July 10, 2014

                      Whew!  Still catching up on posts.  So much time in the water and then recording all the info.  Not to mention the iffy internet.

Time is flying here on the island of Cayos Major in the Cayos Cochinos chain of islands off Honduras.  Hard to believe we are more than half way done with our time here.  It is going much too fast.  A morning swim today, finally over to the NW point, all the way to the point this time, starting there and working my way back past the previous area I checked further from the point a few days ago. 

                     Decided to follow the shore line out, as trying to take the “short way” straight across to the point is a lot more difficult with the current and wind and takes as long to get there fighting the elements as it does to take the “long way” around the bend, closer to shore in shallower waters with less current and wind effect.  Coming back is a little easier the short way as the wind and current is pushing you in that direction.  That is also were the turtles and rays are seen a lot of the time. 

                     On the way out I spotted a golden colored boulder coral about 1m in diameter in the middle of the sea grass bed and under it saw 2 small lobsters, going to town feeding on the algae and such near their boulder.

                     I was excited to find the smallest Flamingo Tongue yet.  It was about as close to the larva stage as you could get, with the shell being only about 2mm wide and 5-6mm long attached to the top of a Common Purple Sea Fan.  Yahoo!  Smallest I have seen yet.  I few days ago I found a small juvenile FT but it was twice the size of this one.  Most FTs I have seen have been fully mature, around 2.5-3.0 cm with a few only 1.5-2.0 cm.  This itty bitty one was hard, but fun to find.

                     At the NW point there were a lot of sea fans but few FT.  Further back from the point a lot more FT on various corals were seen.  I need to verify that they were all of the Gorgonian phylum.  100s of 1,000s of sea urchins line the shore reef areas and the waves have a tendency to push me into some of these shallow area, being hard to get out of without running into the urchins and other reef creatures.  Almost got trapped a couple times and got close to meeting up with a bunch of spiny (ouch) sea urchins.

                                          Long spined sea urchin - all over the place

Encrusting coral

                                          Purple feather Gorgonian

                                         Strange division of arms on sea cushion