Snorkeling & Collecting Discussion Group

[Ron Reefman]

Ok, I'll do some zoa photos from our trip and later, after they have settled in some and open up fully, I'll do a couple of the zoas we collected (not many). I'll start with what is probably the best photo Elaine took of the zoas that are open. They are mostly 3 shades of green with the face having the look of an old spoked wagon wheel. Some have as few as 2 spokes, a very few don't have any. I've seen several shades of green in the wild. And in my tank I've set some up high on a tall rock and these nice green zoas morphed into a light sky blue. But if they are removed from the intense light they do go back to being green.

P8020035 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Here is a batch that are a lighter shade of green and many don't seem to have any 'spokes' at all on the face.

P8020028 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


We see a lot of them that look like this in the wild, not fully open. At this site they seem to like being attached to sponges which are all over the sand. At an island not 1 mile away there are big flat rocks several feet in diameter that are covered with these zoas. But there aren't many sponges there. And they are very difficult to collect of big rocks given you are only allowed 5 polyps per saltwater fishing licenced collector per day. But here, attached to sponges and small rubble they often grow, get turned over by wave action and then have to reach for the light. They have heads that are very zoa like, but have necks (trunks, stalks... whatever) like palys. But on the big rocks at the other site you never see them extended out like this. They keep their head pulled down tight against the rocks.

P8020080 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


And here is an even more common look for these zoas on a rock with a mostly white rock flower anemone.

P8020132 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

 

[norfolkgarden]

Love brittle stars in general and you have some very nice finds.

The problem with the green ones is that they can grow to 3' long from tip to tip.
At that point the disk is several inches wide and then they become a predator of 2" fish.
Saw one at the LFS that was 2.5 feet long.
It was a return and kept with large Snowflake eel and several other large fish the starfish couldn't eat.
[emoji3]

 

[Ron Reefman]

My wife loves to take photos of fish in the wild. Years ago I wasn't all that into the fish photos. I liked inverts better (I like unusual) and Elaine's photos weren't the best. But her abilities and her style have improved a lot. And, I've tried my hand at taking photos more than a few times when we were snorkeling in protected areas like Bahia Honda State Park. I found fish don't care to look at you and they don't like to stand still for long, so they make for terrible subjects! Therefore I'm happy to share some of Elaine's better fish photos from our most recent snorkel.

Let's start with the fact that sometimes they just don't stand out against the background. BTW, this is one of only a couple of photos that show more of an overall view of our surroundings which is 100 feet off shore in about 2 feet of water.

P8020105 R2 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


But if you get a little closer and change the background they do photograph better.

P8020106 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Then there are some fish fish that have better color are are more willing to let you get close, which is really good because in the big wide open reef they are fairly small fish! But then Damsels don't scare off too easy.

P8020069 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

P8020070 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


And sometimes they even get protective and are willing to do a stand your ground confrontation with the camera. I even had one smaller than this one get right up in my face when I was trying to reach for something that was right next to the rock the Damsel called home. This one even looks a little mad, don't you think?

P8020168 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Then there are juveniles who are more skittish and harder to photograph, but are also more colorful and more fun if you have the patience and time to work on getting a good photo.

P8020170 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

P8020022 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

P8020166 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


And you have to have a good eye , and Elaine sees stuff way better than I do. I'm like an old dinosaur and see things when they move. Elaine sees what's there. I'm so lucky to have her with me when we snorkel and she points out special things I would miss. Here are 2 photos from a snorkel trip we took to Belize. See the Damsel?

P5070218R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Take your time, move slowly, be patient, have good lighting (sunny day) and a good camera (Olympus Tough 1 with a bigger lens opening than the other 'tough' cameras) and you can get photos like this.

P5070261R3 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

 

[Ron Reefman]

For any of you who follow this thread and have not seen the unidentified 'thing' I collected while in the Keys snorkeling a couple of weeks ago. Let me bring you up to date. Here are a couple of photos of it shortly after I got it home and separated it from 3 sponges it was bound up' with.

20180811_142928 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

20180811_143001 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Because it was collected with 3 other small sponges (purple, orange and brown) I thought this was just a small green sponge. But now I see it doesn't seem to have an excurrent hole to exhale or any incurrent pores to inhale water through. So I assume it's not a sponge (but I'm not 100% sure). It's not hard and it's not really soft either. It's firm but it can be squeezed and it feels like a very small cell sponge that is firm. It was found in about 2' of water, about 100' from shore of a very small island just off the SW end of the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys. It was on top of the seabed exposed to the sun like the sponges it was with, rather than under a rock like many sponges. It doesn't move, however, after just 36 hours after being moved, it did attach itself to a rock!

