HI! My name is Nora!

Today, since I thought sweetie bumps would need the car tomorrow, I went swimming.  And the most charming little girl introduced herself to me, as I came out of the water.

I saw her drawing a bead on me, as she walked toward me and the water, with her beach teapot in hand.  Shovel too!

"Hi!" she said.  "Hi!" I replied.  Very seriously, she added, "My name is Nora!"  I said "Hello Nora, my name is Karen." Then she walked to the water where it met the sand and began digging...So adorable!  I'll just bet she would have had a lot of life wisdom, had I asked....But I'm too conscious these days of little ones and butting into their lives...especially since I couldn't tell which parents were hers.  And since I don't post photos of kids, I didn't take her picture either.  But she was really cute.  And so serious about her beach work! HA.

But that was at the end of the dive.  Here was the beginning:

Gosh! I do love the clouds in the morning, with the sun just starting up..

And I saw octopus #1 right away...hardly any work at all.

You can just see the white circle of the siphon.  I can hardly wait until they trust me enough to come out...ha. Like that'll happen! They are way too smart to trust us humans with anything important, like their lives...








I also saw another of the Juliana Sea Hare...I really must investigate who Juliana was.

Very intriguing animals..

And I got to see several coral heads being guarded by the 3 spot damsel fish.  And until I got the photos home, didn't realize that this coral head actually had 3 damsels guarding:

The cool thing was that I spotted another 2 guarding coral later, but the coral was in really bad shape.  I was happy that they kept on with their task, even if their coral was in poor condition.  Not their fault.

I am finding it a bit challenging to shoot some shots in this water (this was the deeper part of the pond) because the water actually can be a whole lot deeper.  Since I'm snorkeling and not using scuba, I cannot get down as close to the subjects.  






There was a nice rainbow:

It is just to nice to pop up and see these. I always snap a shot as soon as I see them, because they often fade quickly.  No rain, no rainbows!

Each Bright Eye Chromis went in its own direction.  I do love these in this part of the ocean...there are several groups and they are always darting somewhere.  



This I'm calling the Pencil Eel:

Yeah, I know there's no such thing, but since this eel was very close to the Pencil Urchin, sounded cool to me. 

And there was a very sleepy seal...it slept right through my snorkel, which is my preference:

Adorable.  I didn't see my Ohio pal, so couldn't find out if this was a male or female, but it seemed like a female.  No, I can't explain why.  The good thing is that I don't have to! 









And there was a cluster of visitors watching a small turtle who seemed to be caught in the rocky pond:

The seal-watching gentleman was there, so I figured they would do the right thing.  With high tide coming in, I was pretty sure that it would get out again...

And for my sweetheart, two lizard fish and a trunk fish:

I didn't say they were all in the same photo...


I really do have to have more practice in getting myself out of the picture.  That's my shadow messing up this photo.  






And there was a snowflake moray eel on the loose:

It wiggled all along the bottom, searching either for food or a better hiding place.  Since this was the kiddie pond, most of the eels that I saw were small.  And cute.  They do still have teeth, though, so you won't catch me walking on the bottom.

The wonderful thing was that I was totally alone in the beginning.  Not even any onlookers.  And just so you know, that is stupid to do: I do ask God for protection, but He doesn't tell me to be stupid!!!  But it all turned out ok.  I asked for God's protection and He gave it.  Again. Thanks, God!