Barracuda love shiny

I was a little surprised to spot a barracuda today.

And I was reminded why I wear gloves while swimming: I have a shiny silver cross ring that I wear. And Barracuda supposedly love shiny!

So the gloves hide the shiny while I'm swimming. I have never had a barracuda take it upon itself to bite or even look twice at me, but I also do not want to encourage that behavior.

They are always lurking in the "foggy" water, so they are hard to spot. I'll bet the fish they chase have a hard time seeing them, too.

There was a small octopus today. Very happy about that. Here's what it looks like:

 You can see its eye, siphon and even a bit of the lovely aqua color I have noted before at the base of the siphon.

 And it peeked at me.

 And changed color, adding bumps along the way.

 I do wonder what went through the Maker's mind when He created their eyes. Well, really the whole animal is a question mark!

Why did God make 'em able to be bumpy? (Here it was hiding under an outcrop of rock, so eye on one side and body on the other.)

And change colors so rapidly? 

Mind you, I'm not complaining! Love the little critters. I also noted where this one was in relation to the rocks and coral, so hopefully, I'll be able to find it again next time. Possibly. No video today; it stayed in its den, regardless of my twinkling gloved fingers.

Barred Filefish 

 Blue Lined Snapper. I never noticed until today how the blue lines intersect on its back.

Christmas Wrasse male

 Nice big Parrot.

And the white shell.  I thought it might be a basket shell, but am not sure. Also, I am pretty certain that it's the same one I saw previously...and it had a crab inside.

I think they are Ladyfish. I am terrible, though, at most of the silver fishes (the exception being the Giant Trevally), so don't quote me.

 Snowflake Moray eel, taking in the scene.

Bluefin Trevally. One was circling around a rock, but I couldn't spot what it was harassing.

But I could spot the lovely morning sky:

 Sliver of a moon and palm tree

The moon and Venus to the left

 Starting the pinkness

Pinkness and rain out at sea

 I normally don't swim to the left, but this is what it looked like this morning. 

The waves outside the reef were charging, so I didn't venture out. I do wonder, though, if the little octopus I spotted in the channel a while ago is still there?

A couple of maybes, but...

Finally, the wind died down enough so that the waves were not beating us to a pulp!

I did walk down to the Bay on Sunday, but the waves were so fierce, that I decided it would be stupid to go in. Even if I didn't get mashed, the visibility would still have been poor, probably. I feel badly for the visitors who are only here for a week. If they leave it to the last day, they'll be disappointed.

Kinda like some of today's visibility:

Can you tell it's a Picasso Trigger?! I feel bad for the fish when it's this hard to see: how on earth do they find their food?!

And I certainly didn't find any "for sure" octopuses. I did find some places where there could have been one, but I only count it if I'm totally sure.

All the rocks were outside the hole, but couldn't see well enough to tell if there was an octopus behind the rocks, hiding. I like to think there was. So I'm not calling this post SKUNKED; I'd prefer to think I might have seen one. Maybe. ha.

Cute little blue striped butterfly. And a Christmas wrasse that I actually was fast enough to catch with my camera.

 There were some nice clouds. 

And the Cornet fish zipped by on the hunt.

 Early morning sky and palm tree.

The Humu dove into this hidey-hole just seconds before I snapped the picture.

 Hard to see, I know, but this might have been some type of scorpion fish. It was hiding and the reddish part surrounded by white was a fin. No idea what kind; couldn't see it well enough.

 But I could see the moon. And the close-by cloud.

Adorable Sergeant Major. A really small fish, maybe an inch and a half long, including the tail.

 The sun did finally come up. I popped up to take this one, so that's why the water looks close. Because it is.

 A Humu not hiding.

 This bluefin trevally was scouting for something over the rocky bottom. I didn't see what it wanted. There also was a Giant Trevally that flew by, but the vis prevented me from catching it before it was out of camera range.

 Isn't that a crazy cool mess of clouds?

And now for a word from the operculum corner:

 Because there were so many days when I couldn't swim, I took some operculum photos. Looks like 3 planets, right?! (in the middle one, you can see a bit of the coloration that makes it called a Cats Eye.)

The container holds 1866 operculum. Good thing they're small.

 I have mentioned these little things before, but in case you missed that post, these are little hard items that a Turban shell creates to block the entry to their shell. That way, the animal inside has a better chance of not getting eaten. Or having the shell stolen. Crabs will do that, if they can.

 You can see how some get bashed about. I do like the curly design on the smooth side.

I have over 19000 of these things. Yeah. Who knew?
And props to God for giving us decent water. Here's hoping for the weekend!