My friends the fish

One of my goals  in coming here was to swim a lot and snorkel a lot and spend as much time in the water and under the water as possible. One of the highlights of when I was here six years ago was swimming off the dock and seeing a HUGE 3 1/2-4 foot Hogfish swim right by me - and evidently they are territorial so he/she would swim that same route every day around the same time. He/she(?) was stunningly big and beautiful with stripes of purple and red. I was a little freaked out and amazed!

I recently saw a baby hogfish (only about 8 inches) dart away from me but yet to see a big guy. Other individual highlights include almost running into a surprisingly large invasive Lion fish, several trumpet fish, a very menacing barracuda that eyed me very watchfully - and loads of little fish that surround me - a couple times the water gets dark because the school is so big! But without doubt the highlight has been the many different kinds of parrot fish (Bermuda has nine species) which seem to dominate the waters in so many different colors and hues and sizes - and making it more complex some of these ubiquitous fish change color and design over the course of their lifetime and even more complex, many start as female and change to male later on in their life! I don't have an underwater camera but here are a couple photos taken from the internet of a few of my favorite parrot fish species and a  link with more fascinating details on these amazing fish.

Princess (or Stoplight?) Parrotfish

Blue Parrotfish

Rainbow Parrotfish

And my two favorite parrot fish experiences so far:

Having a school of two dozen 1-2 foot blue parrot fish swim right underneath you and all around is truly beautiful and calming. Their vivid blue isn't captured in this picture above - I only hope you can one day experience it. 

And without a doubt my #1 piscis highlight began to materialize the very first day I made it to the water's edge and looking down from the cliff I was standing on, I saw these large objects in the water and thought what am I looking at?! Turns out that  rainbow parrot fish grow quite big (think 3-4 feet) and being vegetarian (like all parrot fish) they come right to the edge of the water to graze on the greenery and algae growing on the rocks. Whether it is their size or what I don't know but these large ones consistently can be found around the edge of the coast nibbling away, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with what I imagine is their family. And let me tell you,  every time I am swimming and come around a corner and one of these gentle giants is right there, it takes my breath away. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to swim with a a whale shark - these are enough! 

It's interesting that they are called rainbow parrot fish because certainly by the time they are this big they are mainly brown with some swatches of bright moss green. I do have photos of these guys taken from above them while they are nibbling. Sometimes it feels like you can reach down and just pat them on their fin!

And now you know! Everyone should have the opportunity to swim with these gentle giants and their smaller more colorful cousins!

Duncan