1 post tagged “seacucumber”
Tomorrow night, a dramatic minus tide will reveal parts of the beach that one normally can't see from shore. I'll walk along the coast with a prominent local biologist, inspecting sea life. This is a tremendous opportunity to document oceanic wildlife without even getting wet.
But that's tomorrow.
The gifts of modern technology enable us to get as close as we please to innumerable underwater species by strapping on a tank of compressed air. Today, I continued this habit, preparing for the land-based view by taking the low road. The low road in question: three dives in the Kerama islands, off the coast of Takashiki and Zamami.
The crew? My usual dive buddy, Otis, and my friend Jon, a Watson Fellow who is on the island studying baseball. Jon just became certified in Puerto Rico, and this would be his first series of open-water dives. The introduction was memorable.
Almost immediately after entering the water, we happened upon two hawksbill turtles. One swam off into the clear blue ocean; another remained to feed and seek shelter around fan coral.
Jon was thrilled to see such a magnificent creature so soon. The hawksbill was less thrilled to see him, and proved that he was swifter than the new diver.
Jon reacted thusly to his defeat in the race, available for your perusal in video format.
[Note: all of my diving videos are available down the left sidebar, but are also posted in higher quality at my YouTube page. If you want less pixelated videos, go there.]
We also found Nemo. Lots of Nemo.
Further wildlife harassment:
This was an inflated pufferfish. We passed him around like a very prickly volleyball before he swam off, flustered but unharmed.
Jon and Otis both juggled with three sea cucumbers, but it was this nose-balancing technique that most impressed me.
Maybe both of those statements are true, but I shy away from taste-based field research. That, and research that involves touching venomous sea vipers.
