TALE OF PINKY

The last dive day of the season and it was great! No inexperienced divers getting lost. Good visibility and lots of interesting things to see, especially eels.

It actually started a couple of days ago when I was wandering along the edge of the beach, just minding my own business and beachcombing. I like to wade just on the edge to keep my toes cool. You can imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw swimming toward me a pink eel with large black polka dots.

I am used to skepticism of my reports. In fact after Ron and Diane posted that picture of me drinking lemonadas some of you might wonder how many Margaritas I had before I started seeing pink eels. But in fact they were lemonadas, not Margaritas - thats my story and I am sticking with it!

Fortunately I had my camera with me and so I was able to get photographic evidence to back up my tale. I am not very good at photographing moving animals so when he was close I mostly got a picture of the southern end of a northbound eel but I got other pictures of him as he swam away. I did not know what kind of eel this was as I had never seen a pink eel before. I decided to call him Pinky.

When I went diving yesterday the first thing I asked Paul, the divemaster, was did he know of any pink eels with black spots. "Oh yes," he replied, "that is a tiger eel." Paul got out his book of Pacific marine life, turned to the appropriate page, and sure enough there was a picture of Pinky.

I was confused. It seemed to me that if I were going to call something a tiger eel it would be an orange eel with black stripes. But on reflection I realized this was not the case because I knew that an orange eel with black stripes is called a zebra eel. (This does, once and for all, answer that age old question "WhatÂs black and white and red all over?" the answer being a zebra eel!)

We went on to have two great dives and saw lots of really neat sea life including a brilliant yellow sea snail. The highlight of the first dive was (Have you guessed?) the biggest, fattest, most Rubenesque eel in the entire world. This eel was a porker!! It was not that long, perhaps about four feet, but the thing was about one foot in diameter. As I do not have an underwater camera, I cannot substantiate this but you all know I would never exaggerate. This eel was called an Argus eel I suppose because it also had big spots. I did not inquire into what exactly an Argus eel might have for dinner, Oh Best Beloved, ignorance being bliss and all that.

We also saw a very large anemone that slurped itself back into its tube as we swam by. There were lots of fish of all different colors and sizes. On the way back we ran into a pod of dolphins that were playing in our wake. There was one baby dolphin that was only about a foot or so long. He was jumping around with the big boys. The whales calve in the bay here, but I do not know if the dolphins do.

At this time of year the humpback whales are beginning their northern migration and next week we make ours.

Rebecca and Dan

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