Beach miscellany

I spent a lot of time at the beach this summer. After the rainy season ended, and temperatures jumped to the 30s (high 80s Fahrenheit), the water got just about as warm as a nice bath. I bought a mask and snorkel, and took every chance I could to use it. I wish I'd taken a marine biology class in college, because I know I'd be able to appreciate all of this so much more. Without knowing the actual names of the fish I saw, all I can say is there were blue ones, green ones, brown ones, and yellow ones.

I also saw a few small schools of tiny fish fluttering around in perfect synchronization, which reminded me of Finding Nemo. I swam over to a part of one beach that didn't have any people in it that day, and all around me were foot-long white fish just chilling out: not feeding, not mating, not really even swimming around much.

I've seen several slug-looking things, though I'm not sure whether they're Opisthobranchs or sea cucumbers. I've also seen a small stingray.

The other ALTs and I have been hanging out at the beach pretty often. One day, at Miuda, my favorite beach in Tsushima, we were throwing the football around in a shallow area of the beach. Evelyn saw an octopus up near the shore, and we slowly surrounded it. It was a dull red color, and definitely alive. We didn't get close enough to make it freak out and ink or anything, but we wanted to keep it from being gobbled up by a local. We slowly hedged it over to some nearby rocks. Along the way, it found a piece of seaweed, stopped, and promptly changed its color to the same dull green-brown of the plant. When it realized we weren't fooled, it let go, changed back to dull red, and swam on. We finally got it to the rocks, and it immediately changed to their precise shade of brown.

This is obviously one of the coolest things I've ever seen.