A gorgeous, smooth and tranquil swim was ours today. Spots of clear, turquoise waters and bronze-golden kelp peppered with many beauties -- a mystery guest was spotted -- some say guitarfish, some angel shark...I looked him up in my brand new Pacific Coast Fishes -- Petersen Field Guide today and am leaning toward a banded guitar fish. I need my fellow swimmers to chime in. Bill, who was a charter member (he reminds me) of the Scripps Institute Junior Oceanographers, thinks it's an angel shark, but after looking at many photos on the web, I think it looks much like the banded guitarfish. It's not really banded, so that's tough, but the angel fish have really big outer fins. This one seemed to have thinner outer fins but was more rounded than an angel. Cami, did you take a photo of our mystery fish? If so, please post it.
Well, regardless, what a swim! All you wonderful pod-nics that make the swim so special -- LFTC, Ruth, Cami with her camera!, Toni and of course, William Henry pod-nic! What pod of swimmers we be. Thanks for a great Saturday (I did find myself singing "All we need is sun..!" to the tune of that old Beatles hit, "All we need is love."), still it was near perfect -- the pod made is so!
A special thank you to Cami for lugging around a camera to record our pretty-darn-close-to-perfect swim!
~cary
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ReplyDeletei'm leaing towards a guitar fish. he had the big round look more than angular. cary, did he have a yellow tail?
ReplyDeleteI'm sticking with my original vote for guitarfish. It was much cuter in real life though.
ReplyDeleteIm all chuckles about your comment about the yellow tail, LFTC. ... you crack me up. YES, I did take a picture, I'll take it in today to have it developed... remember when we used to develop pictures and in a week they'll be ready.... my question is, who gets what if you are right? I vote for whoever is right has to bring gluten free chocolate chip cookies and coffee to every swim for a month. ha. I'm voting on it being the banded guitarfish, orrrr.... maybe the angel shark..... maybe its multi cultural, looked a lot like both to me... but flatter head than the angel, but markings less like a guitar fish. hm, Im baffled.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I know you all like to laugh about my yellowtails...but this is serious (ha!). I actually saw a fish that looked just like the ones I saw in the water and called yellowtails (because, of course, of their yellow tails). The fish picture and description is listed in my NEW fish book with the whitefish, butterfish and jacks. It's called yellowtail, seriola lalandi -- so see? It's not a tuna, I think some (okay, Bill, dear) thought I meant I saw a yellowfin tuna, and no this is a yellowtail with a yellow side stripe... cool. (-:
ReplyDeleteDid anyone swim on soggy-Sunday? We bailed.
~cary