Warm blue water with a ton of marine life to me is a great hook to go visit an island. In early July 2022 we sailed around St. Martin and got in a pedestrian 8 dives in a week. Nevertheless, we still saw a good variety of reef live. Some of my favorites were the turtles. All were green sea turtles but there were quite a few of them. Most were eating on the reef. Only one was swimming apparently looking for a meal.
A turtle at rest
But we also saw a variety of fish. Some were the usual pretty grunts that would show up in relatively large schools.
Ceasar grunts and goat fish swimming through a wreck
But the colors on the reef were not limited to browns and yellows. Instead there were also reds and other colors.
Black bar soldier fish beneath soft corals
And of course, often on the edge of visibility there were grey reef sharks patrolling around the divers.
Orange Elephant ear sponges off the coast of little Tobago
I admit it, as a photographer the first thing I see in an image is color. Some people see texture, some see composition, but I see color. Growing up, most of the time I spent in the water was either in a pool or in a fresh water lake. Ok if you are lucky a pool is a nice color blue and a lake is some what clear and you can see fish. Imagine my surprise the first time I went snorkeling in the Caribbean. Lots of colors in sponges and fish and coral. Continue reading Have you seen the array of colors underwater?→
Its been a while since I was last in St. Martin, or St. Marteen if you prefer. It is not a place that many divers go, but it is a place that attracts a lot of yachts and super-yachts. We were there sailing on a catamaran that was part of the Trade winds fleet. One of my favorite dive sites on St. Martin was a place called turtle reef. Now if you look on most maps of the island you will not find a dive site called turtle reef. We dove with a shop called Octopus diving. They picked us up at our boat which was anchored in Grand Cass. They were well prepared and whisked us off to the diver sites for the days diving.
We did not have far to go. I had not even finished kitting up before we were there. The buoy marking the dive site was not much bigger than a plastic coke bottle. You would probably only find the site if you knew the gps coordinates. After our briefing, Keith and I were ready to get in and see what the site had to offer.
Our expectations were high that we would see a turtle. Viz was pretty good and the site was basically a small pinnacle that rose from the surrounding depths to within 15 feet of the surface. It was a sunny day with lots of light. The site was full of fish life. There were grunts galore, but for much of the dive, no turtles.
But towards the end of the dive the dive master spotted a turtle heading to the pinnacle from much deeper blue water. It was a rather large hawksbill turtle and he was not at all concerned about the presence of a couple of divers.
Hawks bill turtle grazing on sponges
Would I go back to turtle reef? Of course, any day you get to dive with turtles is a good day.
