So I picked up a waterproof camera and decided to see what I could see.
The first creature I encountered was close to shore. This was a horseshoe crab,
one of only 3 species in the world. He seemed busy with other matters, so I
left him alone and moved on.
As I got a little deeper, the jellyfish started to appear. First the
cute white ones that never hurt anyone. They just sort of floated around
aimlessly.
Then the ugly red kind started showing up. These guys have all the stinging
cells that stab you with poison if you touch them, so I tried to stay a short
distance away.
Before I got too deep, I came across a group of seahorses. They were gathering
around to share stories of times past. I was going to stick around, but I
had more pictures to take.
So I'm swimming along and up comes this dolphin, and he starts doing underwater
tricks and expects me to give him fish. But I didn't have any so he got all
annoyed and left.
Then his whale buddies came along because rumours started going around that
I was giving out fish, and then they started hogging all the pictures.
So I'll humour them and post the rest:
But then they all got ruder. This jawfish just ingored all my polite
requests to get a statement of how marine life is in the new milenium.
I guess oceanic PR just isn't up to our standards.
And then this mantaray didn't even stop, places to go, brine shrimp to
filter. But I managed to snap a picture as he was flying past.
Just as the rudeness stopped, I enter a seedy part of the ocean.
The fish there were giving me an awkward eye. And the fact that they don't blink
made it worse. I new they had their own devious little plans, so I headed on.
This Moray Eel was obviously the muscle around this area, but he spent
most of his time, looking menacing and chewing thw water.
And for every muscle, there's a little guy so complete the pair. I'm sure this
shrimp had some deal worked out, and I heard my name mentioned as a possible
hit, so I decided to leave.
As I was sneaking away, I thought I might make it out without being seen.
But then this loud mouth parrotfish and some sheephead fish started ratting
me out, so there was only one logical place to go: near volcanic activity.
I didn't want to risk taking my camera out in this water, since these
things are cheap, so I grabbed a tube worm and brought it home. Here's a
pic of it in my jar.
After hiding out for a while, I headed back up. But this time I seemed to
head towards a tropical paradise. This little yellow butterfly fish gave me
a flowered necklace. It looked dumb but I politely took it.
The yellow fish joined up with a purple fish and started busting out some dance moves.
They were pretty good, but they had to leave, because they had a record label
meeting to get to.
After they left I was approached by a cowfish who hung around and showed me the place.
He was pretty helpful and helped me get some more pictures. I was getting into some
shallow water now and hit the surface soon after.
As you see here, I got into the tide pool region and met up with some rock lobsters.
They were pretty cool, but kept talking about war stories for hours on end. On
and on and on, and finally I had to leave.
Now the seals were cool, and more the most part were marine dogs. Just sitting there
scratching their heads and staring. They'd make good pets if they didn't need water.
But it's something to think about.
This little penguin was very helpful. I was getting hungry at this point and he
hooked me up with some food. Then we cruised around for a few hours, and
I met the rest of the crew.
At this point I was far from home and spent a day swimming home and then got the pictures
developed so i could share them with you all.
Ok fine, I took a digital camera to Mystic Aquarium,
but they are nice pictures, no?