I was standing out in the front yard this morning watching the sun rise up steadily, much too bright for good sunrise shots, and I looked down at my feet. The warm wine light of the fat, yellow orb was casting a very curious glow on the vegetation and shallow harbour water inches in front of my toes. I started to think about it. I took a picture.

It’s a very ordinary image. Yet, the familiarity of my surroundings give me context to extract much more from it than might be apparent to you:

The brown, twisty gnarls are the roots of my coconut trees. They are presently the only thing saving my front yard from melting into the rising waters of Madang Harbour.  The local sea level has risen at least twenty centimetres since we moved into our house twenty years ago. No, this isn’t global warming. It’s a local tectonic phenomena. We are on one end of a small plate which is tipping. Our end is going down. The gnarly roots speak to me.

The area at the edge of the water is almost daily flooded by boat wakes. The constant salting causes great stress to the grass at the edge of our lawn. The fresh grass shoots are vigorous and bright green.

All around me I can hear the splashing of fish. At this time of the morning predators are coming into water only ankle-deep and driving prey up toward the shore. I remind myself of the small life and death struggles taking place within a couple of metres from where I stand.

How much can you pack into an image.? I guess it depends on who is looking at it and what associations they can make.

Well, enough of the early morning moodiness. Have a look at this delightfully curly Feather Star (Comaster multifidus):

I didn’t think much of this shot when I first saw it on the screen. The composition is not so bad, but the varying distances from the flash left me with some spots far too bright and others too dark. It took a bit of fiddling, but I finally reckoned it was good enough to show.

I love Sea Squirts of all kinds. One could easily make a career of cataloging the varieties within a half hour boat ride from my house. I don’t know how you could make a living doing that, but it would be fun. These are Atriolum robustum:

I got some nice depth of field on this shot and the colour balance is spot-on. You are seeing exactly what I saw.

These are the same Reticulated Dascyllus (Dascyllus reticulatus)  on the same plate coral which I showed to you a few days ago in Sharp and Smooth:

It’s just another frame from the same series. I like the depth in this one, though the general composition is not as good as the shot in the earlier post.

You’ve seen this exact Skunk Anemonefish (Amphiprion akallopisos)  before. I’m going to keep shooting him until I have him nailed down:

One might think that it would become boring doing hundreds (over 2,000 now) of dives in only a couple of dozen locations. I think it depends on what you expect from diving. For me it’s about being with friends, feeling the stress melt away when I slip into Mother Ocean, and photography. You don’t need to spend a lot of money travelling from place to palce like a well-heeled gypsy to get these pleasures. I’m happy to stay at home and squeeze the lemons.

Here’s two more of the Usual Suspects, Red and Black Anemonefish (Amphiprion melanopus):

I had some fun playing with the colours in this shot. I can see some areas which are distinctly fake. However, I decided to take some liberties with Mother Nature.

I just don’t want Eunie to catch me. Shhhhhh . . .

Today we’re looking at coral pictures (mostly). But first I want to tell you about the most beautiful screen saver on the planet. Understand, that’s just one man’s opinion. It developed as an homage to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.  You can find it here. You have to sign up for an account, but there’s no money involved. It does require an Internet connection occasionally to give the full effect of evolvement, but it works fine without one. Here’s a screen shot of the home page. If you like to fool around with screen savers, give this one a shot.Now, on to the coral and whatever.

Wouldn’t you know that the first one up is a species that I can’t find. I tried Googling “cup coral” which is the obvious name for this, but I couldn’t find anything like it. My invertebrates book is of no help. If you know the genus and species of this thing, please leave a comment:It is about six or seven centimetres in diameter.

I am pretty sure about the identification of this coral (Acropora cerealis): It is one of the most common species here. It is very delicate. A brush of a fin can knock off a huge chunk.

This one is quite beautiful when the sun is shining down through the water. It is a species of the Montipora  genus:It has many tubeworms embedded in it. None of them came out to play.

This is another very pretty coral (Pachyseris speciosa).  Both this and the one above are massive. They are often over two metres across:Sometimes what is growing on, in or near the coral is just as interesting. Here Sea Squirts (Atriolum robustum)  grow surrounded by Porites  coral:Well, they obviously don’t grow on the coral, but on a bit of dead coral that is embedded in the Porites. 

I’m a bit of a fan of Sea Squirts. This one you’ve seen several times before. You can enter ‘molle’ in the search box to see previous posts. This one is Didemnum molle.  It has a nice coral, which I think is Goniastrea australensis  in the background:

The shading on the molle  is hard to get right.

Here’s another molle  with several species of coral in the background:

The molle  is about five centimetres across. You can also see a couple of Dascyllus reticulatus  in the background.

Did I mention that I’ve never been bored on a dive?

I’m about to run dry of images from last Saturday’s dive at Magic Passage. I have just a few more. I have to admit that I often take the easy route of showing pretty fish pictures instead of actually writing,  which is the whole point of this journal, at least for me. However, coming up every day with something interesting to write about is a heavy load. It would be so  easy to turn the journal into a soapbox for my increasingly unstable thought processes and poorly thought out plans for saving the world. Believe me. You don’t want  to know.

So, let me do it to you again, one more time.

I’ll start with something that is so pretty and so absurdly flamboyant, that it gives me a little hiccough of a chuckle every time I see one – the Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus):

You’ve seen them many times here. This one is so pink and frilly that it makes me think of teenage girl heading off the the Junior Prom. I should mention that the last time I saw a girl heading off to the Junior Prom was in about 1960. I have no idea what they wear now.

This is just a little throw-away shot of a reef community on the top of the barrier reef at Magic Passage. My theory is that I should toss these shots in occasionally so that you can get an idea of the general habitat appearance:

These have no common name. They are a kind of Sea Squirt (Atriolum robustum):

They always make me think of little alien houses.

You’ve seen it before and you’ll see it again until you can’t eat fish any more – the wonderfully peaceful Silver Sweetlips sub-adult (Diagramma pictum):

Compare this shot with the one from a couple of days ago. You’ll see it’s a much better exposure. I have many better ones than this. I think that this one shows the silvery tone of the skin better than some of my shots.

These little mates are Bluestreak Gobies (Valenciennea strigata):

I spent maybe ten minutes shooting thes two. They are forever darting about and keeping a wary eye on you. They don’t want to hide, because that would put a serious crimp in their play time. But, if you get too close, they will dart in to a hole quicker that you can see. It’s just a puff of sand.

I got this nice shot when the pair swam in front of an overturned Trochus  shell. The play of light and colour in this shot pleases me greatly:

Though I seem to be here today, I’m really not. I’ve scheduled this post to go out automatically. I’ve gone out to the bush to start a little fire-fight with Sanguma.  I’m taking my sword and armor with me. If you don’t know what that means, then stay tuned. If you do, then wish me luck or, if you’ve a mind to, say a little prayer.

Risky business, man. I’d rather swim with the sharks.