The Hol Chan Marine reserve in Belize is relatively well known among divers. It is near San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. The dive is not deep. Much of the reserve is less than 20 feet deep. The deepest spot I found during our dives was just over 30 feet.
On Abergris Caye the barrier reef is relatively close to the shoreline, in many places it is less than 800 yards from shore. While the reef forms a substantial barrier that protects Ambergris Caye there are “cuts” or divides in the reef where the Caribbean can wash through and boats can get out beyond the reef by sailing through the “cut”. In the Hol Chan marine reserve there is a “cut” which allows the Caribbean to flow through the reef. One of the things that the flow of water does is allow food to move through the cut. As a result of the movement of the water through the cut the amount and variety of marine life in the reserve is substantial. It is common to see large numbers of nurse sharks. It is common to see turtles and large schools of fish.
There is a wide variety of corals including one of my favorite corals, elk horn coral.
Grunts under elk horn coral in the Hol Chan Marine reserve
And, if you are lucky, you will find turtles both hawks bill and green sea turtles hanging out and eating turtle grass in the reserve.
It was not long ago that I was diving in Ambergris Caye in Belize. What struck me was the variety of soft and hard corals.
Nevertheless, on many dives, what got the attention of the divers in my group were the nurse sharks. Now don’t get me wrong, I find large animals, including nurse sharks, to be fascinating to see in the wild. Nurse sharks in the world of sharks are pretty docile and can be approached relatively easily. Keep your fingers to yourself and don’t harrass a nurse shark and you can watch them gracefully swim along the reef. I don’t think I have ever seen as many nurse sharks any where else as I have seen in Ambergris Caye.
Even though the nurse sharks got top billing, the corals were quite intersting. There were many healthy soft and hard corals which were also worthy of comment.
(Polyps of a sea whip unfurled and gathering plankton).
What is interesting to me is that coral are created by large colonies of very small animals. The texture and shape of corals has substantial variety. And, the means and types of food that they feed on can vary fairly dramatically. Some of the corals unfold their polyps and feed on plankton that drifts within reach. The most interesting feeding I have seen corals engage in I observed on a night dive on Grand Cayman. Blood worms were swarming my dive light during the night dive. The dive leader pointed his light at a coral and the blood worms followed the light down to the coral only to be devoured by the coral. It was not what I was expecting, but it was interesting. After a while I started to feel a little bit bad for the blood worms because they were being eaten at a rather rapid rate. But then I got to thinking about how annoying they had been a the beginning of the dive and it occurred to me that it was just part of the circle of life in the ocean.
Star coral was also quite common in Ambergris caye. For me star coral is interesting because it can become enormous. I also find the individual shapes to be quite interesting. Of course, the fact that star coral glows green under blue light also makes it interesting.
So next time you are diving in the deep blue sea and are templed to swim past the coral in search of other more interesting subjects, take a minute or two and look more closely at the coral, you may be glad you did.
Ever notice when you are diving that certain songs go through your head? Sometimes when I’m diving certain songs go through my head depending on the type of dive. For instance on wreck dives:
I like big wrecks and I can not lie
You other divers can’t deny
That when ship sails in with an itty bitty hold
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung
Wanna pull up tough
’cause you notice that wreck was stuffed
Deep in the sand she wearing
I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring
Oh, baby I wanna get with ya
And take your picture
My homeboys tried to warn me
But that wreck you got
Make Me so happy
Ooh, hull of smooth skin
You say you wanna get in my benz
Well use me use me ’cause you aint that average groupy
In 2014 we traveled to Dominica for the first time. We flew to Guadeloupe, got on board a power cat and motored the 20+ miles to Dominica the following morning. A power cat is like a catermoran, but instead of a sail, it just uses a motor to cruise. That way a power cat is not wind dependent and generallys is quite a bit faster in the water.
For the next week, we would dive than cruise to a new dive site pick up a local dive master and then dive some more. We set foot on the island of Dominica once that week, to have dinner and to return some dive gear to a local dive shop. The rest of the time we were either cruising down the coast, diving, sleeping or eating.
One of the songs that kept playing in my head during the trip was a song about Dominica that I had heard when I was a child. Here is a link to a video clip from the Ed Sullivan show in the early 60’s about the nun who wrote and sang the song “Dominica”.
Dominica has an abundance of underwater wildlife. If you like to find small sea creatures there are plenty of them to see. I don’t think I have ever seen so many banded shrimp and small crabs as I saw on this trip. I am relatively certain I have never see so many golden crinoid, a type of feather star as we saw in Dominica.
Sponges corals and crionoids with fish in the background
And, if you have lots of small animals, you often have a variety of predators. We saw quite a few trumpet fish.
And, we saw large animals. For more than a half an hour as we were motoring along the coast of the island, we were escorted by a dolphin.
Dominica is a volcanic island. On one dive we took a couple of eggs from the galley and took them down to the sand 80 feet below the boat and buried them in the sand. We then went on our dive and by the time we came back the eggs were cooked and were hard-boiled. Dominica as the top of a volcano rises up out of the ocean. As a result, if you go about a mile off shore the depth of the water drops to over 1,000 feet in-depth. That deep trench near the Atlantic ocean makes for excellent habitat for whales. In Dominica, if you go with a local operator who has a permit, you can swim with whales.
Swimming with whales is done on snorkel gear but it is with sperm whales, a relatively rare animal. Unfortunately, we did not have time to go snorkeling with the whales. One of my friends visited Dominica a few weeks before we were there, and spent quite a bit of time in the water with several sperm whales, and of course had a great time. I am going to hopefully time my next trip to Dominica to try to swim with the sperm whales.
In the Caribbean, there are 15 or so kinds of moray eel. Based on my antidotal observation, the green moray is the most common. Green moral eels tend to grow larger than their cousins so perhaps their ability to grow larger gives them an advantage in the wild. Based on my personal observation around the Caribbean, the spotted moray is the second most common moray eel to see.
Here is an example of a spotted moray eel.
Ordinarily, moray eels are relatively unaffected by the presence of divers. Quite often divers can get relatively close to moray eels before the eel will withdraw into the reef to avoid contact with a diver, but not always. As I approached the eel withdrew into the reef leaving the banded shrimp who had previously been cleaning the eel.
Sometimes during the daytime, eels will only peer out of their hiding holes in the reef and you have to be fairly alert to spot them.
Sometimes if you are very fortunate you will see a moray eel freely swimming about the reef. Generally speaking, you are more likely to see a free swimming moray eel during a night dive when they are hunting for food than you are during the day.
The relationship between divers and eels does change if there is food that is present or the eel believes that there may be food available. When food is present, the moray can become much more interested in the food than anything else. We were diving in Belize on the Turneffe reef when I saw a moray become much more interested in food than anything else. Our dive leader had speared a lion fish and were swimming along a wall when a moray caught the sent of the dead lion fish which was still on the spear. Here is how that interaction played out. Nevertheless some moray eel have no interest in lion fish as food even when dead.
Sometimes even if the feeding by has not occurred by humans for quite a long time, a moray eel will continue to look for a free meal. occasionally, the interaction between divers and an eel can be almost comical. Unfortunately, feeding wild animals can change their behavior. That applies not just to moray eels but to other animals as well.
Nevertheless, getting to see a free swimming moray eel, particularly in the day time, is quite a treat. And, while they are technically fish, moray eels are quite different from most fish that you see in the ocean.
Here is a short clip of some moray eels I have seen recently.
