In My Face!

Got so busy yesterday that I didn't have time to write about my swim!  Forgive me, but here's the quick look from Friday's swim.

It was a rather stressful swim, in that the turtles (4!!) were being pestered by people...well, they were getting too close! (And don't hurt your eyes looking for 4 turtles on the beach...this shot has only 2.  They weren't all together at any one time...)

 I mellowed a bit after talking with the lifeguard later....you tell a group of 4 to back up and then 10 more come over!  The lifeguard said that he asked the state people what to do: they said: Is someone putting the turtle in their truck?!  THAT needs to be remedied.  But otherwise....

I fall on the side of being too protective.  But you can really spend your whole day telling folks to get away.  Tends to irritate everyone, probably even the turtle.

However, after I had just given a lecture while I was still swimming near the shore, I turned around and there was a big turtle about 10 inches from my face!

I backed away so fast that my hand accidentally touched the turtle briefly.
Here it is swimming away....you can see the visibility was bad:

If you look really closely, you can see it, with its fins down....and bubbles from my fast turnaround. 

I'm just sorry I didn't get a photo of my face when I first saw the turtle.  I'll bet it was quite an expression of surprise...

There was also a lizard fish that had just buried itself in the sand:

I know it's hard to see, but is in the center of the shot.  If you click on the photo, look for the 2 eyes protruding... Quite good camou!










And my fave puffer, the Ambon. Again, you can see the water quality wasn't the best:

See all the sand in the water?  I was pretty close to shore then, I think, so the waves were roiling up.












And for my sweetie:

and of course palms:

And last, but not least, the operculum, still in use:

The back of this shell was also partly missing, but I left it there, thinking someone would probably be able to use it....perhaps an Electric Orange Hermit Crab?