The pic above is of some little fish in Kali Biru (Blue river) in the Mayalibit Bay watershed.  The river looks blue apparently from all the copper in the rocks of the stream bed.  It's apparently too cold and fast-moving for crocs, so makes a great freshwater snorkel spot.  I don't know what kind of little suckers these fish are, clinging to the rocks.  It's been over a year since my last trip to Kali Biru and I wonder how these little fish are doing.  In the meantime, it's time to shift weekend attention to snorkel spots close by, like the Truckee River.  Lots of fish in there too, including these endangered Sacramento suckers.  They may not be as colorful as the little minnow-sized fish in Kali Biru, but they're still a wonderful sight.

More fun from Kali Biru- little shrimp looking for algae on one of Amy Tan's hands.

These colors are real- if you were to swim up to this tube anemone today with your mask and snorkel, this is what you'd see.  No flash, no Photoshop.  

The tube anemone comes out of the sand, its tentacles bend with the surge, and somehow it catches and eats enough plankton to keep up with this rigorous schedule, grow, and mate.  If you disturb it, faster than you can blink it withdraws into its sand-colored tube.  The only way to see it is to move slowly and be patient.

It sounds like this is an especially stressful Friday, at the end of a stressful work week.  As a little pick me up just remember- whatever life throws at you (say, a harpoon for example), just keep swimming.

On a night dive, unless it's a full moon or you've stirred up a storm of bioluminescence  you can only see what's lit by the beam of your handheld light.  The exciting stuff is at the distant edges of that beam, where an animal might think you're just tossing around a little moonlight. Once they figure out you’re actually an enormous well-lit spaceship that sounds like Darth Vader, they’re outta there. But sometimes you get lucky- in that moment before you swim over a piece of coral, you notice its branches bend juust a little bit in the surge, it raises bumps on its skin, and it has eyes.  Before your brain can even process what you see, you freeze, hoping to recognize the cuttlefish before it recognizes you.  

For the animals that don't take flight--is it fright that keeps them there, or are they just sleeping?  An interesting paper on sleep and possible REM in cuttlefish:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0038125

  

What a mug!  This toadfish was not happy to have a dive light shining into his nursery.  He was busy guarding his young in a dark and quiet cave under a coral head, one of many potential homes along a sandy slope off the island of Mutus (Raja Ampat, Indonesia, Nov 2010).  His young were even less excited to be woken up.  Look closely and you'll see they're all making tracks to the back of the cave, most of them leaving us with the ever-popular fish butt shot (cropped close up below).  

Think of this scene if you hear people talking about temperate toadfish waking them up in the night.  

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/26/us/sausalito-journal-voice-of-the-turtle-no-toadfish-love-song.html

juvenile toadfish

Ok, you win.  I'll write a blog.  Now and then I'll post a pretty picture from a far flung place and add a little story, or some other spark of curiosity.

I'll start with this shot of sponges, tunicates, coral, hydroids, and algae.  This scene is altered only by a point-and-shoot camera flash.  It's one of many reasons why I'm a complete and total sucker for muck.

This photo was taken in Lembeh, Indonesia, May 2009.  This spot was where "muck" diving was first popularized by an enthusiastic diver named Larry Smith.  When everyone else was being wowed by coral reefs, he and his fellow pioneers found unassuming and altogether alien critters in the sandy bottom. They made stars of sucker-studded players like Wunderpus and the Mimic octopus.  Sea squirts were suddenly charismatic.  The closer you look, the more patient you are, the more beautiful muck can be.