Reappearing Acts

We figured out how to safely and effectively tag the urchins. We're staying with the little colored squares of rubber glove skewered onto the spines, but this time we're holding them in place with super glue. We pull them out of the water for a couple of minutes, tag them, let the glue dry, and put them back in. Trust me, the urchins have yet to pop off a single tag. Best of all, we can simply snap the spines (they're very brittle and spines snap on a regular basis) just below the tags when we're done with our project, and the urchin looks like it was never touched, though the urchins might argue that the "best of all" would be better applied to the lack of fishhooks in aboral pores.

Our project, however, is officially on hold. A pretty big storm has settled in for the week, with torrential rains, strong winds, and the occasional thunder and lightning. We decided to postpone our three nights of testing to Sunday through Tuesday nights for safety reasons. Most of the other groups have done the same, so there's a bunch of cabin fever-ridden people running around here.

Unfortunately, we can't do too much running (or walking) about in the yard outside, as the septic system seems to have gone on strike. The soil is so saturated that the contents of the leech lines have started seeping to the surface. In some areas of the lawn there are standing pools of effluent up to a foot deep. Inside the house, every flush of the toilet is now like a game of Russian roulette - will it go down or come back up? Worst of all, the lawn is upwind of the house. Everything here literally smells like crap. Ahh, paradise.

In our attempts to escape the muck and mire, we went to Death Snorkel again. Remember from the Cheating Death episode that big storms make big waves which make for a very strong current. It was indeed quite the sleighride. Since I wasn't out collecting this time, I could just ride the current and weave around coral heads and other obstacles. As usual, I stopped every so often to take a few pictures, so here we go:


Christmas Tree worms - here you can see just a taste of the variety of patterns and colors of their feelers. Almost every one I find seems to be completely unique. You can also see how the coral that the worms are burrowed into looks a little fuzzy. That "fuzz" is what it looks like when the coral polyps are extended. It was overcast when I took this picture, so I guess the polyps felt comfortable enough to come out a bit.


Another rainbow-ey parrotfish.


If you look closely, you can see a few needlefish just under the surface of the water. The water itself looks pretty cool, too.