I saw them too! I saw them too! A whole school of them!
**acting approx. 20 years younger than actual age**
And I had a CAMERA with me!!!
A Brief Synopsis of My Snorkel Expedition:
Got there around low tide, vis. seemed good water was about 68F. No wind so it was rather warm causing yours truely to sweat like a pig, which in turn led to more wetsuit donning-wiggling than usual, which then lead to a busted zipper over which I got VERY upset and rather umm emotional :bawling: since I only have one suit and upon consulting with the local dive store was told the suit was a loss. I was loaned a suit for the afternoon which I thought was especially kind
because I can't stay in the water more than ten minutes without one and I was really upset about losing my suit since I don't have money for a new one right now.
Equipped with borrowed suit I went back to Ft. Wetherill and decided to go poke around the far side of the cove that has the boat ramp. The tide was REALLY low, because of the moon I guess, so I was wading around looking for a rock to sit on so I could put on my fins when I ran into the school of sennet! :jawsdown: Nearly had a heart attack because I wasn't expecting to see any much less a school of the buggers and as long as I held still they stayed right around my legs. They were right at the edge of the eel grass so I practically tiptoed out of the water then sprinted for the car to get my camera.
Upon retrieving camera (and getting strange looks from other divers) and sprinting back down the beach I then stealthily re-entered the water sans fins and tried sneaking up on the sennet. :lurk_2:
Well they decided they didn't like me fully submerged and moved away but at least they didn't go rocketing out of site. If I held still they'd come back but every time I lifted my arm to snap a picture they'd move out of range again. Grrrrrr. This went on for some time and if I ignored them and looked at something else for awhile they'd come really close to me. I think I got a couple shots of them. They were really neat, just like little torpedos. There were also TONS of little flounder, which are quite fearless unless you actually try to grab one. There were also a plethora of cunner and this really hilarious crab that would climb up one bunch of eel grass and then come back down and scale another like climbing trees. I've noticed that a lot of the juvenile green crabs in that cove are actually red. I really enjoyed just sitting there on the edge of the eel grass seeing a really large number of tiny animals that you'd never know were there if you were swimming around everywhere. As I was getting ready to get out I saw my first tropical fish! An obnoxious little black grouper with a yellow tail and white/grey spots. The yellow tail was what caught my eye. Anyway this little bloke absolutely refused to stay still for even a millisecond to have his picture taken! Unfortunately for him I didn't have any collecting gear or he'd now be residing at the NEA branch in Newport. While I was there some other divers saw a sea robin, which I thought was pretty neat. I also found a mermaid's purse (skate egg case) floating in the flotsom. I beleive it was still occupied but I'm not sure that the embryo was viable since it was floating around.
