Friday, August 5, 2016

Immensity

Whew! We are back to taking lots of photos! Yesterday, 599. I took 'em and it's still hard to believe...Proof of God's immensity and provision.
Sometimes the clouds are so huge, can't even get all of them into the shot.  I sneaked a couple of palm trees in this one, too.

And during one part of the dive, I popped up to check whether there were surfers and there were....there was also a rainbow.

Have you even tried to back up in the water, trying to get further from the rainbow? HA. This one was so big, I couldn't fit it all in. 










If you look carefully, you'll see this was a double rainbow. I thought taking it from the wave was a nice touch.

There were so many gifts in this dive: monk seal, octopus (not two animals you want to put in a room together!), scorpion fish, a new green unknown fish, lizard fish, flounder and a wonderful cowry shell. Jehovah Jireh!

When I arrived early at the beach (7 a.m.), there were wonderful clouds of course. Natch. But also a sleeping Monk Seal. A nice treat.

At this point, you can't see the signs posted to keep people away, but they were there.

Later, the seal had moved and there were no signs.  So of course, curious onlookers were getting too close. So I stalked over to the lifeguard to ask why no signs.  He said the signage is totally a volunteer thing, not a lifeguard thing, and if I wanted to place signs, I could!  He added, they'll get away from it when it bites them! (My friend told me of course lifeguards wouldn't be involved in roping off seals....what if someone drowned while they were away from their post?!)

I marched over to my car to call my pal who has the seal alert number; she called and while I was placing a couple of signs, volunteers arrived to place more of them.

It's just that folks get so curious they could get into trouble by being too close.  This seal was cool, though: it just scratched and went back to sleep. One man said: Oh, can they bite?!  Yes. They are wild animals. They will protect themselves.

The problem is that they are just sleeping on the beach.  But it's hard to see them breathing, so one might mistakenly think the seal is dead. 

(I took a bit of film of the seal later....look for octopigirl7 on youtube.)

 This shell was about 2 inches long, best guess.  I am abysmal about identifying shells.  But it was pretty.  And out during the day, not always the way it goes.


If you look closely at the cone on the bottom of the two, you'll see a bit of the actual animal.  And the cone above it has been damaged...they are cannibals, but I don't know if the live cone did it to the other one. Ah, mysteries of life!






And the octopus. 

Kinda hard to see, non? I am of two minds on the octopuses at Poipu: on the one hand, I don't want them to always feel afraid to come out and maybe swim.  On the other hand, people can catch and eat them here, so I don't want to train them to feel ok around people and get caught! So I keep my mouth shut.  Well, other than photographing them for my posts.

I saw several eels, all the usual suspects.


 If you look closely, you won't see many teeth in this eel's mouth.  Not sure what that means.  But in any case, not as scary a mouth as some.



 There were also a couple of snowflake morays, scavenging for food.










Here's one, snaking along the bottom.


And what I think is a clam, in need of dental work:



A green wrasse?
Reminds me of those lime green popsicles I had as a kid.  It wasn't big, so it might be juvenile coloration. If only I had an expert on these swims...


And a lovely cowry shell.  The water kept moving me around, so I am not sure I ever got a great shot. But it was a great shell.

Ooh, pretty! The shells are so shiny and I love the patterns.  The purple part is where the animal can come out.  Well, I guess they come out underneath, too.  I have seen pix of the animal entirely out, and covering up their own shell.  Fascinating.

Now the Piece de resistance: the scorpion fish. (you say it pea-ess...those French people are wicked sneaky..) 

 
See it?
Its head is up near the bottom of the overhang. I'm not sure if this blog lets you click on the pictures to enlarge, but that will help.
You can probably more easily see the fin and tail..they are more in the sunlight.
Hey! It's an ambush predator, so it tries to be sneaky and hidden. This one was probably 6 inches long. Small compared to some I've seen. Never moved a muscle either.  And I was around for at least 5 minutes. You might be able to catch a glimpse of orange where its mouth was a bit open....

Small peacock flounder:
Look for the patterns of blue spots...
This little guy flew, too.  I think it's uploaded to youtube also.  Feel free to subscribe while you're there....ha.

And the lizard fish.  It's funny, I was so concentrated on the fish, I didn't even notice the pieces of glass on the bottom until I got the pictures home..not that I would have picked them up...not with the Lizard fish right there, awaiting prey...







A boring urchin:
Boring as in drilling holes in the rock, not boring as in going to sleep. LOL
You can see why some of the ambush animals adopt those pale green seaweed and sand colors.

And to close, lest you think I've forgotten scenic clouds with palm trees:



God provides, so all I have to do is click! And in the one above, don't miss the rainbow showing between the trees.

Cloud rainbow.  Cool, right?!


Maybe I should have included these in the immensity part above...
What a great swim! my only complaint is that I got some bites while in the water.  Not sure if it's because sand gets into my dive skin or I swam through something....in any case, well worth it.

Thanks to God....provision, safety and creative beauty!


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