Wednesday, July 31, 2019

A day early

Normally, I go to exercise class on mon/weds/fri, but since we are looking to possible storms in our area, I went again today. Glad I did! Saw both the frogfish, octopuses, and a surprise barracuda! There was another surprise, too, but I'll get to that in a minute.
Barracuda are very stealthy. Look really closely...you'll perhaps first see the black on its tail. They hang out in mid-water, so closer to the surface, which makes it harder for me to catch them with my camera. Also, they move away, and I don't know about you, but it's never my plan to chase a barracuda! Also interesting, I never see them in groups over here. Perhaps I just don't get into deep enough water. That's totally ok with me, by the way.

And I didn't see it catch and eat part of this trevally, but a barracuda is definitely fast enough to do so. I guess it'll all be eaten by morning.



Just so you don't have the dead one stuck in your mind, here's a live one.
 And here's one pestering an eel. 
Octopuses. Yay.

 Somebody made somebody mad....

 A total of 3 octo-sightings today. A great day!





To the right, I call this one The Wrestler. Doesn't it look like a wrestler with bulging shoulder muscles?

 Following, this could be my new fave octo-photo. You can really see it eye, peeking out at me from its den.


 I have given up on naming and numbering. 











I now have my priorities straight again: octopuses first, then frogfish!





You can see it's starting to have some of that "stuff" on its skin. 

I didn't spend much time out here. This fish never does anything! Octopuses are much cooler, although not as rare.
I have been wondering: back in April I caught photos of a frogfish. In the deeper side. Then this fish a while later in the shallow side. Does this mean there are 2?! Or could the little guy have gotten clear across the water to rest in the shallower side? We may never know.



Nice pair of Moorish Idols...going to same way.




Black lined wrasse
 Cloud rainbow with palms
and without
 I noted an anemone crab underneath the coral head. When I got the pix home, that's when I saw the surprise Spotfin Scorpion fish (on the bottom of the shot.) When I'm focused on one thing, sometimes I miss other stuff.

This Trev and Christmas Wrasse were giving the poor Snowflake eel a bad time. 

And here's the female Christmas Wrasse.Another example of the male being somewhat more flamboyantly colored.




Hebrew Cone shell, dug in.
 Male Box fish



 Needle fish near the surface.



And a very pretty Spanish Dancer nudibranch.


 A little more light really makes a difference.


















I laughed when I saw the following one: doesn't it look as if it fell off the ledge and bonked its head?
 And the following photo is to show you how small they can be. 
Pinktail Durgon
 A nice shell on the bottom














Here's the fish I've been trying to i.d. I'll look it up soon. No really!
 White spotted puffer. And no, I won't be counting the dots. Too many.
A nice swim. Please pray with me that the storms pass us by!

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Frogfish chronicles continued

Even though we are expecting 2 possible storms, the waves were at least occasionally calm, so I was able to visit the Frogfish twice!

Not that it cared...


 This little one never moves when I'm taking a photo. I almost want it to charge me or something! At least with octopuses, you can tell they see you...This one is so small, though, I don't want to scare it any more than it already might be when the big shape (me) hovers over it.

 You can see it is developing its holes in the skin. 
Not to be outdone, however, the octopuses showed themselves. Four of them, in fact.

Remember in my last post I said I was not going to number them anymore, but give them names. Yeah, I've had smarter ideas...


I only found Herbert because the Rock Mover Wrasse hovered near him. (And you can see both below. The Wrasse is covering part of the octopus's body.)
 And then Herbert got mad.
Apparently, a swimmer in addition to a wrasse was too much.












And then got over it! This sly buggah hid below the coral head, so when it decided to disappear, it just sneaked down and under..
I will have fun in naming the octopuses for just a while longer. Below, Gertrude sees me.





And turns a bit brown and slides under that rock. You can see both eyes and the siphon from above.
Is it too weird to call an octopus Petunia? I don't even know if it's a male or female. I do know it is the largest octopus I found today.
















Here the Trevally is flowing in front of the octopus.

 Apparently Petunia has a temper too. But with the brown color, you can also see both eyes and some of the suckers.




Back to normal coloration. The eye is in the middle, just above the rock. 
This one, #4, I'm calling Alice.
 Alice reacts with color, too. Above and below, same octopus, different second.














And hiding below. Look for the aqua color near the suckers.

 I thought it was interesting how Alice can turn her skin the same color as the surrounding rocks.

 And then brown. Note the eye and siphon. At the base of the siphon, there's a hint of that pretty aqua.
 Alice thought she was hiding. She is the same color as the bottom.
I was taking the photo of the 3 spot damsel on the left, but when I got home, I realized I caught a bit of that little fish (in the middle) that is my mystery fish. And on the top of the coral, a hawkfish.
 Cleaning station: The Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse taking care of a Manini (convict tang).













The whole eel
 The back part.
 And the front part. You'd think a blogger with over 400 posts would get off her duff to look up this eel, but I'm busy. ha.
 You can see a bit of pink in this group of Convict tangs and surgeon fish. I always look for an "intruder" who doesn't fit in. On Oahu, I would often find Trumpetfish sneaking into these groups. 
 Honu going slowly toward the water.
 Male Box

 Pencil Urchins














The Pinktail Durgon moving with the group.
 A Snakeshead Cowry














A tiny Cornet fish. Look for the black rock with the bit of grey dividing it. That's the fish. The rest of the body is below that rock.
 Whitemouth Moray. I talked with a nice lady lately who was afraid of eels. I told her just to keep her hands out of holes and she'd be fine.

Very nice swim. I was in almost 3 hours. Well worth it.