ups and downs

well downs were definitely being sick (recovering...VERY hydrated) and all my babies that i´d been maintaining and feeding and loving and hugging for weeks died. the original plan was that i was going to amass hundreds and plant them in experimental plots. well, i amassed NINE

and now i´ve killed them.


totally on accident but it was very sad to wake up and most were dead. the smaller ones were swimming at the surface (with the blennies) seeming to literally drink the air.

so i´m sad my babies are dead and i´m sad i can´t get in the water. but gordon´s doing great and getting the collectors for me. he´s quite the competent freediver. he talks like he´s a little worried and then after giving me three collectors and i´m cleaning the boat and straightening he comes up to the surface and throws sand at me. he went down to 42 feet and picked up a handful of sand the showoff.

we haven´t been getting much in the collectors and it´s pretty obvious i´m not going to be able to replace my babies so you can imagine how stoked i was when he brought me a collector and there were two grouper! but one DEFINITELY not a leopard grouper. i thought the one was that was with it but when i was taking pictures of the dark beautiful copper one that almost killed itself in the boat by diving through the net and getting his little operculum spines caught and i couldn´t push him through and i couldn´t pull him back and i was trying to free him when i finally had to cut the net to free him and i was bent over pounding on his little chest BREATHE DAMN YOU BREEEEATHE!!!!.

and he did.


and while taking a picture of the second one which i thought was a leopard grouper i realized, oh man it totally may be Mycteroperca prionura, the broomtail. sthweeeeeet


ok now that i look at that picture i think it might be but when i was handling it it looks totally different. in any case, the other one is DEFINITELY not a leopard grouper. it´s either Mycteroperca xenarcha or duhduhDUHHHH Mycteroperca jordani, the garropa. that would be hot. i have a baby garropa.

please don´t die baby garropa