Tag: fish
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Creepy crinoids and the camouflaged critters that colonize them
What stalks across the seafloor and ripples around the reef? What looks like a plant, but then GRABS you when you swim past? What has no brain, an anus next to its mouth, and a bunch of sticky arms that reach out and attach to you? What’s beautiful and terrifying all at once? The crinoid.…
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Garden Eels are Maddening
Trying to catch a garden eel out of its hole is a maddening task.
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In Pursuit of Pygmy Seahorses
The scene is a hotel room in Anilao, Philippines. Our heroine is standing over a console table, assembling an underwater camera, when her husband enters the room with news from their dive guide. HUSBAND: The boat is going looking for pygmy seahorses today. How big are they, anyway? Our heroine looks up, instinctively making a…
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Frogfish are basically sponges with mouths
How to find a frogfish? Look for sponges. Look at all the sponges. If a sponge looks like it has a mouth, it might be a frogfish. If it doesn’t look like it has a mouth, it might still be a frogfish. Maybe poke it. If it moves, your chances that it is a frogfish…
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The Saddest Seahorse
You may be guilty of anthropomorphizing marine life when you find yourself asking a seahorse, “Why the long face?”
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The Recalcitrant Seahorse
Once upon a time, in a magical far away land called Curaçao, there was a seahorse. And it was a jerk. Every time I approached it with my camera, it would turn its back to me. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes, it even just got up and walked away. I hated that seahorse. And…
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The Ruby E: One of San Diego’s Most Richly Historied Shipwrecks
The Ruby E, one of San Diego’s premiere wrecks for divers, has a rich and colorful history. Although initially commissioned to intercept Prohibition-Era alcohol shipments on behalf of the United States Coast Guard, she also assisted in Bering Sea patrols, thwarted Japanese task forces in the Aleutian Islands during WWII, and worked as a commercial…
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I saw things in the Sea of Cortez that were not nudibranchs
Despite troublesome conditions on our Sea of Cortez diving trip (on the liveaboard dive boat Nautilus Explorer), we did manage a few days where the visibility was good enough to leave the macro lens in the cabin and get underwater for some wide-angle action. In fact, the water was so clear and beautiful on our first…
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Diving the Hogan Wreck
USS Hogan was a Wickes-class destroyer commissioned in 1919. During WWII, she served as a minesweeper and coastal convoy ship. In November of 1945, she was used as a target ship for firing tests and sank. Located south of the Point Loma peninsula on the US-Mexican border, the Hogan wreck rests just far enough from the…
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Diving at La Jolla Shores is like Going to the Zoo…
… In that I always seem to end up seeing one of everything. Seriously, head down there with a creature checklist and cross it off, and then ascend when you’ve seen it all. WOW, what an amazing night dive at La Jolla Shores. We went in at 8pm and dropped into about 15 feet of…