I have asked a couple of marine biologists, iNaturalist and Wet Web Media for help in doing an ID. So far so have suggested a ball sponge. But none of them is green, they tend to be cool or even cold water sponges. So I think it's unlikely. One suggestion is that it could be terrestrial, like a fruit or seed pod that fell off a tree. I congratulate the thinking outside the box, but I can't find any fruit or seed pod that looks enough like this to say it's the ID I want.

Here is a photo from yesterday. You can see how much it's changed in about a week.

20180815_121922_001 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

As always, I'm open to any ideas, suggestions, or leads.
Thanks.

 

[Eastlake]

OK, it's not a snorkeling photo... yet. But it is my introduction to another area in the Florida Keys that a lot less people ever get to and it's spectacular, IMHO.

Fort Jefferson from the boat P7090454R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

This is Ft Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas about 70 miles west from Key West. I went there on the Yankee Freedom, a ferry that runs out and back almost every day. The problem I had is, I wanted to snorkel all day while we were there (which is only about 5 hours). But when we got there and I saw Fort Jefferson, I wanted to spend time wandering around and seeing the historic sites and beautiful vistas visible from the top of the fort! So I did both and decided I didn't get enough of either. We were scheduled to go back last October and we were going to stay for 2 nights. They allow rustic camping on the island and it's the only way to stay on the island unless you are there on your own live aboard boat. Our 11' Zodiac just isn't big enough! But Hurricane Irma put an end to that plan as we were scheduled the weekend after Irma and the entire place was closed down for repairs. Now we are considering scheduling again.

I have 3 goals in mind for going. First is to get as much snorkel time as I want. Second is to have all the time I want to explore the fort. Third is special. The Dry Tortugas are 70 miles west of Key West and there is very, very little man made light there. So on a night around the time of a new moon, the sky will be very dark and the spread of the Milky Way galaxy across the sky should be very special. The trick is, do I have enough photographic skill and the right camera to photograph it well? We'll see.

So has anybody else here been to Ft Jefferson? Care to share any experiences or critiques about it or the trip out and back?

Back in 2006 I took a marine ecology class in college and we did an overnight at the dry tortugas, it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. The snorkeling was world class and I saw everything that I was hoping to see on the first pass! Hands down my favorite sighting was a colony of pearly/yellow head jawfish, they were in about 30 foot of water and I could barley make out something moving and went down to investigate, I got down there, saw what the fish were, went back up for a better breath, went back to watch and pretty much forgot that I needed to breathe I was so transfixed watching the colony interacting with each other. We saw tarpon, a spotted eagle ray, nurse sharks, a scorpion fish, sting rays, smooth trunkfish, and all kinds of other amazing large fish. I was constantly getting left behind because, being an aquarist, I was inspecting every last nook and cranny of every coral head for the tiny blenny, goby, and basslets in addition to the other fun inverts like flame scallops wedged in the crevices. I was even lucky enough to find a pair of neon goby that had set up a cleaning station and there was a whole school of grey snapper requesting their services. It was a full moon that night so we didn't get any good views of the milky way but I had a hoot following the marauding hermit crabs around the island all night. The next day the water was borderline to rough to snorkel but we tried and one of my classmates got tagged by a man-o-war, she had welts for the rest of the trip. After that we got out of the water and spent the rest of the day in the for and got some amazing photos that I'll have to hunt down. I also did some snorkeling while we were in naples and hanging out on little marco island I think. I found a huge tulip snail shell, that my mom has yet to relinquish custody of, and a few live sand dollars that I watch bury themselves. The coolest things we found there were the red fiddler crabs and a bunch of sea hare that had balled themselves up on the beach in order to survive desiccation until the tide came back in. The professor also jumped off of the boat forgetting his phone was in his pocket, DOH! We did some snorkeling off of key largo as well by the keys marine lab and the coolest thing we say there was a school of parrot fish with one insanely massive a colorful male amongst the group it was amazing. We also found a huge flat of upside down jellyfish that was really neat, they were in about 3 foot of water. The other place in Florida that I've snorkeled is in Panama City beach. Snorkeling outside of the hotel isn't very fruitful as it's mostly sand flats but it's still fun to be in the water, we've seen ramora, pipefish, baby sea robin, what look like young pompano, various swimming crab, sting ray, a young lesser electric skate, and my personal favorite a black mantis shrimp. My family thought I was nuts when I was screaming for them to come check out what I found and that it was a shrimp (stomatopod). But a little ways down the road is st. andrews bay and you can see almost all of the Florida reef critters there. I'll have to scan those pictures in, but my favorite find there was an octopus. I was swimming along and saw a flash of red from under a rock I was looking at and then I saw it, the eye looking back at me, I knew it was an octopus. I put my had out towards the rock just to see what it would do, it reached out a tentacle wrapped it around my finger just for a moment as if to say how do you do and then it retracted the tentacle and moved deeper into the rock pilings, one of the coolest things in the water that has ever happened to me.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Hi Eastlake and thanks for being part of this discussion. And I hope you don’t mind me asking a bunch of questions?

