25 Mar--West Bay Snorkel

Sun, 25 Mar ... although i was going to get up early and walk to West Bay this morning .... i got kinda lazy and before i knew it, my little kitty friend had let himself in the room again ... and on my bed ... i didn't have the heart to disturb him .... i mean could you resist this face ?.. reminds me of the Chessie Cat logo for the C&O Railroad .. i took the Water Taxi to West Bay ...no cruise ships today :) i snorkeled out to the Wall and the Deep Blue and saw these fish i hadn't seen before ... they are quite large and are called Permit ... here we go with the name thing again ? cruised along the Wall over the coral for awhile, didn't see much else, so decided to go closer to the shore ..... on my way in i found this Porcupine Fish ... i was so excited that he didn't swim away when i dove down to get a picture he'd swam a short way, then come back ... we played this game for a long time while i got my photos this was such a great time for me .... i've always loved these fish with their big eyes and sweet face; but have never been able to get this close to them .... i used my macro lens again ... i'm really happy with it that made my day ! i continued to cruise around the sandy areas with reefs on either sides .... and i saw a lot of fish in this area ..... first these Blue ParrotFish .... one of the identifying feaures of the Blue ParrotFish is it's squared off nose .... they aren't as big as the Rainbow ParrotFish of yesterday, but larger than the rest of the ParrotFish family then i saw 2 more Scrawled FileFish although they are usually pretty quiet, they just weren't in the mood to being pursued ..... i struggled to get a few photos of them while i was chasing a FileFish, i spotted this French AngelFish and snapped this shot ... in the past i've spent a lot of time trying to get a good photo of this fish ... and today .... one picture ... and it was a good one .... then i saw this HogFish, with all it's pretty markings .... pretty nicely camouflaged .... and again i was reminded how adept these fish are at blending in with their environment .... this is the very same fish .... just a few seconds later ... starting to loose his coloring .... and now ... turning almost white while swimming over the white sand .. ... ...like magic ! ... amazing they can change color so easily .... remember the HogFish has the dorsal fin with the long spikes ... and then, as if i hadn't had been rewarded enough today .... this Queen AngelFish swam right in front of me, .... i was able to dive down and get this one too .... you have no idea how many times in the past i've tried to get a decent photo of these fish today was just my day !!!!!!!!