On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 David Strike <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

<snip of the kiwi shears - Re: Shelly Beach>
>It was so good that Sylvia and I went for a pre-breakfast snorkel
>there this morning.  A large school of tiny bait fish were being
>stalked by three separate schools of squid.  It's always a delight
>to see squid in motion. They have to be one of the most graceful and
>streamlined of sea critters.

They certainly are a fascinating creature to what. Their colour changes
amaze me .. just like the Octopus & Cuttlefish.

On our trip to the Abrolhos Islands we had a couple of night dives. There
was one dive that the majority of folk didnt bother with. Poor them :-(
They missed out on the best night dive I did there. But I digress ...
squid's the topic.

We had a lovely German lady cooking for us. And even though we was very
friendly we noticed, a couple of times, the disapproving looks we got when
we snuck something off the table to feed to the fish at night. So, to get
around this, we pretended to exit the dining area to wash our plates &
dipped whatever was on our plate overboard around the corner from her gaze.
The back lights were on lighting up the marlin board. Lots of fish were
zooming in from the dark to select a little nibblie with the occassional
squid darting through to grab a bigger morsel - the fish itself. They are
so fast it was a pity we didnt have a video to freeze frame the action ..
but so fascinating to witness the hunt! There I was standing on the marlin
board looking down & oohing & aarghing over all the fish zipping around for
a free feed when I nearly jumped in the water accidentally. A very large
octopus surfed by & one of his tentacles shot up out of the water scaring
the crap outa me! The nearest I can describe it would be having a crocodile
zip out of the water towards you. Amazing how high you can jump even though
you were not trying for the high jump record :-)

Thank gawd I did not fall in the water as there was a ripping current that
night. The boat deckie couldnt stop laughing... I wonder why ;-)
Viv