Birthday swim

Happy to report that my birthday swim had 3 octopuses...one was a little one. My favorite kind. And a barracuda. Thankfully, they were not interacting with each other. (Although not sure how that would turn out...did you see the octopus and the bald eagle video?!)

 Peeking at me. haha

 Above is #3, the little one. It sank down a bit at first, but when I came back, it stayed as you see it in this photo. So cute.

Definitely looking at me:

 More peeking. 

A nice birthday present.

Two of the "regular" humuhumunukunukuapu'a'a.

 My abudefduf here seem to have slightly darker coloration.

And the barracuda left me alone. In fact, I didn't exactly chase it for these pix, but did swim a little closer to it...to no ill effect.

And a small Cornet fish. We were covered in the "cute" category today. 

 Green palm with fruit.

I caught just the literal tail ends of the Picasso Trigger and Orange-spined unicorn fish.

 I'm including this shot of the Picasso, because it shows you the spike which they can raise.

 Moon and palm tree.

 I enjoyed the light on this Picasso Trigger.

Rain and pink at sea as I awaited more light so I could swim.

 Sun finally came up.

A very nice swim. Thankful for a good birthday so far! And for dessert tonight, instead of the usual birthday cake, hubby and I found a mincemeat pie from Anna Miller's!!! Woohoo! May you and yours have a nice Christmas, filled with good cheer and good health.

Arrogance is bad...

I told my friend today that it would be arrogant of me to think that because I'm not finding octopuses these days, there are none!

Obviously, they are using their hiding camouflage very well. Historically, I have noted that May is a slow month for octo-viewings...I am really ready for June. 

So you will correctly assume I had another non-octo day. It even occurred to me that I could do an Octo Greatest Hits blog post with previous photos. Well, maybe. We'll see. And it's not that I didn't see any cool creatures. I just didn't spot any octopuses. And it wasn't for lack of trying. 3 hours in the drink and no octopuses.

And now that I think about it, there also were no seals on the beach and no scorpion fish in the water. Perhaps everyone took a vacation together.

In any case, following is what I did see:

 The 3 spot Chromis, guarding its coral head. This is one of the larger ones I've seen.

A trio of trevally. I think they were circling an eel at this time.

 Abudefduf

Ambon puffer. I always wonder why there are some areas on their bodies that have no dots or stripes. 

 My book says that this is the Bullethead Blenny. When the male is seeking female companionship, he gets "nuptial colors" which means below his jaw, his skin is blue. I will be looking for that.

 Shortjaw Bonefish

Rock-boring Urchin 

Christmas Wrasse. It is AMAZING how hard it is to catch this fish on film with light on its body! They are super fast.

 Chub

 We are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place.

Commensal fishing: 3 goats and a bluefin trevally. The trevally, I think, is rather lazy. It follows the goat fish, hoping to snap up a prey item without much effort.

 Drupe shell and rock boring urchin

Hawkfish on top of a coral cluster. Hence the hawk name.. 

Hebrew Cone, buried in the sand.

 Humu. The regular one.

Indo Pacific Damsel

 Fisherman's lead and an earring I found today.

 Somebody ate a lobster and left the carcass floating around.

Male Box fish

 Moorish Idol

Nice orange rock. I'll probably use this in my underwater game somehow.

 I think it's a yellowfin Surgeon fish.

 Parrot fish from above.

The Peacock Grouper escaping to somewhere else to hide.

 Pencil urchins. I would be so claustrophobic!

 More pencils. The one previous hides out near the wave break.

 Picasso Trigger fish. You can see the spine. At this moment, it's not extended, but I'm told they can extend it so they can't be pulled out of holes by fishermen.

 This Humu has its spine raised a bit....it was being aggressive to the other fish.

I think this is poo, but am not sure. Oddly, they don't put poo in the fish books!

 Rock-boring urchin.

Rock Mover Wrasse

 Snowflake moray

This Spanish Dancer was small and in an awkward place, so I didn't get a great shot.

A few reasons why one shouldn't walk on the bottom or reach into rocks.

 Bluefin Trevally

 An urchin wearing its garden...

Octopus, show yourselves! I'll be back in the water in a few days and would very much enjoy seeing you all!