Water time

Now that we are back in the Ragged Islands it is water-time again… until the sharks show up. They must have strong sensory perception of blood because they show up almost immediately after a fish is speared.

Here’s how this usually goes down:

…Target spotted, take a dive with pole-spear cocked and rubber loaded.

...Spear fish and start to swim to dinghy.

...Lift fish into dinghy and jump in.

…Say hello to shark(s).

We have an electric bilge pump in the dinghy that squirted out some blood in the water and one shark headed right for our stern.

We were glad he didn’t try anything funny with our inflatable tubes…

I was able to revisit a few reefs near our anchorage for well over an hour and a half before the resident lemon shark showed up. At least I got in a blenny and shrimp fix!

I recently saw a new [to me] blenny ~ a goldline blenny.

There were a few in a grassy rock zone, pretty hyperactive bouncing all over the surface, which was the only way I could find them as they blend in quite well.

Those two blennies are about 2 inches long, but I came across one the other day that was only 1/2 inch. He was very transparent and hard to see yet I was able to get a photo when he holed up. I expected it to be a new species of blenny to identify, but by all accounts it looks like a teeny rosy blenny, so perhaps a juvenile? That’s also a first [to me].

I ran across a few spotted cleaner shrimp that I missed seeing the last time on warty corallimorphs, enthralled as I was when I discovered the large bed of them on a reef near our anchorage.

Pederson cleaner shrimp are still abundant and there is usually one in a grouping that is berried.

Speaking of abundant, did we mention that there are lobsters in the Bahamas??

I see them just as often as the fishermen do, but with no spear they just get their picture taken.

There is also an occasional Spanish lobster hiding in a hole.

An interesting fish showed up on a reef with lots of cracks and crevices, the red-spotted hawkfish. These are also fairly hyperactive and zip around fast, so I was excited to get a few pictures of them. These fish have cool tassels on their dorsal fins and although there are lots of species of them in the Pacific, this is the only one in the Atlantic. I’ve only seen these once before in Roatan.