Category Archives: Cayman Islands

Belize, Cayman Islands, Kona, Mexico, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you seen undersea animals hunting in pairs?

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Sometimes when we are underwater, we see cooperation between fish from the same species hunting for food.  When I see that kind of behaviour, I think, now that is an interesting cooperative skill. Nevertheless, when we see fish or other animals from different families cooperating to hunt for food together, that is unusual and is well worth watching.

When we were in Hawaii I was somewhat surprised to see a white mouthed moray eel team up with a tivoli to hunt for food.
hunting-pair-2-1-of-1
Now in the middle of the day to see a free-swimming moray eel is fairly uncommon.  But to see a free-swimming moral eel hunting with another species of fish is even more unlikely, and certainly is interesting — at least to me.  I watched this pair swim together and chase several smaller fish into holes in the reef.  I did not see them have any success in hunting.  But I could imagine that a ray which could easily get into relatively small holes in the reef could be a very helpful hunting buddy.  I could easily imagine the ray either catching and eating a small fish in the hole, or chasing out the small fish into the awaiting jaws of the tivoli.  Of course the opposite could be true.  the tivoli could chase a smaller fish back to the reef and into the awaiting jaws of the moray eel.

Similarly, on several occasions I have seen snappers hunt with southern rays.   The first time I saw  that behaviour was on a shark dive in Playa del Carmen.  We were waiting for the sharks to come in when the first pair through the dive site was a southern ray and snapper apparently hunting for scraps.  I was just hoping that I was not part of the scraps.   Now I have seen the benefit of these partnerships between rays and snappers on several occassions.  The ray stirs up the bottom looking for food and the snapper gets the left-overs that squirt out the gills of the ray.  I have seen southern rays feeding with a snapper in Cayman Brac, Belize, and Mexico.  I suspect this kind of cooperative hunting goes on all over.  Regardless of how often it may occur, I still never get tired of observing it.

a-hunting-pair-1-of-1

Cayman Islands, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you seen a new coral garden?

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When I first started diving finding healthy stag horn and elk horn coral was easy.  Unfortunately, finding healthy stag horn and elk horn coral has become more more difficult more recently.   You don’t have to look very far in the headlines to see various headlines about coral bleaching.   Unfortunately there have been size-able beaching incidents on the Great Barrier reef and around the world.   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2014 through the end of 2016 will likely be the longest coral bleaching event ever recorded.  The current bleaching event is largely blamed on global warming.  There can be a number of causes of coral bleaching causes, which among others include:

  1. oxygen starvation caused by an increase in zooplankton levels as a result of over fishing;
  2.  increased solar irradiance (photo-synthetically active radiation and ultraviolet light);
  3.  changes in water chemistry (in particular acidification caused by CO2 pollution;
  4. increased sedimentation (due to silt runoff);
  5.  bacterial infections,; 
  6. changes in salinity herbicides;
  7.  cyanide fishing;
  8.  mineral dust from African dust storms caused by drought;  and 
  9. four common sunscreen ingredients, that are non-biodegradable that  can wash off of skin and on to coral.

Continue reading Have you seen a new coral garden? →

Cayman Islands, wide angle, wreaks

Have you been to the M.V. Keith Tibbetts wreck?

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I like to dive wrecks. Some wrecks are interesting because of their place in history. For instance, the RMS Rhone sank in a hurricane around the time of the civil war, yet large portions of the ship remain intact or at least visible to divers who dive the Rhone. Other wrecks are interesting because of the services they performed while they were in service. For instance, the Kittiwake was a submarine tender and while only recently being purposefully sunk, still has a number of features that existed from her working days– the re-compression chambers are still on board. The mirrors are still in the bathroom which is something I had not seen in a wreck before.

The Tibbetts is different because it was a Russian destroyer that was purposefully sunk off the coast of Cayman Brac in 1996. It has some sponge and coral life on it, but not as much as I had expected because it has been underwater about 20 years. It is one of the few Russian destroyer wrecks that exist in the western hemisphere.  In its sinking, the hull of the ship was apparently cracked. After several hurricanes blew through Cayman Brac, it appears the storms applied enough torque to the ship so that the bow was twisted from sitting upright to sitting at a 45 degree angle. The mid-section blew out and became a debris field and the stern of the ship is sitting at about a 75 degree angle.

Our dive of the Tibbetts was with Liesel from the Scuba Shack dive shop.  We came through a swim through to see the wreck unfold before us.  It was quite an impressive view. The Tibbetts is sitting on white sand and its contrast with the blue water makes an impressive sight. The forward guns are interesting because sponges have grown out of them.

