Photos from 2002 September 28
Today I had an amazing snorkeling adventure, and I did not have an underwater camera with me. So the most amazing things (the brightly colored sea cucumbers as long as my arm, the uncountable numbers of delicate fish all around me, the barracuda, all that stuff) you'll just have to take my word for. :-) These folks here are the crew of the tour who led the dives and served the food, and even had to pick up the trash. I suppose that's the price you pay for getting to dive for a living; you also have to clean tables.	Here's a view out the back of the boat while the snorkling was going on. Although there were a good hundred people on this boat, there was nothing as far as the eye could see in any direction. The dark patches are the actual coral growths, which come up to about two meters below the surface, and the light blue-green water indicates where the water goes down to the sandy bottom, maybe four or five meters down.	They had a glass-bottomed boat atached to the big ship, and they took small groups out on guided tours all day. This is a shot of the big ship as we pulled away. All the snorkeling was behind the ship, so the area where the glass-bottomed boat went was off limits for snorkelers.	The next couple pictures are examples of the diversity of coral structure and color. This is a shot down through the glass, so there is a lot of crud and bubbles obscuring the shot. Of course, short of buying an underwater camera, it's the best I could get.
The previous shot had wavy coral, this one has bubbly coral. Other kinds had arms and fronds, and then there were the brain corals which were just like large spheres. We saw one that the guide said was over 1000 years old, and was about 10 meters across. Humungous!	Here's an example of the kind of coral with arms. There were also kinds that formed large, flat, plate-like structures, and others that made large, delicate feather-like shapes.	The next two pictures are of a giant clam that must have been at least two or three meters across. Hard to tell, because the water distorts your sense of scale. The guide said this creature was 80-100 years old. One thing I didn't know about giant clams was that the mollusc itself pretty much fills the shell. Somehow I thought they were a lump at the back. Not so.	Here you can see it better, I think. Can you see the intake and output valve of the mollusc? Intake on the right, output on the left. I also didn't realize they come in many different colors. This one looked kind of greenish, but I saw some that were mottled flourescent purple! Most of the ones I saw were maybe a foot or two across; this one was the only one even close to this size.
This was the tour guide, explaining something (dont remember what) with appropriate gestures, while the guy across from me was looking intently down into the glass. It was really an amazing experience, being in and among that reef. It was like the other reefs I'd seen were wanna-be imitations of this one. I look forward to seeing other parts of the reef, and next time I think I'll bring an underwater camera.
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