Tuesday we went to Little Money Key which is the Florida Bay side of the Seven Mile Bridge just off the far SW end. The good snorkel grounds there are on the N and NE side of the island, so lee of the wind. The first thing we saw was that the green zoas we call Little Money zoas (because they are green and come from Little Money Key) were having a bit of a population explosion. Two years ago why were few and far between, last year they had recovered well, and this year they were all over the shallows. Obviously we got our limit of 5 polyps each.
I got my limit on brown palys as well. They aren’t great, but I won’t mind having them in my shallow local reef tank. There were lots of Emerald crabs and quite a few Ruby crabs as well.
Since I’ve had a bit of an algae issue in my display refugium and my 65g shallow local reef tank, I got 5 of them as well. I also collected a couple of smaller blue/green brittle stars, one for the main DT and one for the local reef tank. We found a flat worm that I can’t ID, and although very plain looking, it was fun to play with.
Elaine also found and got one quick photo of a small octopus she found hiding under a rock.
I found a Gaudy Clown Crab which is uncommon in Florida and even the greater Caribbean. I had every intention of keeping it. But after Elaine took a couple of photos, I struggled getting my collection jar open (a plastic peanut butter jar with holes drilled in it and a rope through the lid to hold onto). Well I got it open and the crab was gone. I spent a minute looking for it, but the bottom is a lot of loose rubble stony coral, various colors of sponges, some zoas and some algae… no luck finding the crab again. I don’t mind telling you I was seriously disappointed with the loss. In 6 or 7 years of serious snorkeling, I’d never seen one and I had it in my hand!!! But the serious truth is, even if I had collected it, it would probably have disappeared into the rocks in my tank never to be seen again!
The Sun was out so it was a good picture taking day. Visibility was pretty good as well. Air temp was in the mid 80’s but the water was still a bit cool. I had on my 3/2mil wet suit and I was OK. Elaine had on her 1.5mil wet suit and she got quite cold. So after lunch she stayed in the boat and I did a second snorkel around the NW side of the island and picked up a few turbo snails. We saw quite a few big Queen Conch and a lot of juvenile Queen Conch. I’d say that 2 or 3 acres of shallow reef flat is in as good a condition as I can ever remember it. And it was just 4 or 5 years ago that it was in really poor shape after a very cold winter. The Keys had some significant fish kills it was so cold.
I happened to get a good angle on this one so we can look him in the eyes.
All in all it was a very nice day, just not what I had planned for. But when Mother Nature gives you lemons, the best you can do is make lemonade.