The last week and a half I've been nurturing my corals, keeping them happy. Sampling is not until this coming Thursday so I have a little "time off".
And what to do with your breaks here at IUI? Well, the Ocean is right there.. With coral reefs. You sun-screen up, put on your fins and mask and spend the next hour playing The Little Mermaid.
Yesterday I went out and found a coral full of Polychaete. They are filter-feeding worms and some of them are really beautiful!
Their body extends into a tube that is hidden among the branches of the coral. At the tube opening, they display their impressive filter fans. The worms can be long, but the fans are between 2-5 cm. And they are very skittish. If you get too close, they will retract their fans into their dwelling tube before you even perceive it. They you'll have to wait a min or two before they slowly unfolds them again.
It spent almost 30 min at this particular coral, just to try to get some decent photos. Free-diving down, without any weights on and try to stay still enough for my camera to focus on these tiny things, was quite the task!
But they are one of my favorite organisms in the Ocean. They are ancient, simple and incredible beautiful. And free-diving is a good core-workout so there is really nothing to loose by spending a good amount of time photoshooting them. Expect perhaps time to eat your lunch..
It makes you gape like this Picasso Triggerfish
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