I had it all wrong!
I was looking for FISH. I should have been looking for fish. The photos from black water dives that I see on Facebook are deceiving. They had me thinking I was looking for fish the size of minnows, or at least the size of lima beans. In fact, I should have been looking for fish the size of fireflies. This week I adjusted my focus and was surprised by what I found.
The size descriptions provided below are guesstimates. It is very difficult to determine size underwater where there is no point of reference. Water magnifies what you see, and I have lenses in my mask that provide some magnification as well. In the moment you know it is small, very small, but just how small is hard to judge. Next time I go, I am going to try to photograph some things of known size for reference.
For those who like the details, we started over 705’ of water and ended over 651’ after drifting 4.6 miles in two hours.
One example of a tiny fish. This is a larval Harlequin Seabass (Serranus tigrinus).
About the size of a housefly. You can tell it is a fish and you can tell it has fins and bits that are yellow, but you can’t easily see any of the details.
Most likely a Larval Atlantic Tarpon (Megalops atlanticus).
Picture a very short piece of linguini with yellow eyes. Here, too, I could tell it was probably a fish. I could see eyes at one end and, possibly, a tail fin at the other.
Larval Red Lionfish (Megalops atlanticus).
A large ant opening and closing its fins. I could tell it was a fish, but that was all. The smallest of the four fish shown here.
The larval Atlantic Trumpetfish (Aulostomus maculatus) shown below was by far the largest fish I photographed all night. At right you can see it next to the down line we follow. The rope is 3/4” - 1” thick. That means this fish is 1/8” - 1/4” wide. About as wide as fettuccine!
Here are a few more images from this week’s black water dive. Remember, you can click on the images below to view full screen and see more information.
