Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
1
UNDERWATER THOUGHTS
T
HE MORNING FOG WAS BEGINNING
to lift as Bob Kiwala, Mike Week-
ley, and I headed out of Monterey Harbor in the eighteen-foot out-
board. We were in our wet suits, and the boat was loaded with six scuba
tanks and our dive gear as well as a gasoline-powered pump and a hun-
dred feet of garden hose. The Monterey Bay Aquarium was nearing
completion, the exhibits were coming together, and we had started col-
lecting the thousands of fishes and invertebrates the visitors would be
coming to see in the fall of 1984, now only a few months away.
As unlikely as a hundred feet of garden hose may seem, it was the
key to success in collecting the beautiful burrowing sea anemones
(
Pachycerianthus fimbriatus
) that are so abundant in the sandy mud bot-
tom near the base of Monterey's Coast Guard breakwater. After drop-
ping anchor in fifty feet of water, Bob and I put on our weights, tanks,
fins, and masks, rolled over into the water, and headed for the bottom
clutching one end of the hose. On board, Mike fired up the pump en-
gine, and water jetted out of the hose end. Swimming down, we were
buzzed by a couple of curious sea lions—who were wondering, no
doubt, what we were up to.
On the bottom we saw dozens of sea anemones, their crowns of ten-
tacles gently waving in the slight current a foot or so above the seafloor.
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