Birthday Swim

A nice birthday swim! Not that you asked, but 66 doesn't seem that old when you are that age. I told my cousin that the good news is now that we're retired, we don't have so many people around who will piss us off. ha.

So 4 octopuses, one of which was a surprise: I saw a den where I thought there should be an octopus, but didn't actually see that there was an octopus in there until I looked at the pix. Yeah, they're good at camouflage that way.

And 3 seals were spotted, but in this photo, only two were visible:

 These two sneaked up on me! I saw them before snapping this photo and one was looking at me as if saying: We gonna play? I actually shook my head NO and swam off. Sometimes they seem to think that is an invitation, but in this case, the seal had his friend to play with, so went back to playing with him.

The trio together, cavorting. It still amazes me how they are so slow on land, but totally athletic and smooth in the water.

The crowd was over near the lifeguard shack watching the seal snoozing on the beach.

Two turtles also snoozing. They must really search for food overnight, as they are tired quite early in the morning. And I was the first human in the kiddie pond (my chest bug is still present, so I stayed out of the deep side), which is always a true blessing. Love having the pond to myself.

 This octopus is, I think, the same one I saw yesterday. Whenever I see rocks strewn around like this, I search for the octopus that put them there.

The water had a lot of sand and stuff in it, but I could still see the octopus.

 This is the surprise octopus...you can just barely see it in there.

 You can see how closely it is colored like the surrounding sand and rock.

 The siphon on the octopus below was just a bit of aqua. 

 I'm calling this one concrete octopus. It has changed the rock that was in front of the den since yesterday...perhaps it felt the red was too prominent. The octopus is hiding inside just to the right of the rock.

Some really pretty rays from above.

And clouds too, catching a bit of the sunrise's pink.

 And the lizard fish! The only reason I saw it was because I was hoping for a flounder and instead saw the slight orange coloration of the lizard. The thing didn't move AT ALL while I took a half dozen shots.

 Male Trunk Fish...they are still there, even when the vis is bad..

Sunrise. Oh yeah. 

 A snoozing beauty, a few feet from the incoming waves. I think this one recently molted, as its skin seemed quite smooth.

A lovely way to start the day.