Today I was diving with James, Chris, Lisa and Emily. All visiting from Atlanta.We had a pretty nice day, a little breezy and a little choppy out there, but with about 80 ft visibility, 86 degree water and almost no current it was not too bad..
Saw my first lionfish today, actually 2 of them. This is an invasive species here in the Keys, in fact all along the east coast and the Bahamas. Get more information about this problem at this website:
http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/lionfish.html
We were diving today on Molasses Reef at ball 21 when I spotted the first one on the side of a ledge near an old upside down brain coral.
Next I went on around the brain coral and found another slightly larger one.
This is a real problem here. I read an article that they have collected over 100 Lionfish off the reefs in this area this year alone. They just had a roundup in the Bahamas and captured over 900. This species is not native to this area, have no natural predictors and eat voraciously. They can very quickly put a heavy dent in the local reef fish populations. Because of this whenever they are discovered they are reported and attempts are made to remove them from the reef. I did report these two, hopefully someone will be able to locate them again and remove them. You have to be licensed to remove them from a sanctuary reef, I guess I should probably consider doing that, especially since I am out a Molasses all the time.
But that wasn't all we saw today, here is a nice sized Porcupine fish. I have been seeing it on Molasses for the last few weeks, this was the first time I was able to get close enough to get a picture.
A couple of French Grunts having a chat...
A Peterson Shrimp and it's buddy the Corkscrew Anemone..
and finally an Goldentail Eel.
Just another great day on Molasses Reef.
Posts
