Jewels in the Murk

Think of a destination where fascinating, colorful, delicate, spectacular marine life abounds.  Would you think of the once thriving shipbuilding city of Newcastle upon Tyne, on England’s grey East...

Chitons – These Guys are Tough!

I’ve spent a lifetime exploring coastlines.  As a kid I prefered exploring the pools and shallows of a rocky shore to spending time on a beach.  I mean, once you’ve dug a big hole, what else is there? …

Featured Coral – WWC Rhodactis Shroom

With Reef-A-Palooza almost upon us, I thought it would be a good idea to feature a WYSIWYG coral from the folks that put on the New York and Orlando shows, World Wide Corals.  Normally I don’t “ohh and ahh” over a Rhodactis mushroom but this one looks very beautiful, making this our Featured Coral of the Week.  As of today, they only have one Rhodactis like this in stock and WWC is offering it for $129.00. About: The Rhodactis or Bullseye mushroom, as it’s sometimes called, is often seen in violet to blue or with margins and highlights in orange.  What makes this mushroom unique is the rainbow of colors seen in the specimen.  Papillae form a cauliflower-like patterns, and they typically can

Rainbow Wrasse Caught in a Territorial Dispute

Hi all, lots going on these days leaving me with very little time to blog. On Saturaday we had the CIE students from Bonaire again and kept busy with them till 2:00, so much for getting anything else done that day!! Then yesterday was the oposite and it turned out to be a contest seeing just how much a human can do in one day… I first did a three hour mtb ride with my neighbor, then went to the beach, then to the hardware store and bought some lumber and spent hours finishing up the boxing or crating of Aimee’s wooden horse, it’s done! I then went to wish Mark from the World famous Dive Bus Hut a Happy Birthday, stopped and watered the birds in the desert and then picked up Aimee and the dogs for a long afternoon walk carying more water out to the desert to water our poor dry baby agave’s, after that I was cooked! I have two juvenile Rainbow Wrasses for you today that I found mid-water caught in a major dispute over territory! These little fish are only around four inches in length and can be very aggressive, when I first saw them they both had their mouths open yelling at each other but as I got closser for a photo I ended up with this