Tag Archives: travel destinations

Bahamas, Sharks, Uncategorized, wide angle

Turtles

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Some days I think about all the types of certain critters I have seen and then think that I will probably not see something new on the next trip.  It sure is nice to be wrong.  During the last trip to Grand Bahama it was awesome to see a loggerhead turtle up close. 

I had only seen a loggerhead turtle one other time and that was from a boat deck.  The last time I saw one it was only for a brief second because he popped his head up only a few meters ahead of our catamaran and then ducked down again as he saw we were sailing right towards him.  I don’t think I have ever seen a turtle move so fast.  Now he was never in danger because he would have passed between the two pontoons of the boat without any problem.  Nevertheless, because I was close to the front of the boat I could see just how enormous he was.  Most turtles I have seen have been maybe a few feet across the bottom of their shell.  The fellow who swam under the boat was easily 2 meets across the bottom of his shell.  If I had to guess he must have weighed several hundred pounds.  

The loggerhead turtle I saw in the Bahamas raced through the dive site, right past a bunch of divers.  He was huge — well over 500 pounds. 

At first I did not see any reason for why this turtle seemed quite determined to “motor” through the site.  It was only after I took the first shot that I saw why.   Maybe having a grey reef shark following you is no big deal for a turtle that weighs several hundred pounds.  

But then again, maybe having a large shark following you is just an annoyance.  I really don’t know, but even if I had a hard shell, I don’t think I would mess around with those teeth.  So maybe swimming through the circle of divers was the idea after all.  We were the bait. 

 

Oh yeah, the turtle took a right angle after passing me, and the shark just kept swimming straight.  Who says turtles are slow.  

Bahamas, Sharks, Uncategorized, wide angle, wreaks

Nassau Bahamas, wreck diving and shark diving, what’s not to like?

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I was thinking about the dives we did in Nassau and it occurred to me that it was some of the most diverse, and productive diving I have had a chance to do. Day 1 we spent a fair amount of time diving with gray reef sharks. Even before the feeding began the sharks were remarkably cooperative in positioning themselves so that they made interesting models.

Grey reef shark
Grey reef shark swimming overhead

The first day we did two shark divers at shark junction with the Stuart Cove dive shop. Dive one was pretty mellow and while there were quite a few sharks, the 18 divers on the boat never got particularly close to the sharks since they were curious, but at best aloof. The second dive was a shark feed and it was interesting to watch the sharks come in and be fed. There was quite a bit of bumping and jostling for position by the sharks. The divers were all pretty well out of the line of swimming, except for the shark feeder and the photographers who had chain mail suits.

Here is a brief video from the shark feed.

And did I mention the wrecks? There are lots of them and many of them have appeared in one or more movies.
And some of the wrecks are just interesting because their structure has an amazing amount of growth that has accumulated on them.

Anguilla, Uncategorized, wide angle, wreaks

So what is it like to dive in Anguilla?

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Black Margots hugging the hull of the MV Commerce
Black Margots hugging the hull of the MV Commerce

Imagine this: clear blue warm water.  Loads of fish, and a wreck or two to explore.  Sounds great, it is.  

We sailed a catamaran into Anguilla and tied off in a small bay waiting to go diving the next day.  Where we moored was near a small mini wall so we got out of the boat with our snorkels and explored the mini-wall.  There were a lot of fish, mostly sergeant majors, but some puffer fish and few grunts.   I was feeling lazy so I didn’t take the camera.  I figured I would wait until the next day to rig it and used it for the dives we would do the next day. 

In Anguilla they require that you use a local dive shop to lead the dives.  They say that it is required in order to make sure the divers don’t abuse the reef.  I suspect it is really more about keeping the local economy working.  

Sponge and coral growth on the hull of the MV Commerce

Nevertheless, we the following morning our dive guide arrived and we then went diving on the MV Commerce.   The Commerce had been sunk about 20 years before as a purposefully sunk ship.  It was a cargo ship before its sinking.  It was in relatively good shape for having been down as long as it had, but there were places where the hull had rusted away and there were many places where sponges and coral had grown over the hull.  As we were diving I noticed a turtle swimming over head and he appeared to be swimming to the bow of the wreck.  

MV Commerce with turtle

I wasn’t quite sure where he went after he crested the top of the ship so I keep exploring the wreck slowly making my way towards the bow of the ship.  

The bow of the MV Commerce Anguilla

After rounding the bow, I began swimming down the port side of the hull.  It was there I found the same turtle.  He looked like he was about the take a nap.  So as not to disturb him, I made sure that my approach was down below the top of the hull.  I estimated about how far down the hull I would have to swim and then I popped over the hull with my camera and took his picture.  

Turtle on DeckI got off only one picture before he swam away.  Sometimes it pays to be stealthy. 

St. Martin, wide angle

Have you ever been diving in St. Martin?

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Exploring turtle reef

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.  

1t-dive-29-of-40

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.  

An amazing amount of fish life

 

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
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.  

Macro, wide angle

Do you have a favorite crustacean?

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

According to my critters book the crustaceans in the Caribbean can be divided into shrimp, lobsters and crabs. Now assuming we are just talking about seeing these critters underwater, I tend to find the variety of crabs to be the most interesting. Now that is not to say that I do not find the various lobsters to be interesting, its just the variety of crabs seems to be more diverse and that is interesting to me. There are about 45 varieties of crabs in the Caribbean. The largest of which tend to be the channel clinging crabs. I have seen them on quite a few dives in Belize, Mexico, Cayman islands and Dominica. That is not to say they do not live elsewhere in the Caribbean, they do. I just have not had the opportunity to see them.

