Part one

SOUTH FLORIDA DIVE JOURNAL,HOMES ISSUE -- PART ONE.One of the most striking structures of the South Florida reefs are the sponge colonies. Monsters like the barrel sponge at left, and dozens of smaller and more brightly colored varieties, create an exciting and complex ecosystem within the coral reef environment. The dramatic splashes of coloration, become opportunities for a whole new range of creatures to move in and develop color and behavioral adaptation to.

This reef crown becomes a home to a variety of tiny macro creatures, as well as a food source for sea turtles like the Loggerhead below. The difficult part about looking for the "homes", is the sensory overload you get from all the activity, and all the different places to look.

It just makes focusing down difficult to concentrate on, especially with large and exciting marine life swimming up and staring you in the face!...

So when you see one of these clusters of sponge and corals, take a second to slow down, take a deep breath, and move in REALLY close. You might blow a little air in your BC so that you can maintain a feet toward the surface posture, with an occasional kick necessary to keep you down close to the macro life. Everything you do here is in slow motion, so take your time. Some of the life will be easy to see once your up close...like the brittle star below...

As you get close enough so that creatures like the brittle star are easily seen, you'll begin to have a shot at seeing some of the much smaller and well concealed residents...

At the magnification Sandra used to photograph this Nudibranch, it looks more like a monster rampaging over the sponge it is perched upon....however, this creature is not much larger than you fingernail, and it takes the eye of a hunter ( try photo hunter ) to find them with any frequency. As the "hunt" continues, the next creature to be discovered is a shrimp.

This shrimp is wandering around in plain sight on this sponge. He is about to start advertising his presence as a cleaner station. If you were to slowly offer him your finger, he would attempt to clean your fingernails for you!

The "Scarlet Stiped Cleaning Shrimp" above, was also very easy to find. But if you were not looking closely, his tiny size would have rendered him invisible to you.

Tiny crabs like this Gaudy Clown Crab (above), are so brightly colored you might wonder about how they evolved this showy look, until you back up a few feet and notice they then fade right into the general look of the sponges they live upon.

As we move back out into our normal cruising mode, several feet above the reef, instead od several centimeters, the life converegs, and individuals become a myriad seascape.

If you would like to continue on now with part two, please click here now. Otherwise, you can try part two later from the cover page.