Just another night on the reef...

Ryan, my fellow habitat technician, and I try to get out of the Aquarius for at least 4 hours every day. We dive on a hookah rig, which is a 300 foot long breathing hose that's attached to the habitats air banks. We generally perform maintenance tasks on the habitat when out on hookah, but tonight I decided to do a bit of reef critter watching. I didn't get in the water until about 2030 (8:30 PM), so it was quite dark, other than the greenish glow emanating from the inside and outside Aquarius lights. I left my dive light off and swam away from the habitat to the farthest point that my hookah hose would allow. From here, I was dazzled by the stupendous light show put on by various bioluminescent plankton. A wave of my hand or a flick of my fin set off an explosion of bright green pinpoints of light. It was like being surrounded by a swarm of aquatic fireflies. I looked up to the surface and I could see moon beams cutting through the water. I haven't been lucky enough to go into outer space like our NASA companions on this mission, but inner space right here on earth still blows me away!

Now it was time to do a little more exploring. I chose a small patch reef, about the size of a VW car. I slowly and methodically swam around the small reef area using my dive light to identify as many reef critters as I could. Man, was that a busy place! I'd still be out there now if I tried to ID or count everything I saw on that little patch. It looked as though every square inch was moving or waiting for something to eat. I first stopped at a star coral and shined my light near the extended polyps. The light beam attracted a variety of small worms and shrimp that the coral polyps quickly captured and consumed. Moving along, I came across a Giant Basket Star. At first it looked like a jumbled up sea plant of some sort, then I noticed it was collecting plankton with its many thin arms and was having a feast. A large barrel sponge, upon further inspection, seemed to resemble a condominium for brittle stars. Every nook and cranny of the sponge seemed to have a brittle star arm waving out into the water. My next surprise was a sleepy hogfish. He was nestled in a sandy crevice laying perfectly still. He may not have been sleeping, but he was certainly in the resting mode. Not far from him was a curious lobster that seemed to know he was in a Marine Protected Area because he wasn't concerned about my presence and the visions of lemon butter dancing in my head. A coral crab, hermit crabs, and various shrimps were doing what they do best - trying to eat and not be eaten!

At this point, it was time to head back to the habitat to do a little valve cleaning to earn my room and board, but on the way I saw something that I couldn't take my eyes off. Right along my travel route was a large (18 inch) reef squid. Now reef squid are not a particularly uncommon sight on the reef at night, but this one had a freshly caught scad in his tentacles. He had just begun his feast. My light must have attracted him, because he stayed very close as I kneeled in the sand watching him. His fluorescent colors changed as it fancied him and as he munched away. He was close enough to touch. Then I remembered something about "giant squid" also found in our oceans. After watching this guy chow down on the scad, I was glad to know that giant squid stay in very deep water.

Again my thoughts returned to the work mode and was ready to head to the habitat when suddenly I felt something swim over the back of my legs. I turned to see a 4 foot nurse shark swimming close by in a very prominent search mode, looking for crustaceans, fish and whatever else he can find along the bottom. Luckily that doesn't include hairy legged divers. Now I could hear Coops (the boss) voice in my ear asking why all the valves weren't shining. All I could think of was "it's just another night on the reef."