Drifting in a small boat over a shallow muddy bay, ahhh. And, often this pleasure reveals arrow gobys darting about, aiming for a nearby safety hole. Look carefully – you’ll see them only if you’re paying attention. The arrow goby is, simply put, a small fish shaped somewhat like an arrow. A long and skinny shape, eyes placed high on its head and all of it rather colorful. These guys are about half-hand-sized and prefer muddy bays or marinas where they can live their lives peeking out of ghost shrimp holes. They can tolerate tide and temperature changes that would kill most other fish, and mostly because of these holes. The tide goes out, these guys stay put, safely hidden in the cooler burrows of other creatures until the water returns.

During high tide, gobies spend their time hunting for food, mostly small crustaceans or mud shrimp eggs, how appropriate. When one finds something too big to eat, biologists have documented it dragging the hapless victim over to a larger crab, then it sits back and waits for the crab’s sloppy manners to provide smaller tidbits to float by. The arrow goby, so what’s the point of writing and making art about these insignificant little fish? I do it because, knowing about them or not, they’re all part of our world, neighbors sharing our lives even if we don’t notice or care about them. But now you WILL notice, because now I’ve told you about gobies, so pay attention!

Larry Eifert paints and sails the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.