 |
| Harlequin Crab - Vampire Face (D.Philpot) |
 |
| Harley Front (D.Philpot) |
17:40 Just finished another snorkel
session, I know… it’s a tough life ey? And I saw a Chancho Surgeonfish for the
first time as it got harassed by other fish before disappearing very quickly, a
Leather Bass which is rare but a new addition none the less, as well as
stocking up on some more quality fish photos there were some Yellow-Crowned
Night-Herons around the ‘Little Shark-tooth’ or ‘Tableland’ area of rocks surrounding
part of the lagoon.
 |
| Herons (D.Philpot) |
 |
| The Chancho, Hard To Get A Photo Of (D.Philpot) |
Before heading back
I got caught off-guard by a wave but I recovered, wafting a rock with one hand
before grabbing it, but I just put my other hand casually down without checking
onto the tail of a fish. Turns out that
was a Spotted Scorpionfish, so it was lucky it was only his tail and not the
poisonous barbs on its dorsal fin and so once I felt it squirm from beneath my
fingers (and wondered “what an odd fish that is swimming off the rock moving to
the sand” as I realised) I got some rather good photos of him :-) and a blurry video can be found here where you can see how hard they are to notice even after they have moved to somewhere more 'obvious.'
 |
| Scorpionfish Up Close & Personal (D.Philpot) |
 |
| Scorpionfish From Behind - See It? (D.Philpot) |
 |
| Camouflage (D.Philpot) |
I also ‘Shark-Attacked’ a couple of
girls in the water which was hilarious (they were the right type of people to
do it to, that would take it well) so I feel a ‘Jaws-type movie’ coming up
soon!
I was swimming a fair distance away from
them, maybe 20 metres or something, slipped underwater duck-diving and swam
along the bottom until I was below them.
I then rolled onto my back on the bottom, laughing to myself as I saw
these two pairs of legs dangling below, before rising slowly between them both
and quickly grabbed each of their legs with one hand and stuck my fingers in a
little bit to surprise them and they let off an almighty girly scream which was
fantastic. We laughed it off and I shall
save them the embarrassment of being named and shamed here.
23:00 So tired right now… a mass of
shell/snail collecting and counts has left me hungering to do something else
for a bit. I took some shells back to
the beach so the hermit crab community isn’t compromised in any way, and in
doing so I got to see the beautiful White-Throated Magpie-Jays up close (didn’t
have my camera though of course!) and I also found a complete though dead
Harlequin Crab.
I have now also finally met ML and it
feels as if we are puppies with new toys where we only wonder of what
possibilities there are in the future here.
After our first (extensive) chat I feel excited even more so to be
working under the wing of both DL and ML (which I will refer to together as
“The L’s”), and am looking forward to helping them out with their research and
interests at least…
ML also complemented me on my natural
(at least marine) photographic talent and I feel very privileged to hear such a
comment from him at this early stage.