Wally

As I hover above the beautifully colored reef, I see hundreds of sea creatures traveling in schools or popping their heads out of their coral homes. As I can imagine that they’re all very rare, one wandering fish had a personality bigger than amongst all the other marine animals combined. Wally, as the marine biologists we traveled with fondly named him, was a independent Napoleon Maori Wrass who quickly became a favorite to everyone in the water. Imagine a well trained pet dog in the shape of a tropical 4 foot fish, with warm eyes and a beefy smirk, that lurks in the Great Barrier Reef and mooches off of a marine cruise, and you got Wally.

I wasn’t kidding when I said a well-trained dog. Just stick your arm out and Wally will approach looking to get a slippery brush across the side of his blue scaly body.

I, personally, was obsessed with this large tropical dog like fish. When I first offered him a pat he swam to my hand, but rather than letting me give him a brush across the side, he wrapped his lips around my now, very tense hand. I’m all too lucky he didn’t take a finger along with him, for Wally does have some teeth. Thankfully with all my digits in tact, I would follow him up and down the reef looking to get another encounter; but he was bored with me and swam to give some other snorkelers a chance to pat the famous Wally.

Try and search Wally the fish on the Internet and you’ll get a bunch of images of this extraordinary animal. Or better yet, come visit yourself in Wally’s fantastic home.