Watch: What’s lurking beneath the surface? Here’s what the ‘fish cam’ off Deerfield Beach reveals
What a joy, bobbing gently in the waves off one of Florida’s spectacular beaches.
But how much do you let your mind wander to what’s lurking just beneath your toes?
Maybe you don’t want to know — out of sight, out of mind.
Or maybe your curiosity gets the better of you. If so, there’s a tiny underwater camera in the shallow waters beneath the Deerfield Beach pier that’s keeping an eye on things down there.
The underwater “Fish Cam” streams continuously day and night on the city’s YouTube page. You can watch it below, but be sure to scroll down for selected highlights, including a very mysterious sighting that we had to ask the city to explain.
Warning: Watching this video may be addicting. And it’s not just a camera, it’s also a microphone. So be sure to pop in your headphones and unmute the soothing sounds.
The camera is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and is housed inside a clear globe under the pier. It’s capable of looking around and is controlled remotely from Deerfield Beach City Hall.
“It’s a labor of love,” said Rebecca Medina Stewart, the city’s director of public affairs, whose department runs the cam. “It’s a hard project to maintain. We weren’t sure how it was going to go … and it’s been a lot of trial and error to see what works down there. It’s a really high surf area and so the camera gets beat up really badly. But we do it because people love it.”
They love it so much, Medina Stewart said, that the camera has groupies who watch regularly, report problems and even name some of the regular visiting sea creatures. One of the fan favorites is King Benny the blenny.
“What the public loves about the underwater camera is that the ocean in itself is a completely different world,” Medina Stewart said. “There are some people who love that world, and they’ll dive and fish and get down there under the water all the time. But then there are others who are very much afraid of the ocean but they love to see what’s down there every bit as much as divers do.”
And Medina Stewart and her team — including the cam’s operator, Janeane Pennoyer — know how addictive it is. “Some people watch for a few minutes a day. And we have some people who watch for hours,” Medina Stewart said.
Indeed, spotting something special takes patience. So we’ve compiled highlights and asked Alastair Harborne, an ecologist at Florida International University, to identify some of the most common species.
Grouper
Scrawled cowfish
Gray triggerfish
Porcupinefish
Green turtles
Lionfish
Black margate
Scrawled filefish
Lookdown
A school of tarpon
Blue runner
A blenny
We can’t say whether or not this is King Benny, the blenny named by fans of the cam. FIU’s Harborne said this is probably a hairy blenny.
Mutton snapper
French angelfish
Harborne said this one is “intermediate age.” As it gets older, it will lose its stripes.
A sea jelly
And swimming behind it is a Bermuda chub.
It’s not always sea life you’ll spot on the cam. Cormorants can occasionally be seen firing through the water like missiles, searching for a snack. Don’t blink or you might miss them.
Double-crested cormorant
And sometimes the creatures don’t look quite as friendly.
Nurse shark
Great barracuda
Southern stingray
Michael Myers
We had questions. The city’s spokesperson, Medina Stewart, would only remind us that “Michael Myers never died. But then we can also say that the fish scared him away.” She added that some lucky viewers may also spot an occasional mermaid.
The cam is simple, but the housing and mechanics are complex and require regular cleaning and maintenance by divers.
