The Two Crews of Two Times

In the 1950's, a leak began along the hull of a 30-meter cargo ship. The captain, in hopes of saving the cargo, drove the ship as far inshore as the water-laden hull would allow. This empty cargo ship became a powerful magnet for sea life after it came to rest next to the beautiful San Blas Island called Dog Island.

 Here is the tanker's bow with Dog Island and the local Kuna's huts.

Years later, the tanker is still manned, but with a new crew. The captain, a glorious triggerfish, watches the crew of minnows waiting to stoke the engines or whatever is necessary to sail the ship. Colorful officers (snappers and jacks) and marines (tough-looking groupers) guard the rich cargo of coral. The beautiful lionfish rides as a picky passenger with small minnow servants surrounding her. Parrotfish constantly swab the decks by eating the algae and rock to keep the ship clear of muck.

Jack and I spent nearly two hours snorkeling on this wreck.

 Jack dove under a ledge and startled many minnows in all directions.

I followed before the minnows settled down.

I emerge running out of air as I did not take a large enough breath.

Jack loves taking selfies and selfie videos including those underwater. Jack chose this one as I let him choose which selfie to post. I noticed him taking pictures while snorkeling and challenged him to take a picture that made him look like a super model. I did not intend for him to do it under water but it came out well.

 

There were lots of minnows seeming to be ready by the engines or in the galley. I had tons of fun darting after them or using a common whale tactic, which is smacking the water above them to knock them unconscious. I never caught one but I was distracted for a long time.

The minnows make an escape across the camera while a Sergeant Major hangs out below them.

I saw a triggerfish circling the ship as well as a lionfish tucked away with tiny little fish around it. The triggerfish was the size and shape of the lid on a typical toilet. The lionfish, whose stripes reminded me of a zebra, was incredibly beautiful even though it is an invasive species.

The lionfish turns away from the camera and grumpily swims away. This picture was zoomed in as the photographer kept distance from the venomous fins.

There were many varieties of parrotfish that were steadily nibbling away at the algae-covered rocks scattered around the ship. My favorite type was the spotlight parrotfish, which I call the disco fish because its scales twinkle like a disco ball with a strobe light flashing on it. Groupers, with their tough-looking faces, ducked in and out of the ship almost like guards. Have you ever seen a grouper? Each one has a tough look because its mouth is set in a determined frown. The graceful snappers and speedy jacks, more happily, swam through the boat with an air of importance. I loved the common, bright, and yet varying colors of the snappers as they proudly wandered through the maze of the sunken ship. While the snappers are, by far, my favorite fish to look at, watching jacks was also fun. They work as a team to capture and surround a small school of fish, which put themselves into the shape of a ball for protection. I only saw this with tiny bar jacks that were five inches long and minnows that were barely visible, but all the same, it was really cool.

The corals where also incredible and repeatedly surprised me. Some corals had strands of natural webbing designed to catch plankton as it drifts by. Fish like to nibble on the coral's net but the coral doesn’t want to be eaten. Therefore, the coral has adapted to pull in its net to get it away from anything larger than plankton. If I stuck my flipper up close to the nets, which were the size of a quarter, they would shoot back into the coral faster than I could see. I spotted a bucket and I thought that was a little funny until I realized that there were four or five of them. They were not buckets at all, but actually a cylindrical coral. They were just plain brown but other corals had delightful reds, yellows, greens, and occasionally blues. One of them was almost neon green and it hung off the bottom of the boat.

 I peer down at the large cargo of coral in the stern. Lots of tourists were swimming around as well, you can see someone in the background.

 This is a close up of stick coral (on the left), broccoli coral (in the background) ,and brain coral (on the left)

 The side of the boat was a coral rich spot. A large bit of brain coral sits in the top-left corner.

This wreck is one of the few shallow water wrecks. Normally you cannot see them while snorkeling because they are too deep. The boat was twice as long as Sila, so not very big but still a large thing to be in the ocean, above or below the water line. Although the wreck is an interesting thing to look at while snorkeling, I feel sad about the trash and ships that are slowly destroying the ocean. In this case, the ocean has cleaned up the mess but it can only do that so many times. –Porter