Spiky coral (and a fish) on the Great Barrier Reef.
March’s square theme is Spiky Squares (spiky, jagged, pointy, bristly, serrated, prickly, spiny, and/or barbed)
Great Barrier Reef
Square Sky 6: Early morning on the Great Barrier Reef
Taken from the dive/snorkel boat I was on.
Not really a sunrise, as the sun’s a bit high. It irks me that the horizon and line of the boat’s rail are not parallel!
Textures of the Great Barrier Reef
Coral is the most amazing stuff. It looks like rock, but it’s alive, and not rock at all but animal. The colonies are formed by millions of tiny soft-bodied polyps which have a hard outer skeleton that attaches to rock or to other (dead) coral skeletons. (More info about coral here.) And what a variety of corals there is! All the colours and textures that you can imagine, often growing around or on top of one another.
The ruffly yellow stuff looks rubbery, in contrast to the spikier coral behind it.
While snorkelling or diving around corals, it’s important to avoid touching them — not only can it damage the coral, but a person can get a nasty cut from those sharp edges.
What a mix of corals and textures here!
What IS that yellow stuff? It looks like spilled paint that has dried in wrinkles and folds.
I took some of these photos last week on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas (with a GoPro I hired for the day), and some on the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns three years ago (with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT20 I bought for the trip, but it was second hand and died after one outing).
This is brain coral, I believe. I imagine that if you brush your finger along it, the little white knobs would feel plush. But I have no idea!
That white coral looks smooth, but I’d steer clear of the spiky stuff at lower right!
A texture contrast here of hard coral and smooth, slippery fish.
This is a Maori Wrasse dubbed “Frank”! He’s very friendly, as these divers are discovering. I don’t dive (only snorkel) so did not get to pat Frank and discover his texture.
There are so many warnings about the health of the reef and the damage we (and nature, in the form of destructive storms and voracious starfish) are causing, that I feel now is the time to see this astonishing feature — while it’s still there.
Early mornings around the world
Mist in the hills around Cairns.
For someone who insists she is not an early bird, I have a remarkable number of photographs taken very early in the morning! I haven’t inflicted them all on you, but there are quite a few, from various travels. They are in no particular order other than alphabetical by place name.
A man on the beach, Durban.
The pier, Eastbourne.
Boats in Galle harbour, Sri Lanka.
The grounds of the Park Hyatt, Goa.
Great Barrier Reef.
On lookout during the 4am-8am watch, ‘Lord Nelson’, Indian Ocean.
‘Sudarshini’ and ‘Tarangini’ of the Indian Navy, off Kochi.
Fishing boats near Mauritius.
Sailboats at Opua, New Zealand.
Mt Fishtail seen from Pokhara, Nepal.
San Luis de Potosi, Mexico.
Sunrise over Sydney harbour (from my bed at the Shangri La hotel).
Rising sun captured in a gum tree, Sydney.
Into the depths of the ocean
Daily Post’s photo challenge this week is Depth — in my case, it’s the watery kind.
Divers descending into the depths, Great Barrier Reef
Divers descending into the depths at night, Great Barrier Reef
Divers in the depths, Great Barrier Reef
Fish and coral Great Barrier Reef
Looking into the depths of the astonishingly clear water from the side of a boat, Vanuatu.
Pics by Kaz 