A good, if short, conversation

In addition to finding 2 octopuses, yay, I had a nice brief talk with a man today who asked, while I was coming in from my swim: "Does it get any deeper?" Of course, being in the sandy part of the Keiki Pool, I replied, that yes it does! The kiddie pool is mostly shallow throughout, although you can get out to the wave break where it is sometimes deep enough to cover you to your shoulders. 

I did advise him to please not pull himself along by the rocks on the bottom, as we have urchins and scorpion fish! He agreed to swim. Nice guy. It's amazing that simply wearing a wetsuit can make people think you know what you're doing. I do know some things, but certainly am not an expert. I just have more experience than others, since I'm blessed to be able to swim at least 3 times per week. So I was nice! (I can learn.)

As a general rule, I do not put people in my posts....since I'm usually underwater, it's rather hard to ask their permission. I especially don't put kids in my posts, which is kind of a shame, since some of them are so stinkin' cute! I just don't want to do anything that might make them a target. That said, you might see a photo later: I did finally get a full wetsuit, so I might have someone take my photo in it and include it in a future post.

So on to the pix:

Octopus #1 stayed in his little rectangular den, so it was hard to catch a good shot. Apparently, this octopus was not particularly curious about the big black blob hanging around outside its den (me). But it started the day off right. (I was able to swim in the deeper side first, but didn't see any octopuses there.) 

 I had the feeling that this "regular" octopus was at home, but when I first saw its rock, didn't see the animal. Until later.  In the following picture, it is peeking at me from inside its den. They are apparently quite curious. 

In any case, they are always alert. They will shrink down into the den if they determine that you are a threat.

None of the two octopuses did any hunting or flying today, so it was a low key, but appreciated, swim.

 I like to call these photos A Mess of Goats, just because it's fun. They hang in a huge school near the intersection of the shallow and the deep ponds. They move away from me, too, so they do acknowledge that I'm there.

A juvenile Razor Fish. I have seen this one before. I say that, assuming it's the same one, because in my experience they are quite rare.

 Cowry shell hiding under an overhang. I also found 2 empty Cowry shells, so they came home with me.

 Small female Trunk Fish. They are very shy; this one was heading into a hole under a rock.

Flea Bite Cone shell

 God's Rays. The wind had abated a bit today, so it was nice to not feel totally chilled upon getting out.

Moorish Idol. So delicate and pretty.

 This Lizard fish was zooming away before I even saw it, so I'm not sure if I scared it or something else did.

Rainbows 

And a sleek looking snoozing seal. I think this one might have molted pretty recently because its skin looked super smooth. I'm glad I'm not a seal: if I had that much sand on my face, I'd be itchy and cranky!

 A Turban shell. I thought when I first saw it that it was the Turban Shell animal I was seeing in it, but upon closer exam with my sweetheart, we think that might be part of a crab claw that we are seeing!

 Note the little spikey things coming out of the pink part. Spikey things is a scientific description. NAH.

 And a Turban shell hiding under a rock. I'd bet this one was still occupied by the original animal, but I didn't pick it up, so can't be sure.

What I am sure about was all the trash I picked up today: a pair of clip-on sunglasses, two of those hard plastic gray things, several pieces of glass and the usual scrunchies. 

Now for today's Urchins: most of the pictures show the stuff on their backs. Must be heavy. 

This one shows you an urchin with relatively few things on its back, so you can get a better idea of what the rocks and other stuff are hiding.

 Yes, believe it or not, there is an urchin under there! If I were a predator, I would have to think pretty hard about where to attack the animal.

The following one took the extra precaution of also hiding under an overhanging rock.

 And a cute small one.

Believe it or not, I do think the urchin here was also trying to grab that big red rock as part of its protective garb. Whew, what a lot of baggage.












 The young Pinktail Durgon was out today again. I include its photo not because it's so marvelous, but because you can see its spike semi-raised. I don't know why it hangs out where it does, but I have seen it several times in this same area, near a coral head. I think it could dash in there to escape a predator, if it needed to, so perhaps that's why. It didn't hide from me though, so I'm thankful for that.

I should add that the lifeguard told me that Turtles are no longer considered endangered. Which is both good and bad: they don't rope them off anymore, but do make a line in the sand to encourage people to leave them alone...

I should be nicer....

It came to my attention today that questions which appear stupid to me are not actually stupid: if one asks where I saw the octopus, I think they may be thinking there is a regular place that the octopuses congregate. Which of course they don't, but when you don't look for octopuses on a regular basis, you might think to be able to find them where you last saw them! Am I making any sense?