I just went back to look for our photos from the Dry Tortugas and was surprised to see it was back in 2013. It seemed to me it was only 2 or 3 years ago! It’s cool that you got to do an overnight there. I’d like to hear more about that part of the trip. Is the fort dark at night? How about the camping area? I ask specifically about that because we will time our trip to do the overnight at or very close to a new moon so the sky will be dark and the Milky Way should stand out (weather permitting).

Were you guys out there on the ferry from Key West or did you have a special charter? If you had a charter, did you camp on the island or sleep aboard the boat? You mentioned snorkeling and going 30 feet deep. When we were there we only snorkeled in the area near the fort and never saw any water that was more than about 4 or 5 feet deep. Did you guys have a boat to get further away from the fort?

To everybody else, OK, these photos aren’t really about snorkeling or collecting. But it is a great snorkeling location and I’ll get to snorkeling photos from here.

This is just as we get off the ferry at the front entrance to Ft Jefferson.
P7090281 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

This is the view looking along the front of Fort Jefferson. The ferry landing is just off to the left and the open land in front of the fort is about the only land on the island that isn't behind the moat and the walls of the fort. The picnic and camping area is out by the trees at the far end. Notice the top of the walls around the fort are full of sand and now have grass growing over it. Underneath is all open walkways and rooms.
P7090066 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


This is a view of the fort from out in the water off on the side. We took this as we were going out snorkeling. Does the water look clear enough!!! It's hard to see from this low angle, but there is a moat in front of the wall.
fort from snorkel view P7090096 (2)R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Here is a wide angle view of the inside of the fort.
P7090076 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Inside the fort at ground level looking at the exterior wall and the lighthouse that sits on top of the wall.
P7090282 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Just a few steps away and you are inside the wall looking down the length of it. Remember, this was built back around the time of the civil war on an island 70 miles out from Key West.
P7090095 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Here you can see the incredible brick work. If I remember correctly the fort is made with sixteen million bricks that were all hauled by boat from Key West!
P7090342 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Snorkeling photos will be posted soon.

 

[Eastlake]

I think that the fort was closed at night as I'm pretty sure some foolish teenagers, my classmates and I, would've likely done something stupid and manage to hurt ourselves. I could be wrong about it being open at night, I just remember that we didn't go in after dark. So if it was open, we missed out, but the whole island has zero light pollution so you probably won't be able to see your hand in front of your face if your there on a new moon. The only reason I didn't need my flashlight was because it was a full moon, so I got to observe the hermit crabs and rats without any artificial light. We took the ferry out of key west, I'll mention the conch republic as the food was great I don't know if it's still there; so we did primitive camping, and I do mean primitive as there's no freshwater on the island so all freshwater must be brought with you and we didn't use tents so we all slept under the stars along the beach on what I think was the clump of trees in your second photo. As far as the 30 feet, I didn't have a depth gauge so I may have fudged the number a bit, but I know that I had to equalize a couple of times on the way down, and one of the professors and I had wandered a good distance from the fort when we found the jawfish, but you're right that a lot of the beast snorkeling areas are fairly shallow. When we got in we started at the coal pilings on the backside of the island, went in an arching counter clockwise trajectory and finished at the coal pilings at the front side of the island. Oh, and at around either sunset or sunrise, if you're lucky enough to have a sailboat or pelican in the background there are incomparable opportunities for pictures. I had a water proof disposable camera so my pictures were not so good but got the point across.

