Underwater Florida!!

Aquarius is one of my fave places to hang out underwater, as you can always see all kinds of cool stuff around there...such as this barracuda, getting itself all spruced up by a cleaning wrasse.

Big big ray!

Lots and lots of fish always...

Steve and his friends

So there're things to amuse yourself with during safety stops. Once though, we got a real special treat..

Guess who came to visit?

Didn't stay for long though, sigh!

Large groupers are called jewfish here (don't ask me why though)! This one was hanging out under the top grating of Aquarius!

Aquarius itself is situated on Conch Reef, where we spent a lot of our time working on the permanent Xestospongia muta transects.

Conch Wall- the 'tourist' part of Conch Reef. The rest is a restricted area meant for research only!

There's really not much coral on the reefs here compared to the Indo-Pac; last I checked, the average cover was around 6%. But there's still stuff growing, and you can see a multitude of seafans, sponges, and soft corals. Plus, so many fish!

Big green moray out swimming!

Spotted moray? Argh, I need to learn some fish names!

They eat sponges!

The first one was exciting, but I admit I kinda just looked after the 4th or 5th...

Plenty scorpionfish out here! Have to watch where I placed my hands...

I managed to find some macro opportunities though!


The blennies here are so cute!

Comments

Applecow said…
WAAAAhhh... so nice! I also want to go!
10:37 pm
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