Fishes and Frogs, Octopus and Prawns

Kauai was just another vacation spot until we started snorkeling.  THEN it became a tropical paradise.  I don't care what your age is or what your "shape" might be, GO SNORKELING! 

Never once did we go snorkeling that we didn't see a new kind of fish, and rarely did we get in to deep water.  John's opinion is that if he can touch bottom and get his head above water, he's safe enough!

These are called convict fish because they are always in a gang and wear stripes!

This is a parrot fish, so called because it's mouth has a beak like a parrot to make biting pieces of coral off easier. (And then, of course, they poop out the coral as coarse grains of sand!) We saw pink parrot fish and baby blue parrot fish.  They were some of the largest fish we saw.

I have LOTS of fish pictures if you'd like to see more.  (You'll have to tell me!  Click on the "Comment" button to do that.)  But on to other things.  Yes, of course, they have frogs on the island.  Cute lil' thing, isn't he?

Look close!  It's an octopus swimming!

Octopus come in a gazillion varieties that grow from 3" across to humongous.  This one was a couple of feet long and weighed a couple of pounds.  They make a hole in the sand, surround it with white rocks, dig in and then wait for food to swim by.  Yes, they do squirt ink if you follow them too closely, but this one didn't get a chance before our grandson speared it.

Australians call all shrimp prawns; Americans call only the biggest shrimp prawns.  Fancy restaurants call shrimp prawns (probably because they only serve the biggest!) Now you know what one looks like before they cut off it's tail.  For the first time now I might consider eating Louisiana crawdads because they look like smaller versions of the prawn. . .Not!