When we were there we saw quite a bit of fish life.  A barracuda of over 5 feet in length was the highlight, but we also saw schools of goat fish an other reef fish living on the Tibbetts.  Towards the aft of the ship, and after the debris field, the super structure of the ship is intact and leads to the wheel house.

At the back of the ship are the rear guns.  In many ways I thought there were the most interesting because they are still easily recognizable as guns

rear guns with diver

We swam around the wreck for about 40 minutes before some of our group started to run low on air, so we made our safety stop and ascended to the surface.   As soon as I can I would like to go back and spend more time diving on the Tibbetts to see more of the details of its remains.  Maybe next year.

 

Cayman Islands, Grenadines, Roatan, wide angle

So why dive?

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Goliath Grouper silhouette
Goliath Grouper silhouette

For about as long as I can remember I have always liked being in the water. If there was a puddle near where I lived as a kid, I was in it looking to see what might be living in the puddle. I was the swim team kid who was always in the water. I earned some of my early pay checks being a life guard at a local pool. Later I would manage a pool while I was in college.

When I first started diving it was something I hoped I could do with my family.  It took a while and a fair amount of convincing, but to a large extent diving has become an adventure we can do together.  Diving seemed like a great way to turn off the phone, fax, text, and email stream of communications that had invaded my life. Unfortunately, what I have found is that it only delays the delivery for a while, but even that is a help.  To an extent, diving has been a great way to tune out the communication noise that otherwise buries me during the day.

But, diving also allows me to explore parts of the world that I otherwise would not see. Whether it is 12 feet down looking at southern rays at Sting Ray city off the coast of Grand Cayman, or hundred feet down looking at bull sharks off the coast of Playa del Carmen, or some depth in between looking at a hermit crab or other creatures, there is almost always something to see and learn about.

The shell of this fellow was easily a foot across
Channel clinging crab

So for me, what keeps me coming back is not just the opportunity to have some peace and quiet, but also to feed my curiosity about what exists in the other 70% of the world.

A spotted moray eel in the Grenadines
Bahamas, Cayman Islands, wide angle

Have you been diving at the chamber?

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It was a bit surprising to find a lion fish hiding in the hyperbaric chamber that was sunk off the coast of Grand Bahama
It was a bit surprising to find a lion fish hiding in the hyperbaric chamber that was sunk off the coast of Grand Bahama

As I understand it, the chamber which sits on the chamber dive site off of the coast of Grand Bahama was a working chamber until the doctor who used it decided to retire.  Rather than just have the chamber rust out on the island, it was sunk at the chamber dive site.  The day we dove it, we discovered that a lion fish had taken up residence.  She was quite large and had a brood of small lion fish surrounding her.  When I thought about it, it just seemed odd to find a fish in a decompression chamber since they don’t have the same issues with pressure differentials that we do.

The vast majority of divers are well aware that by breathing compressed gas underwater they are at risk for getting “bent” or suffering decompression sickness if they do not follow recognized guidelines for safe ascents or bottom time.  In most classes I have attended the mantra of not making rapid ascents, that is faster than 30 feet per minute is repeated at least a dozen times.  Most divers I know are very careful not to exceed bottom time limits, that is: “go into deco” because for most boat operators, if you go into deco that is the end of your diving for a day.   But does staying within guidelines mean that a diver will not suffer decompression sickness;  unfortunately it is still possible to dive within generally accepted guidelines and still get “bent”.

Fortunately, only one of my friends, thus far, has had to make a trip to the decompression chamber.  From what his computer showed it  was not because he had exceeded guidelines.  Instead, it was because he had a broken bone from an unrelated accident that his doctor had not diagnosed.  He spent 2 partial days in a chamber at a significant cost, most of which was covered by insurance.

This is the only other chamber I have come across at the bottom of the sea. Won't work as a recompression chamber, but does have historic significance.
This is the only other chamber I have come across at the bottom of the sea. Won’t work as a recompression chamber, but does have historic significance.

(The chamber pictured just above is from the Kittiwake in Grand Cayman. It is at about 60 feet and is interesting to look into).

In my diving I have made it a point to try to be very conservative in my diving and endeavor to stay out of the chamber.  Given the relative small interior  size of many decompression chambers, I suspect I could get claustrophobic pretty quickly if I had to spend any time in a chamber.  But, given a choice between no chamber and claustrophobia, it’s a no brainer.  Take the chamber any time.  But, first choice is still to avoid a visit to the chamber if at all possible.

 

Cayman Islands, wide angle

Is Stingray City the best 12 foot dive?

