Tropical Zone Gardening: Underwater Gardens #6, 1 by lourspolaire

lourspolaire wrote:
Slop bucket alert here. You have been warned. Here is a picture of another parrotfish at DePalm Island, Aruba. Along with him were hundreds of brown surgeonfish. There were so many fish on that reef, you litterally had to shoo the fish away to see the water.

The place was also infested with fire coral and wouldn't you know it, I managed to brush against one, causing a very painful burn. Luckily, the tour staff had some kind of cream on hand. They applied it to my left forearm, I waited 5 minutes and ran back to the water. Important lesson learned here: fire coral does not forgive. They are not alone: quite a few marine invertebrates have stinging cells that go off at the slightest touch.

I remember being horrified a few years ago when a lifeguard on Holland America's private island in the Bahamas (Half Moon Cay) demonstrated how to remove a species of jellyfish they have there without getting stung. You were supposed to throw it away in garbage cans they had all along the water's edge. I saw them in the water and gave them a wide berth. No picking up jellyfish for this polar bear! There was enough water for all of us. I had gotten stung on the right shoulder by a baby portuguese man of war in Martinique the year before. The eskimos say: bitten by a snake, one fears a garden hose in the grass.

Be good, all. I don't want to hear any snickering. I told you my pictures weren't calendar material.
Sylvain.