

I named this little coral head "Bad Hair"


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Almaco Jack swims by...

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And why couldn't these two guys have settled as the original tiny polyp just a little further apart?  Now it's elbow in the face forever.

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Open sand, that's seen settled weather for a while.  Wonder what does all that digging?  And what's living in the sand that the diggers seek to eat?  Hmmm.

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Some color for you.  A Christmas Tree worm, living on a pretty Star Coral.

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One last look at some scenery.

OK, have fun when you can.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Play play play

I dearly love Octopus!  Long ago, someone taught me how to play with them, it takes patience.  Remember the Queen Conch shells out in the sand?  And how someone had killed some of them?  Well, an empty shell can be shelter for many different creatures.  There were, in an older post here, the pretty Banded Coral Shrimp, and the Giant Hermit crab.

As I was looking at this shell, I noticed something--- The sand seemed to be disturbed at the front, to the left in the photo.
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An eye!  A little Octopus was inside the shell, peeking out around the corner at the Big Bubbling Monster  (me).

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Funny little Octopus!  How I love Octopus!  I'll play with him.

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I settle in the sand, nothing to hurt, I checked, and extended my finger, ever so slowly, and started doing little digging wiggles.  Octopus watches, fascinated.

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I dig and dig, Octopus watches, jiggling around a little, huffing and puffing, trying to figure out what this wiggldy thing is in front of him.

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I keep digging and digging, adding a pinching motion, getting a little bit closer.  Octopus leans out of his shell.

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POP!!  Out he comes in an instant!

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Yipes!  I was expecting an tentacle, not the whole Beastie!  I jumped back, even though I have no fear.  I absolutely cannot play with an octopus without reacting like this, eeek!  Happens every time.

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Octopus jumps back into the safety of his protective Conch shell.  His tentacle defensively up in front.  My hand is GONE, hahaha.

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But I extend my hand again, in friendship.  He grasps me, his sucker cups pulling on my fingers.  I sat with him this way for just a moment, then pulled away and then left. 

I could have continued, and he would have come back out of the shell, and quickly run all over me, exploring.  I may have done that, stayed to play, but the current was just strong enough to be a real hassle, and I had the rest of my dive to do.

See how darkly the coloring is round his eye?  If you look back, you'll see that the color was very pale at first.  Then as Octopus became more excited, he turned dark brown.  

They have color cells in their skin that can change in an instant.  Not a second, but instantly.  Amazing to see.  The cells are shaped like little umbrellas, and the emotions of the Octopus control the color.  When an Octopus goes red, he's angry, and I'll leave him alone!  They can be pale blue, sandy white.  Brown seems to be their hunting color.

I'd love to take videos of these things, but the lowest price for an underwater video set-up is through the roof, and off to outer space after that.  One of those, 'when I win the Lottery' kind of purchases.  Boo, and Owell!

OK, off to my day.  For you, I wish enough!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Polyps and a spade

 

Pretty polyps.  I haven't seen any others with the  white daisy petal-like  markings.  I don't know why they look like this.  Actually the skeleton within the flesh.

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More pretty polyps.  Ha, looking like the people you see in the photographs of Japanese folks crowding into a subway car during rush hour.  One woman commented they look like olives to her.  Hmm, there's a baby buddung, sort of bottom right.  That's how coral grows.

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More coral, more polyps of different form.

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Soft coral, Gorgonian polyps.

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Oh, look!  Over there...

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A Spadefish   Oh, an Atlantic Spadefish.  Common in the Bahamas, and Florida coast.  Usually in schools.  Hmm, only one.

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I'm not going to bug this fellow.

OK, things to do, places to go.  You have a successful day.

Thanks for stoppng by!

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