I like to go under the water and be with other creatures. Even though I am an interloper and have to breathe with an apparatus or hold my breath I feel at home. It's pretty clear where we all are on the food chain. I am surrounded by hundreds of little creatures who are all living their daily dramas. It's always exciting to see the big animals, the sharks, whales, dolphins and turtles, but I think the most interesting sea creatures are those that are the tiniest.
Last year in the Solomon Islands I encountered one of the most fascinating and tiniest creatures I have ever met...the pygmy seahorse. It was so small I could barely see it with my naked eye, no more than 1/8" if that, half the size of my little fingernail. Monty from the boat Bilikiki pointed it out to me. It was the same color as the sea fan on which it lived, same knobby texture, the perfect camouflage. I took a picture with my Nikonos V macro lens, not really sure what I was shooting at. I thought Monty was pulling my leg, that I was shooting at nothing.
This male is pregnant with the eggs of its mate. She was elsewhere on the fan, moving about. It took me two dives of staring at this sea fan before I was able to identify these creatures on my own. I hovered next to the fan, perfectly still, hearing my own breathing and my own heartbeat, bubbles slowly ascending from my regulator, staring at the fan, when suddenly a tiny knob of the fan would unwind its tail and relocate itself...the pygmy seahorse on the move.
There are amazing things to see in the world if we stop and look closely enough.
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