Once a hippopotamus...

Yesterday my ears were hurting just a bit but I made it on all of the three scheduled dives.  I just found one new nudibranch species:

17. Phyllidia cf. elegans

I did find more things that looked like nudibranchs but they are not!  This sure looks like a Phyllidia varicosa, but it is actually a sea cucumber:

And this one even looks like it has rhinophores so you might be easily fooled into thinking it is a nudibrach, but it is actually a close cousin called a Plakobranch.  Specificially, this is the Thuridilla bayeri.

All the critters under the ocean want to be nudibranchs, but they cannot.  It is like Claude's story of the hippo from Along Came Polly...

It's like the story of the hippo.  The hippopotamus, he is not born going, "Cool bean, I am a hippo."  No way, José.

So he tried to paint the stripe on himself to be like the zebra, but he fool no one.

And then he tried to put the spot on his skin to be like the leopard, but everyone know he is a hippo.

So at certain point, he look himself in the mirror, and he just say, "Hey, I am a hippopotamus, and there is nothing I can do about it."

And as soon as he accepts this, he live life happy.

Happy as a hippo.
I hope the sea cucumbers and plakobranchs of this world are happy.

Speaking of Along Came Polly, there is a French videographer who works here named Guy.  I have been trying to get him to say "Are you for SCUBA?" but he is having nothing to do with me.  He gave me some story about teaching Paris Hilton how to dive and she was asking him to do the same thing the whole time, but he doesn't really get it.  Oh well, I guess not everyone has my juvenile sense of humor.

On the gastronomic front, I've found a new delight.  Mango and tobasco.  I know it sounds totally weird but it goes together like cheese and caramel popcorn.  The tobasco soaks into the mango and it leaves a warm feeling in the back of your throat. Mmmmm... I'm off to get some right now.

NUDI COUNT = 17