 

[bill4t]

man this is a great thread!!!!! i was in keys last year around 4th july!!! got a few pics, ill post as soon as i fig out how. gotta say i cant wait to go back, and now with a thread to help find sites thats great!!!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Hi Bill and welcome to the discussion! Next time you're down this way you'll have to let me know. I spent about 20 years working in Central Ohio.

Glad the thread caught your attention. The whole idea is about sharing info about snorkel sites and collecting techniques. Did you do any snorkeling while you were in the Keys last year?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Elaine and I went for a beach walk on Sanibel Island yesterday. We went before low tide at 1pm and got back to our car at 3:30pm. As we were leaving the house we were a bit concerned about finding a parking spot at the beach. But Sanibel has been experiencing really record bad Red Tide killing all kinds of sea life including a huge whale shark. So that should cut beach goers by a lot. Oh, and kids are already back in school so less vacationers. And it a hot afternoon with the threat of scattered thunderstorms. So even less beach goers, we assumed.

Here is a shot of a very popular Sanibel beach on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

P8180046 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Normally this photo would have 50 to 100 people in it!

OK, the air was kind of fowl with the smell of dead fish. Although they have been picking up all the dead fish every morning, when we arrived at 1pm there was a dead fish every 5 or 10 steps as we walked the beach. Mostly small stuff like tangs and burrfish and something that looked more like an eel than a fish. We even found a dead seahorse! So sad. But about the worst were literally hundreds of young sand dollars dried out on the beach and more washing in with every wave.

P8180024 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

As the tide was going out when we arrived, we didn't see but a couple of dead fish in the water. But as we were leaving, I refreshed the seawater in my collection jar that had 2 anemones that had washed up on the beach. As I looked around the now incoming tide was bringing in lots of dead fish. From where I stood I counted well over 40 fish in the water. And two additional weird points; there are normally tons of birds on the beach and at the water's edge and even in the water (pelicans). Well, we didn't see a single bird over the entire 2 1/2 hours! And even with all the dead fish on the beach, there were very few flies either. Most fish didn't even have any flies! Very curious.

BTW, 1 of my anemones is doing OK and the other one is still alive but still looks very sickly. I'll just keep doing 3 or 4 water changes every day and we'll see how they do.

 

[Zeal]

Elaine and I went for a beach walk on Sanibel Island yesterday. We went before low tide at 1pm and got back to our car at 3:30pm. As we were leaving the house we were a bit concerned about finding a parking spot at the beach. But Sanibel has been experiencing really record bad Red Tide killing all kinds of sea life including a huge whale shark. So that should cut beach goers by a lot. Oh, and kids are already back in school so less vacationers. And it a hot afternoon with the threat of scattered thunderstorms. So even less beach goers, we assumed.

Here is a shot of a very popular Sanibel beach on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

P8180046 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Normally this photo would have 50 to 100 people in it!

OK, the air was kind of fowl with the smell of dead fish. Although they have been picking up all the dead fish every morning, when we arrived at 1pm there was a dead fish every 5 or 10 steps as we walked the beach. Mostly small stuff like tangs and burrfish and something that looked more like an eel than a fish. We even found a dead seahorse! So sad. But about the worst were literally hundreds of young sand dollars dried out on the beach and more washing in with every wave.

P8180024 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

As the tide was going out when we arrived, we didn't see but a couple of dead fish in the water. But as we were leaving, I refreshed the seawater in my collection jar that had 2 anemones that had washed up on the beach. As I looked around the now incoming tide was bringing in lots of dead fish. From where I stood I counted well over 40 fish in the water. And two additional weird points; there are normally tons of birds on the beach and at the water's edge and even in the water (pelicans). Well, we didn't see a single bird over the entire 2 1/2 hours! And even with all the dead fish on the beach, there were very few flies either. Most fish didn't even have any flies! Very curious.

BTW, 1 of my anemones is doing OK and the other one is still alive but still looks very sickly. I'll just keep doing 3 or 4 water changes every day and we'll see how they do.

Mind showing the Anemones? And do you do any prepping of shells before putting them in your tank?

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's nothing fancy, virtually clear, and I don't think it's photosynthetic. The good news is, it appears both of them are doing better and may survive. Currently they both live in an old peanut butter jar I use for small beach collections.

