fstopandsee

This close up underwater shot is of a bearded fireworm. They have amazingly detailed bodies, but all of those little white bristles will sting, so don’t touch!

What does this look like to you? Some type of microbe, a spiny cactus or a sea creature? If you guessed sea creature you’d be correct, and this one isn’t nice at all. It is a crown-of-thorns starfish, and this nasty guy eats the coral reefs. Close up you can see his sharp spikes and understand why most other animals don’t mess with him.

This fish must have thought he was perfectly safe in the coral. Eventually I got too close and he took off, but I had time to get this shot while he was just hanging out doing his thing.

Look at those pearly whites! I’d hate to have to brush all those crazy teeth, but this whitemouth moray eel doesn’t seem to have an issue keeping them looking sharp. They seem vicious since they are always opening and closing their mouths, but they do that to breathe. This one let me and my camera get quite close for a photo.

This tiny pipehorse was easy to find on the white bottom of the ocean, but hard to photograph! He didn’t move fast but was always slowly drifting. I got him to calm down for a few seconds to get this shot. You can see him trying to use his curled tail to try to hold on to anything he can find, and his red eyes looking around to see what is up.

In celebration of World Turtle Day, I went deep into my archives to find this friend. Diving with turtles is always amazing, and this particular one seemed particularly happy to pose on the bottom of the ocean while I took this photo. Long live the turtles!

Some type of soft coral? Nope! This is really a feather duster worm, or Sabellidae. The way it waved back and forth in the current on this dive made it look a lot more like a plant than an animal. You have to be quick to get a shot like this. Once they know you are there they will quickly retreat into the tube base they build for themselves, and you’ll miss all the interesting bits.

Like most things in the ocean, this guy doesn’t like to be touched. His stinging white bristles are flared out since he noticed me, but it wasn’t too difficult to avoid all 1.5 inches of him. I spent at least 10 minutes to get this shot and I’m pretty happy with the result. He was cooperative, but the current moved him around enough to make getting this shot a time-consuming process.

The current can be strong, there is no use fighting it. Sometimes it is just best to grow with the flow.

I was focused on the spotted moray eel for this shot, but then a little cleaner shrimp popped into the frame. Maybe they had some kind of arrangement to share this little hole in the bottom of the sea.