May 10, 2006

On may 4th the Elephant Ear Sponges spawned. Today it was the Barrel Sponges turn.

And spawn they did with the female Barrel Sponges generating large balls of spawn that spilled out onto the reef and into the water column. Meanwhile the male Barrel Sponges generated an enormous amount of brown translucent smoke which dropped the visibility on the reef to under 10 feet.

The net effect was a photographer's nightmare consisting of poor visibly and lots of big fluffy particles in the water.