A great day in the ocean

We went snorkeling at Crashboat yesterday, on the reef between Crashboat and Naturale and it was an amazing day. (You can see pictures of all of these on a new set on Flickr.)

First, we swam through thousands of mackerel scad. These silvery fish flash by in the shallows. You can just hang there and watch them stream by.

Then we saw five a "family" of five reef squid. We were surprised because we usually don't see them til later in the summer. That doesn't mean they aren't there, we just usually don't see them. We love the squid so seeing them now is a bonus. At the risk of repeating myself, they are wonderful to watch.

Then we watched a porcupine fish out in the open. We see them a lot but usually peeking out from under a rock or coral ledge. Two things were truly fascinating: first, his ability to quickly change his camouflage colors. Near the coral he had a splotchy almost hunter/military camouflage scheme. As he swam over the sand, he lost the splotchy look and took on a tan spotted look. The other thing I haven't seen before is the way porcupine fish use their pectoral fins. It was very cool.



Another color-changer was the spotted filefish. When we first saw the filefish, he was the grey-and-yellow we commonly see. Then, suddenly, with almost no apparent change, he was covered with white spots.



Have I mentioned the green turtle? This is a different turtle than the hawksbill we've seen before. And Elaine saw at least three different fish we've not seen before. She's still trying to identify those. Hopefully, we'll see more of them and we'll get pictures of them to post soon.