On April 12, 2001 an underwater volcano exploded off the California Coast.

Here is one spectators description of the event:

And all the fishies in the sea...

AND ALL THE FISHIES IN THE SEA WENT "OOOH!"

by Ezra

as told to Heide Kaminski

April 2001

Eureka, CA April 12, 2001

Dear Mom and Dad, You won't believe what happened today! My friends and I were in between classes (it was Humans 101 and Effective Swimming Techniques in Rough Water). We were hanging out on our usual spot in the corals having a plankton catching contest. I caught a real enormous one, when suddenly we all felt the strangest sensation. It was like waves of energy powerfully trembling through the water. The salt crystals in the water lit up with a red glow. It was absolutely gorgeous! Like a sunset on the bottom of the ocean floor. An invisible force made all our scales stand upright and for a few moments my gills stopped functioning. Then came what I can only compare to the description of a hurricane from my "Weird Humans Monthly". The water was swirling all around us, breaking off coral pieces, splitting sea grass leaves right in half, and tossing plankton, algae and invertebrate senselessly about. Debris was shooting way up igh out of the ocean and plummeted right back down nto us. We were helplessly hiding under the coral reef and tried to cling to the corals. Some of us were ripped off and tossed up with the debris. The sand on the ocean floor was swirling wildly about like I imagine a desert storm as described in my "Weird Humans" magazine. The water became so hot, I thought I was going to turn into a boiled shrimp like the ones I saw pictured in my magazine (a horrid sight, let me tell you!!!). As the ocean calmed down and the sand began to settle, we saw in the distance where the red glow was coming from. There is this mountain, which we always stay away from, because we hear strange noises coming from the inside, and the water is always too rough and too warm for our comfort zone. At it's peak we saw a reddish mass slowly emerging and flowing down the sides. As it headed downwards, it's color turned gray. Millions of bubbles were rising from the top right out of the water turning into smoke above sea level. As usual none of us dared to get too close to explore any further. I guess I will have to wait for the next issue of my magazine to read about the details. The shock is over now, all is calm, a few of us have some bruises and some missing scales. Even my friends, who were torn from us with the current eventually came back, shaking, but OK. Now, Mom, I know, I know, you have always warned me about going to school in California with all the earth quakes and such, but let me tell you: today's event was scary, but beautiful! Where else can I get an intense education like this? Lots of Love Angel