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Coming at you
Coming at you

Often times I hear divers talking about the deepest dive they have done or the fastest current or describing some other feature that made a dive unusual. Sometimes divers look down their noses at dives that are less than 60 feet. After all any certified diver can go to 60 feet, you are supposed to be an advanced certified diver to go deeper.

Nevertheless, stingray city in Grand Cayman which is 12 foot in-depth to the sand is pretty spectacular. Feeding a southern ray
The fishermen used to clean their catchs just outside the mouth of the harbor and throw the remains overboard. Rays oftentimes would feed on the remains and would gather for a meal when they heard the fisherman’s boats heading back to the harbor. Bottle baby

I dove Stingray City with Divetech, which is an excellent shop in Grand Cayman. Before the dive the briefing advised that we would want to be over-weighted by 4 to 5 pounds. (I added 4 pounts to my usual 12 pounds). We would drop to the sand and stay in one place while the ray wrangler would feed the rays. The rays would be southern rays which would range in size from about a foot across the widest part of their body to well over three feet across their body. We would all dive air as opposed to nitrox (oxygen enriched air) because nitrox would not change our bottom times because the dive was so shallow. Once we were down we would get into more or less a circle around the ray wrangler.
Diving with rays

Once we were all on the bottom, and even before the wrangle arrived, the rays started to approach our group. The rays seemed a bit shy at first but slowly became more willing to swim near our group. When the wrangler decended with the chopped-up squid in a water bottle more rays came to see us. For about forty minutes the wrangler would move around and the rays would follow her in hopes that a small bit of squid would be squirted out of the feed bottle and they would get a snack. Along with the rays we also were jointed by yellow tail snappers and other fish. During the dive we saw at least a dozen rays who would swim around and put on a show for us. After the wrangler went back up to the boat we were allowed to swim around several large coral heads to see the local fish life. Within a few moments I had found lobsters and other creatures to observe and film. In order to get close to the lobster I dropped to the sand and crawled up close to the coral head to film the lobster. When I backed out from the coral head a weight pocket fell out of my bcd. I was so enthralled with looking for creatures, I didn’t miss it and only knew it was missing when one of the divers handed it back to me when we were on the boat. I guess I didnt’ need that extra four pounds after all.

Most of the tourists head to the sand bars with chest-high water to interact with the stingrays. The boats’ proprietors bring along with them pails of chunked-up squid meat, which they dispense by hand to the animals, thus attracting dozens of the creatures to the feeding spot. But for me the more interesting opportunity is to dive to 12 feet and hang out until the southern rays arrive and watch the action. To me what really makes the dive unique is the interaction with so many southern rays. On most dives, if I find one ray during the dive that usually means it has been a good dive; To see dozens of rays during a single dive is a special treat.

The grace and ease with which rays move through the water is best seen in video. It reminds me that they live there, and we are just guests.

Bahamas, Barbardos, Belize, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Mexico, Roatan, wide angle

Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?

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Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?
Pretty but lethal?

Over the last decade or so we have been making our way around the Caribbean. My first encounter with a Lion fish was about 10 years ago when I heard that this invasive species from the Indo-Pacific region was slowing making its way around the Caribbean. I cannot say that I have been to every island in the region, but I have come close. I have seen them as far south as Tobaggo. I’ve seen them as far north as Florida. I have seen them as far east as Barbados. I have seen them as far west as Roatan, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen. Lion fish are eating and reproducing machines. A marine biologist in Belize told me that the female lion fish produces about 40,000 eggs every 3 days. The reproductive ability of rabbits pale by comparison.

One of my friends in Barbados let me know that last week his shop shot 90 lion fish while my friends in Roatan shot over 130 last week. There are lion fish round ups throughout the Caribbean. I have seen roundups in the Caymans, and Curacao and Belize. Ultimately, the lion fish has no natural predators in the Caribbean. Although there have been efforts to train moray eels, groupers and sharks to feed on them, often it still requires the spearing of the fish in the first instance. I don’t know what the answer is, but I certainly hope we find a better answer than we have now because from what I have seen we appear to be losing the battle.

Some might say so what. The problem is that with depleted native species, like parrot fish and others who eat the algae off the reef the reefs could eventually die out. I think about the great limpet that only resides in Monterrey bay and wonder, can we really afford such a loss. There are proteins that are created by the great limpet that make cancer drugs more effective and which at the present have not yet been synthesized. The proteins from the limpid sell for about $34,000 per gram or more than 600 times the price of gold. I wonder can we afford to lose even one species of flora or fauna in the Caribbean? I keep wondering if there is a better solution to removing this invasive species. Yet at the same time i think about instances in which people have introduced one invasive species to remove another and those efforts have gone terribly wrong,consider africanized bees….