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.
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.
I am not sure what it is about turtles that always fascinates me when I am diving. Sometimes it strikes me that turtles remind me of grumpy old men swimming under water. I guess I can relate to that. Other times I am amazed at just how quickly they can swim and leave me in the dust, even when I am wearing fins.
Over the years, I have seen hawksbill turtles, green sea turtles, Ridley’s turtles and even a leather back turtle. I was amazed when we were sailing to see an enormous leather back turtle surface directly in front of our catamaran. I had no idea that a turtle that probably weighed half a ton could immediately dive down with seemingly very little effort and at a speed that took it out of the center of our catamaran.
I especially like to see sunlight reflected off the shells of green sea turtles because their shells reflect so many colors. So here is to the turtle, I tip my hat so to speak.
A short video clip from a swim through known as the “caves” in the Bahamas:
Swim throughs can occur several different ways. The Caves in Bahamas is an example of coral growing so high that it creates walls that sometimes meet and cover the corridor that otherwise winds through the reef. The swim throughs I have been through have ranged from wide enough for 3 divers to go through side by site down to swim throughs where I have to fold in close to the camera housing the arms holding my camera strobes out to the side of the housing.
The Caves in Freeport Bahamas’ dive site starts out easily wide enough to accommodate a diver so it is a dive in which we follow the leader. If you are not the leader of the dive, you have to hope that the divers in front of you do not kick up the sand too much otherwise the visibility gets real spotty really quickly. Fortunately my dive buddy who went in front of me did not kick up the bottom much at all. The Caves does get pretty narrow at points. There were a couple of places in the canyon where I had to turn sideways just to get the camera in its underwater housing through the narrows. The narrows did feel pretty narrow. It is not too uncommon for swim throughs to have narrow points. If you are not the first through, you have to hope that who ever is in front of you doesn’t balk and then try to turn around, or that someone from behind doesn’t bolt and try to swim over you.
(If you look closely you can see the diver closest to the camera is actually swimming over the diver in front; not a good idea, even if it is close to the exit).
As a dive site, the caves also has a good amount of fish life on the reef. I saw a school of goatfish which was quite large both on an individual basis and based on the number of individuals in the school . Of course the fish life is what keeps me going back to see more creatures underwater. You never know when a plate sized angel fish or a turtle might meet you in a swim through. For me, the potential of a meeting of an interesting creature never gets old.
In the abstract, a 30 foot dive with artificial concrete reef structure does not sound like a very interesting dive, at least to me. Yet, when you have artists who are willing to spend countless hours forming the concrete into hundreds of different statues that resemble people engaged in a variety of activities, all of a sudden the dive does become interesting. The underwater museum in Isla Mujeres has 500 sculptures with three different galleries submerged between three and six meters of water. The museum began in 2009 and was completed at the end of 2013. The series of sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor and five other Mexican sculptors are located in the Cancún National Marine Park. The museum was thought up by Marine Park Director Jaime Gonzalez Canto with the help off sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor.
When we dove the museum, one of the divers on the boat was a doctor from north Texas. He was making his second trip to the museum and said he wanted to see how many statues had been added. We also met a new diver from the San Fransisco area diving the museum. She was newly certified and seemed to enjoy the dive all the while taking pictures of the experience.
Of all the statues that we saw the one that spoke to me was one I refer to as the barrister.
To me it looked like an English Barrister pleading his case underwater. He is surrounded by statues who may or may not be particularly interested in what he has to say. Oh, that is the life of a trial lawyer, something I have been doing for over 30 years.
Several years ago I was in Playa del Carmen Mexico doing some diving. We had done a few dives when the owner of the dive shop told us that if we wanted to we could do a dive where the bull sharks often were. My dive buddy decided that she did not want to go. My kids were glad. One of them said before the dive, at least we will go home with one parent. As it was there was one other diver who signed up for the dive. I had not seen him dive before, so I did not know what to expect.
Before we got in the water Massimo, the dive leader, suggested that we clear our ears before we rolled into the water because we would want to make a negative descent or at least get to the bottom as fast as we could. Of course the challenge was I would have to go back to the boat to get my camera before I started my descent. Nevertheless, the drop down to the sand 93 feet below was uneventful. We were maybe a mile off shore and the bottom was all white sand and it looked like we were going to the beach. At first I was concerned that we might get to the bottom and see very little but white sand. I was wrong. No sooner had we had hit the bottom, but a ray with a jack fish swam by hunting for food. Moments later the bull sharks began to come in to check us out. My dive buddy and I were kneeling back to back watching for sharks and Mossimo was a few feet away watching us and looking for sharks.
At first, juvenile male bull sharks came in to look us over. They were a little bit skittish but they would swim by us turn and then swim off. After a few moments the large pregnant female bull sharks came in to see what we were up to. They would swim in and get fairly close and briefly circle to see if we had food. We didn’t.
After a few more moments Mossimo motioned for us to follow him so we would swim up the “sandy beach” and so we could do a multi-level dive. After a few moments he had put a little more distance between him and us. He did that to see if the sharks would swim between us. They did. Meanwhile, a shark that swam by us, crapped on my buddy. Immediately, a remora from the shark buzzed my buddy and put a fin in is hair. My buddy thought he had been bitten and was completly “wigged out”. Fortunately, I had shot a picture of the romora as it came off the shark so I turned my camera around and showed him the romora that had buzzed him. He calmed down a bit and we continued the dive.
By now, I had counted over 20 bull sharks. Mossimo was signaling us that it was time to head up to the boat. We slowly ascended, all the while watching to see if the sharks rose in the water column to follow us. Things seemed pretty much under control when we got to the boat. I helped my buddy get out of his gear and handled it up to the captain. I had just handed my camera up to the captain when Mossimo said we needed to get in the boat. I looked down and the sharks were starting to swim up the water column. I kicked up, grabbed the boat’s gunnel and pulled myself into the boat, with my kit still on. Mossimo got in seconds later. I looked down and the sharks were heading back down towards the bottom. The ride back to the shop was uneventful and gave me a chance to think about how cool it had been to see such big animals and think, I’ve got to do some more shark dives.
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….
