Moorish Idol hiding beneath sea plane wreck
So I did end up finding some info on the Satan Slug from one of my previous postings:
http://www.seaslug.info/factsheet.cfm?base=pleugran
So my Oatmeal tastes like garlic today. Actually it has always tasted like garlic since I started eating it at this restaurant a week ago. It even has a little bit of curry in it today as well. Hmmm. Me thinks somebody has not been washing the pots too well.
Its interesting what not driving a car after you have been a driver for a long time does to you. Relatively speaking, there are not that many cars in Palau although there is definitely a rush hour of sorts. I have been a pedestrian for the most part here with the exception of the odd cab ride back from the dive shop. I am now really irritated with all the traffic. I don’t get it. Where did all these cars come from and where are they all going? Can’t they ride bikes? Why do they have to get so close to me on the side of the road? Well this latter question can be explained by the fact that most of the cars here are right hand drive yet one drives on the right side of the road. What ends up happening is that drivers have a very good idea of where the side of the road is, and consequently where you are, and hence will get close to you without worrying about hitting you. Its really unnerving. My point, however, is that I am starting to realise how annoying excessive car use is!
I think I might have finally gotten a little sick on this trip. The hamburger stand guy talked me into getting one last night as I walked by. I was like…well…I DID hear that he burgers were good here….hmmm… So I caved in and it was indeed delicious but damn yesterday was a bad day in the life of Colin’s healthier diet. Maybe thats why I feel “sick”.
I might be giving up on the crocodile expedition in favor of a sea snake outing. Apparently there is a place where the sea snakes go ashore and sleep. Rumor has it that they actually snore too! If this is the case then I will get some sea snake snoring on the intertubez as soon as I get back in the land of good bandwidth. Oh how I can’t wait to get back into the land of good bandwidth…..
What other random thoughts do I have to offer today? Well I am really digging these fancy SHURE ear buds. They are SOOOOO clear. I am hearing new things in music that I have been listening to for years. Some of this stuff has also been remastered though which makes a huge difference. I collected a bunch of those Pink Floyd remastered Japanese Mini-LPs and they sound SOOOO good. With some of these records it really makes a huge difference. I was never a huge fan of “Animals” but it sounds SOOOO good now.
Apparently SONY is cutting 8000 jobs. Yeah tell me about it!
Ok so on to the Fish as promised. Some of you have already seen the first few fish pictured below and I apologize for that but these fish pics never made it into my blog, only to Facebook, so I wanted to get them up here. They are actually from Yap.
This is a Mandarin Fish. These little guys only really come out at dusk to eat and mate. Why get out of bed for anything else? They are possibly the most beautiful fish ever. They’re markings are so intricate and detailed down to every last part of their fins. Their fins flutter incredibly quickly as well so they seem a little bit like Humming Birds. They mate 25 nights out of each month as well.
Mmmmmandarin fish....
This is a Cuttle Fish. Possibly the smartest fish in the sea. These things are SO coool. We were able to hang out with it for about half an hour. I watched it change colors like crazy and it could change its texture as well. It would get all spiky sometimes and other times it would be perfectly smooth. It would sometimes go under a head of coral and turn black and completely disappear and sometimes it would be bright bright white. Amazing I tellz ya.
So cute and cuttley
Ok now on to the fish in Palau. Here is a Napoleon Wrasse. These guys are crazy! They are huge and have the coolest markings on them. There are some that seem to have a good relationship with a number of the divemasters around here. Apparently they get fed hard boiled eggs amongst other things and are always looking for a handout now! They are quite docile though and the divemasters here pet them and put them underneath their arm and pass them around from diver to diver and that sort of thing. Its pretty amusing. Sometimes the divemasters will put a piece of food near and the fish will rush in and it will seem like its going to take your arm off. Its scary!
Vivre Napoleon!
Here is a Scorpion fish. Pretty clever masters of disguise these ones.
Mmm....scorpion....fish...
Here is a relative of the Scorpion called the Leaf Fish. Actually I think it might be called the Leaf Scorpion fish but anyway, here is a kind of crappy shot of a yellow one:
Make like a fish and leaf...
Here is a Unicorn Fish. This one was easy to photograph at night because it seemed to be blinded by my light. I decided not to torture the poor fishes with the light any more though because it seemed really disruptive to their behavior. Some of these fish could be stunned and then become easy prey. Not nice! These unicorn fish have the weirdest profiles. They remind me of Blue Meanies from The Yellow Submarine.
Mmm.....unicorn....fish....
The crocodile fish is pretty darn elusive but I did manage to see a couple of them on the last boat trip.
Mmm....crocodile....fish....
Contrast the snout with that of a REAL crocodile:
Mmmm....snout....
The Crocodile Fish’s eye is especially cool looking (sorry for the crappy cyan drenched shot):
Mmm....crocodile...fish....eye.....
contrast that with an actual crocodile’s eye:
Mmm....crocodile...eye....
I have loads more fish pics but I am going to try and be more selective about the pictures I take in an effort to raise the quality there of. That way I will be inspired to take only good pics to later upload to the blog!
Ok so thats all for this first Fish posting from Palau. It might be a while before the next Fish posting as I am on a boat next week and will have no interwebz again for a while. I have some other posts coming before then though…
Be well people!