And there is a regular octopus, which I saw today, so I guess I could have said: Down there near where all those goofy people are standing in the water!

 I included the photo above because it shows the eye, siphon, skin colors and even a bit of tentacle. And of course, sand blowing through the water. Not only was it later in the day than my usual swims, but the waves were choppy and people were walking around on the bottom. A big no-no for me.

And the one to the left shows the bumpy skin and also a bit of tentacle. This is an octopus that has been hiding in this rock for a while...hope it stays! It was the only octopus that I was able to spot today, in my one hour swim after church.




I also saw two scorpion fishes:

 This one moved to get away from me, so you can see the warning colors on his side fins.

And here's the same fish without the warning, as I first saw it. Really good camouflage, non?











And as I was swimming over near where you can go over to the deep side, I saw a man, his wife and son swimming near me. The man was actually "walking" with his hands, grabbing rocks to pull himself along. When they popped up, I gently tapped him and warned him about scorpion fish in the area and how they were venomous. The lady shrieked a little bit, but the man wasn't phased....I swam on. And then about a minute later, I saw the 2nd Scorpion Fish:

 See it? (Near the top of the photo...look for side fins.)

I took these pix, and actually just now saw the one immediately to the left and thought: why did I take a photo of a juvenile Saddle Wrasse?! Of course, the answer is I took the photo because the Scorpion Fish is just above the little fish, with its tail just above the little fish, and its head leaning on a rock. The side fins have a little serration on them. I thought it was cute that I saw this immediately after I warned the guy. Hope he gets along ok...

This Electric Blue Crab was hanging out in a used shell. 

And here is Honu #2. 












Below is a big one that swam by me: it had been tagged by NOAA recently, I think. I hope that doesn't hurt!

I was about to warn a couple standing near that there was a turtle, but then it swam away. I think a bit confused about which way to go to escape people. Not easy on a Sunday in Poipu! There was a roped off seal on the beach too, but he was faced toward the ocean, so his pix weren't very interesting..

This little Snowflake Moray was trying to escape too. Its head is in the middle of the shot.

 This Urchin had placed only soft stuff on its back...I don't know how protective that would be. 

And this one was really small...maybe 2 inches from stem to stern? That's my pointer finger in my glove, as an attempt to demonstrate the tiny size. 

So to sum up, I will try to be nicer when people ask questions. That said, I do remember the time someone asked: "Did you see any fish out there?" There's just no good response to that! 

Three octopuses and nice water

I was quite surprised today that the water was so clear and nice...the waves were more active than yesterday. And I saw 3 octopuses!

No, I didn't bring them home. But I thought I'd share the trash that I picked up today. Note especially the thread: not just the blue thread you see loose on the paper towel, but also the thread wrapped around the plastic that I bring along to wind fishing line around. It is incredibly hard to mash fishing line into a manageable piece and stuff it in my little dive bags. And then it gets caught in the zipper of the bags. So humbug! So I bring the plastic to help me manage it. But this wasn't fishing line and it took forever to wind it all up! And that is a long way of saying that's how I missed octopus #1's first picture: it popped up just when I was trying to wind all this mess up and get it out of the water! So my hands were engaged and not camera-ready.

So yeah, this is not the ideal photo...but the octopus is in there. He/she was just too smart to get sucked into the thread drama, but retreated into his den like any smart animal would do!

Octopus 2. Again hiding

 And octopus #3. Much more visible. It didn't move and just let me keep snapping photos. Note the pink/green shell at the edge of the den...wonder if there was a crab in it? Of course I didn't want to shock or scare the octopus, so I didn't even try to peek into the shell to see who was home.

This humu got very close. You can see the top of its head where the spike is...it can lower or raise the spike as it wishes.

 Again, I should count these dots on the male Trunk fish!

 Needlefish

 This time, the Pencil Urchins are accompanied by a Brighteye Chromis.

 And the Pink tail Durgon was trying to get closer to get a cleaning from the Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse, waiting on the right side of the photo.

 Rain at sea. 

 Rainbow and lifeguard surfboard

 Nice shell

 Spotfin Scorpion Fish

 Supermale Christmas wrasse

 Bluefin Trevally

 And up and down photos: urchins. Yes, the one below had waaaay too many heavy rocks protecting its back. At least to my way of thinking....

And the sun was a bit warmer today, so I didn't totally freeze on the way to the car. Yay. And thanks for reading!