Belle

I've been visiting this coral for more than fifteen years. I named "it" Belle because the shape is bell like, and it is so beautiful. It is more than three feet (1 meter) across. I am GUESSING it is an Agaricia lamarki a "Whitestar Sheet Coral" (Humann, Reef Coral Identification, pg.138). About 110 feet (30 meters)deep off Cane Bay, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. I bet it's more than one hundred years old. I am going to ask The Scientists.

Belle became snowy white during the last bleaching event, in 2005, but recovered and lived. A very lucky and strong coral! Topped by some rope sponges.

Where are the fish?

A close-up of Belle's polyps

Delightful tiny polyps! Each little 'star' is an individual. They are all connected, their flesh is one. Like all the pores of skin are neighbors in the human skin. The white edge is the growing part. There are 'baby' polyps along the edge here and there. Months for them to mature, and and then their edge grows away from them, spawning new babies. The old polyps toward the center, the beginning, of this three foot(one meter) wide coral are hundreds of years old. All growing from one little original polyp that settled on this spot long ago. They divide, but cannot separate.

This is a "Plate" or "Sheet" coral, and is very thin. Attached to the rock underneath only at the very beginning of its' life, the coral is less than an inch(2.4cm) thick, tapering to a razor thin edge. In some places on a reef, these corals form offset layers just like shingles on a roof, or scales on a fish.

The 'hard' part of stony coral is made of brittle, rock-like stuff called calcium-carbonate. It is pure white in color. It is the skeleton of the polyps, the flesh is on top of the 'bones'. Polyps on top of the structure like a rug are totally unprotected from human touch- an alien thing in the coral world. Fish float, even a ten pound lobster has no weight in the sea. Their 'feet' are just tiny pinpoints used for guidance. Put a 'bug' on a dock, and they lie there helpless, their legs are much too weak to hold their weight for them to run away and jump back into the water.

On land, trees have tough bark, so a cat can climb and a horse can lean with no damage. Grass is amazing, a 1,000 pound cow can walk around on grass eating it down short, with little damage to the plants! Not so living things on the reef. Fish don't have feet, hooves, claws. It is difficult to percieve the difference in land life, and water life. Land life must deal with gravity. Water is controlled by buoyancy and then gravity.

Another Photo, blue-blue-blue

I dearly love blue. There's just too much for a camera. When one is there, looking at the scene, the sand is white, the corals are brown, gold, and sometimes green. Sponges are the colorful guys, reds, yellow, black, purple... And here is how the photo comes out! Blue-blue-blue.

So, yes, I can paint what I see underwater with liberal use of a camera. One artist I read about painted flowers. He was whining that they wilted after three days. I have an hour, at most, underwater! Three days would seem an eternity! Hold still, fish! Hey! Come back here! And good visibiliy is 100 feet, twenty five meters(?). We wouldn't know what the Eiffel Tower look like, nor the Great Pyramids.

OK, thanks for stopping by, and I promise a painting soon. A promise to myself as much as to you.

Cheers,

Melissa

A photograph...

A scenery photo that, as usual, is too blue, too dark, too blurry. And what happened to the fish?

This is "West Wall", Salt River Canyon, St Croix, US Virgin Islands. A gothic place, the terrain is that of rock breaking off the land into pinnacles and steep arroyos, tumbling into the depths of the sea in incomprehensibly slow geological time. Speeded up, it might look like the ice falling off a melting glacier. But to us humans, it is frozen in time.

The top of this feature has twenty five feet of depth, an underwater plain stretching toward shore, flat and solid looking. The edge drops off as sharply as the edge of a table. Whenever I'm there, I always wonder what happened to jolt the rock loose to form this drastic terrain.

Geologically, Saint Croix is an ocean upwelling, a chip off the bottom of the sea. Scientists say it may have wandered all around before becoming lodged against the Caribbean Plate where the island is now.

Hello!

By the numbers, I see I'm not the only one looking at this page. Thank you for visiting! I am starting to snarl and gnash my teeth at myself that I am not painting and posting a daily fish, or a coral. Folks seem to prefer fish. By Thanksgiving, the end of November, I will have joined the "Daily Painters". They require me to have a new painting nearly every day posted here, for two months. This blog was begun with that in mind. I will persevere! Or something.

Daily Painters can be seen at: http://www.dailypainters.com/index.php

I guess I will be forced to use an airconditioner in this house, it's just too hot. OK, enough whining and winjing. Off with me to fill my poor car with potted plants that are waiting at the old place to come with me to here. See you later!....Melissa

OK, getting down to the finish line...

My neighbor wanted to help me finish moving. She got to the old place and launched into 50,000 questions. No help, we seemed to stand around in different places while I explained everything to her about everything I do and have.

I'm just about done with the move. I cannot believe how much stuff I have. And next week my dearest brother will be here...

Maybe in a year or two, I'll leave it all behind, just carry a little bag with one change of clothes, and go off back packing with my buddy Chrissi. I will make the both of us write for one hour every morning about our wanderings and adventures, and that'll be a first book. I'm really looking foreward to it.

Catch you later! And I'm dismayed to be not painting. Soon come!

Melissa

Moooving!

The new three bedroom house seems immense! I usually have tiny spaces for living. My legs are sore from carrying stuff up two flights of stairs, so no grunt work today. I think I might come back to this old place and finish the Botanical Gardens 'try #2" this evening, and bring my camera so I can post a new painting for you! I am not really enjoying painting trees and buildings. A purely commercial effort.

Talk to you later, and thanks for stopping by!....Melissa

Wheee, an annoying, half done painting! About two hours' struggle, starting with blank paper, no value sketch(black/white/gray for shadows), no drawing to fill in. Full sheet of watercolor paper, done on location, Plein Aire, at the Botannical Gardens. The main entry way. I'll go back tomorrow and try again! Finish this messy one tonight. It's kind of dribbling off the bottom of the page, can't fix that! Had to quit as noonday sun is just too blazing hot.

Photographs??

Here is not for photos. I had taken some scenes at my local beach, for comparison to the Weather Channel. ...There is a marvelous fish face I want to paint. I'll do a bit more Camwork, although I need to limit painting from copyrighted images that I must give away. But it sure is fun!

Anti-Weather Channel!

This is Calvin's Spratnet Beach Bar on St. Croix.