20180820_062845 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


I almost never put empty shells in my tanks. If something I want, like a limpet, chiton or anemone is attached to a shell, I'd put it in, but only until the animal moved off and then I'd pull it out. I find shells to just be something that diatoms and algae like to start growing on.We don't collect many shells anymore. We have a coffee table that is a shallow wooden box with a hinged glass top that Elaine's dad made us as a wedding present. It has a few inches of white sand and the best of every kind of shell we find. It also has a few oddities from the beach like a chunk of sea turtle shell, a large sting ray tail spine, a cowfish skeleton (they have almost an exoskeleton), a 9 arm sea star a full crab exoskeleton, a few mollusk egg cases, urchin tests, a vase sponge and some shark's teeth among a few other things. BTW, the big coral skeleton is from one of my aquariums, not from the beach.

20180820_063043 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

 

[Eastlake]

Sanibel is one of if not my wife's favorite places on earth, we've been trying to get a plan together to get down there as I've never been there and she went there every summer as a kid, it has been breaking her heart following along with whats been going on with the red tide down there this year.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Well, as a fellow Ohioan, and living now next to Sanibel, if you guys ever get down here, let me know and we could have a lunch and do a beach walk. The red tide is dissipating some and it won't last forever.

 

[OhDumb]

I took my son snorkeling off shore for the first time a few weeks ago. We were in Islamorada and snorkeled Cheeca Rocks. We got cut short as a storm blew up and the second day we couldn't go out as the winds picked up. But, the time in the water we had was awesome. I will say that I was impressed at how the reef has recovered from the Hurricane last year, but signs of it were everywhere. There was an enormous bolder coral that was flipped upside down and quite a bit of bleaching (not from Hurricane). Fish population was pretty healthy.

 

[Eastlake]

Well, as a fellow Ohioan, and living now next to Sanibel, if you guys ever get down here, let me know and we could have a lunch and do a beach walk. The red tide is dissipating some and it won't last forever.

It probably won't happen for a couple of years yet but when we do I'll be sure to be in touch, plus, it's always nice running into Ohioans in places other than Ohio

 

[Evan28395950]

Nice. Following

 

[Ron Reefman]

It probably won't happen for a couple of years yet but when we do I'll be sure to be in touch, plus, it's always nice running into Ohioans in places other than Ohio

Ha! Come to Ft Myers/ Cape Coral/Naples and 75% of the population is from Ohio!

Nice. Following

Evan, welcome to the discussion. Don't be shy comments and questions are always welcome.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Back around post # 25 we were talking about the Dry Tortugas and Ft Jefferson. And I think due to low tourism in the Keys due to Hurricane Irma recovery, the ferry to the Dry Tortugas is offering a discount. We'd take advantage of that, but it isn't for those doing overnight camping! Rats! Anyway, here are some of the underwater photos that my wife took when we were there in 2013. I hope you enjoy them.

We don't see Christmas tree feather dusters when we snorkel in the shallows around the other Florida Keys. And out at the big reef the water is deep enough that they would be to far away to see unless you dive. But out at the Dry Tortugas we saw a number of really nice colonies.




Just like in the shallows around Bahia Honda State Park, there are lots of nice Gorgonians at the Dry Tortugas. But nice looking sea fans like these aren't even the norm out on the big reefs, let alone in the shallows off a beach. But out here there were a lot of them and they were in just 3 to 5 foot deep water! Most were purple, but some were more blue.


Back when the fort was built, they used coal to power everything. The pilings you see in the water are the last remains of the coal dock where the ships drop off the coral. It may not look very inviting from up here on the top of the fort. But get in the water and snorkel right there, just off the side of the island and... WOW! BTW, notice the sea plane coming in for a landing. It's the fast transportation, but it's a short stay and expensive.



The view of the sea plane coming in from down among the pilings.


Coral attached to the pilings.








Then swim out a hundred yards from the old coal docks and you find coral patch reefs all over the place in 3 to 6 feet of water.

 

[Bracka345]

Are the juvenile blue tangs yellow?

We see them when we snorkel in the Keys, but they are way to fast for me. And even our 'expert' fish catcher hasn't been able to net one yet! Good luck.

Yes. The Atlantic blue tang “DoctorFish” is yellow as a juvenile. Would love to get one for my tank but they are super fast and will hid deep in the rocks so you can get them.