Sea Creatures

We have continued our sightings and encounters with various sea creatures.  An exciting one was when we spotted a hammerhead shark while on passage from San Francisquito to Salsipuedes.  This one has to be a rarity: We found a pearl in one of our clam shells when preparing dinner at El Quemado.  It’s a good size pearl, but being from a clam rather than an oyster it lacks the opalescence of the pearls we are used to from jewelry, and instead it simply looks like a plastic marble.

Jellyfish.  My, have we seen a lot of jellyfish.  In fact, way back in La Paz, someone advised us that we would see a lot and that we should get full-body “jelly suits” to protect us from stings.  They are basically lycra suits that would be more comfortable to wear than our full wet suits when the water warmed up.  We ended up not getting them, but I don’t think it would have mattered.  Most common stings were on faces and hands, which would stick out of the lycra suit just as they stick out of our wetsuits.  And the water never got so warm that wearing the wetsuit wasn’t an option (except for Concepcion Bay, of course).  The absolute worst encounter, or most amazing depending on your perspective, was our last morning at Isla Partida.  We all went out for a dual family snorkel.  I had seen jellies in the water when I was paddle boarding, but nothing that seemed too crazy.  I was first in the water and swam away from the dinghy a little bit, looked around for a while, then realized I was completely immersed in a jellyfish forest.  It was like they all converged on us after we got there.  I couldn’t get back to the dinghy fast enough.  I kept waiting for the stings to come on my face and neck, but I only felt a couple dull ones.  However, it was extremely disconcerting being surrounded like that even without significant stinging.  I kept imagining them all over my hair!  I got out of the dinghy and was soon joined by Carolina and Joel as well.  Tim said that if you dive down deeper there aren’t as many, but I just couldn’t do it.

While at Animas Slot the boys found a surprise when they were supposed to be rinsing dishes on the back swim step.  Brine shrimp by the millions.  It was so gross, but that didn’t stop the boys from scooping them up and inspecting them.  Anything to put off rinsing dishes, I guess.-We’ve had turtles in many of the anchorages we’ve been in, and one of the things we’ve noticed is how loud they are when they come up to take a breath.  They are about as loud as a sea lion, but they don’t release their breath with as much force.  It is actually quite uncanny how they sound just like people.  Air breathers, we both are.

And speaking of sea creatures, now may be a good time to muse a bit on how much the movie Finding Nemo has shaped our anthropomorphic views of them.  After coming back from spearfishing, Alex asked Brenden if he had seen a turtle, and when Brenden said yes, Alex said, “thought so.”  Alex was in the dinghy and he heard Brenden saying “uuuude” while his snorkel moved up and down.  (uuuuude = Duuuuude)

It doesn’t matter how hard we try to think otherwise, but jellyfish are always “my little squishy” and crabs are always combative and say, “Hey, hey!”  Seagulls are always dull-witted scavengers who say, “Mine, mine!”  Sea Turtles are always laid back surfer dudes and pufferfish always, “… need a little help here!” and say, “shark bait ooh ha ha!”  Rays are always annoying and sing crazy rhyming educational songs, and we all wish that we could speak whale.  Love. That. Movie.