GalapagosQuest: My Gringo Guides

During the day Gringo fish are bright red, but at night they "slip into their nightgowns" and become pale gray in color      RELATED VIDEO Real 28K      MORE REPORTS Day 20:End of a Journey Day 19:Nature Notes Day 18:Our Connection ... Day 17:The real final frontier Day 16:Islands in Danger? Day 15:Forests at the Edge Day 14:Swimming with Day 13:Hellos and Goodbyes Day 12:Journey to the heart Day 11:Learning in a pinch Day 10:Gringo Guides Day 9:Survival Issues Day 8:Gross,Warty.. Day 7:Water Scarcity Day 6:Should I have... Day 5:Arrival and Survival Day 4:The Hood Mockingbird Day 3:Lethal Charm Day 2:Flames in the Ocean Day 1:Off to a Bad Start

March 12, 1999
Web posted at: 6:32 p.m. EST (2332 GMT)

By Jack Grove

(Classroom Connect) -- Today a bunch of gringos took me on a tour of one of the most incredible dive sites in all of the Galapagos Islands. Like many tourists, they were red and looked sun burnt. But these gringos were actually fish, Paranthias colonus to be exact."

We were snorkeling at Devil's Crown, where a volcanic cone sticks out of crystal clear water. At one point, you can dive down, swim though a long tunnel and pop out the other side. Here, you can see some 50 different kinds of fish, swimming on sandy bottom, coral reef and rocky reef -- three distinct underwater habitats. My plan was to just follow the gringo fish through a dive area. I knew that eventually they'd take us to all three of the habitats.

The gringo fish are amazing creatures. A relative of the sea bass, they can grow to be up to 14 inches long. They are found as far away as California and swim in schools of thousands. As I've said, they're red during the day but at night they turn pale gray...I guess you could call it their nightgown.

The gringos lead us out over the sandy bottom, the first habitat on our tour. There we found sand dollars, flounder, two different kinds of stingrays, and garden eels. These animals have adapted to life in the sand using camouflage or by learning how to burrow into the protection of the bottom. But the gringos posed no threat to these creatures anyway. Gringos eat small fish and plankton -including fish eggs, larvae, and plants.

Suddenly a group of gringos broke away from the main school and headed for the rocky reef. Lava boulders become encrusted with barnacles, anemones, oysters and feather-like creatures called hydroids. The rocks also provide places to hide for many fish including the barberfish and that's where the gringos go for cleaning.

You see, shrimp-like parasites called copepods attach themselves to the skin and gills of fish like gringo fish. Barberfish, colorful little fish with tiny mouths and long snouts, love copepods. When the gringo fish arrived, they signaled that that they wanted to be cleaned by standing still in the water, head down and tail straight up. Then they change colors-- from red to gray! Just then two barberfish swam up to the gringo fish and nibbled off the copepods. Other gringos "floated" in line and began to change colors to be the next to be cleaned. As for me, I was running out of air and swam to the top for another breath.

On the way back to the boat, I followed a group of newly cleaned gringo fish through a tunnel to the inside of Devil's Crown. It was like a magical lagoon, of shallow, turquoise water, and frolicking sea lions. I took another breath and dove down again. This time, instead of brown rocky reefs, I could see bright orange cup-coral communities. The water in the Galapagos is just barely warm enough for reef building corals, so there is not much of it.

Some corals look like rock while others look like flowers, but they are actually alive, and play host to a variety of fish like the parrotfish and spiny lobster that live in its crevices.

At sunset, the GalapagosQuest team and I climbed back aboard the boat. The sea was changing from its bright blue color to a steely gray. Meanwhile, the sea creatures we had visited were settling down for the night. Did you know that fish sleep? Some slip into a crevice, others bury themselves in the sand and others just float but all of them keep their eyes open. The gringo fish would be changing into its gray nightgown and the parrotfish would be making its bed. They spew a sac of mucus to slip into for the night.

Somehow my bunk on the Samba sounded a lot more comfortable.

Fair Winds,

Jack

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