Now, it seems to me that hermit crabs are the most common crabs I have seen. I have seen them on just about every island or islet I have visited. There appear to be about 11 varieties of hermit crab in the Caribbean, and they range in size from tiny to enormous.

a polkadotted hermit crab
An enormous claw for a polkadotted hermit crab

When I was in Cayman Brac this year, while I was diving on a night dive I looked up under a part of a coral ledge and found a plumed hairy crab. He was very shy and very quickly after I got a shot or two of him he crawled back into his hiding hole in the reef.

plumed hairy crab
plumed hairy crab

Arrow crabs almost always make me laugh because they remind me of daddy long legs, but when they are hunting if they are very successful, they stick their prey on top of their heads and just keep hunting.

arrow crab hunting for dinner
arrow crab hunting for dinner

For me, some of the most productive dives for finding crabs, have been night dives. I guess that is not surprising since that is usually when crustaceans hunt for food. Inasmuch as it looks like I still have about 30 varieties of crab to see, I am going to have to do alot more night dives. 🙂

Uncategorized, wide angle

Stoney Mesa II, or how much current would you like?

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The Stoney Mesa II dive site was as tough as Stoney Messa I was easy.
Raccoon butterfly fish under a coral head
Raccoon butterfly fish under a coral head
The surge picked up and then the current picked up and kicked my butt.  About 20 minutes into the dive Nancy was ready to come up because we were fighting the the surge and then the current kicked in big time.
We came up to the hang bar and I grabbed a hold of it and looked like a flag blowing in the breeze. The current was so strong the hang bar slowly went up to the surface, which kind of defeated the purpose of doing a safety stop on the hang bar.  So I let go of the hang bar figuring that I would just drop back and grab the trail line.  I did drop back from the boat, but at an incredible rate of speed.   I had to kick for all I was worth not to get blown off the site.
 fish on mesa 2-1
By the time I had kicked back to the end of the trail line for my safety stop I was at the end of the trail line.  I kicked to keep the line in sight and slowing went up and grabbed the trail line with my left hand.
Now the dilemma:  I had to either rely on my Cetacea cord to hold the camera or I was just going to end up hanging on the line until they pulled it in.  The current was rippin’.   I opted for trusting the cetecea keeper and it held, but it was tough for me to let go not knowing if the camera would stay attached to my bc or what it would do without me using one hand to control the camera.  It’s at times like these when I wish I didn’t have quite as much invested in the camera rig.
 A steep cliff to swim down
What a beating. It took just about all the strength I had to pull my self back to the boat on the line. I am guessing but I suspect that the current was an easy 4 knots at that point.  It was basically kick as hard as I could, pull the rope with both hands just to get to the boat. Once I made it to the boat I had to use one hand to release the cetecea cord and hand the camera up.  That was a challenge.  Thirty five pounds of camera gear to hand up one handed, while holding on to the boat with my left hand.  I got it done; handed the camera up, and then got on board. I was beat. I’m not a young man, but I still work out 5-6 times a week just to stay in shape so I can dive.  That was a hard dive. We had lunch and I took off the next dive so that I could take a nap and rest for the remaining two dives of the day.
Bahamas, wide angle

Do divers have an obligation to help conserve the environment?

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A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction
A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction in the Bahamas

I used to think of the ocean as endless and its fish life as unaffected by people.  I was wrong on both counts.  Yes, over 70% of the earth is covered in water.  Yes, if you were to take the average depth of the ocean and take out the lows and the highs the average depth would be over 4,000 feet deep, or at least so I have read.

But, the ocean that can be explored by recreational divers is only 130 feet deep.  And, within that depth in many places, fisherman have and are over fishing many species. Many variety of grouper, such as black grouper are becoming much rarer to see in large part because they do taste good.  For the most part I have stopped eating grouper because of the pressure on them.  Other species of fish are also being fished to extinction.

Isn’t it odd, that lion fish, an invasive species in the Caribbean are thriving and doing so at the expense of native fish such as the parrot fish who is necessary to reefs in order to keep algae at bay.

Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?
Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?

So I will continue to eat lion fish, in hopes that someone will figure out how to eradicate them from the Caribbean, and avoid grouper in hopes that they will make a recovery.  And, I will continue to bring up trash when I see it in the ocean in hopes that by removing it some small part of the wild life that remains in the sea will be there the next time I return.  Its an enormous task in reality.  I hope you will join me in my small little effort to save the sea.

Bahamas, Belize, Mexico, wide angle

Do you ever grow tired of seeing turtles underwater? nah

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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.

Some dives are just magical

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.

Grenadines, Uncategorized, wide angle

The biggest hermit crab I’ve ever seen?

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The Grenadines are known for having nearly countless small underwater creatures to see under the sea. Arrow crabs, banded shrimp and other small creatures are plentiful to see if you are scuba diving.

A banded shrimp hanging upside down waiting for fish to be cleaned
A banded shrimp hanging upside down waiting for fish to be cleaned

We had seen a number of small hermit crabs during our trip to the Grenadines. There were quite a few to be seen, but for the most part they were in shells that were not much bigger than a silver dollar. Most species of hermit crab have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab. The shell is ususally large enough so the crabs entire body can retract inside the shell. Hermit crabs often use the shells of sea snails (although the shells of bivalves and scaphopods and even hollow pieces of wood and stone are used by some species). The tip of the hermit crab’s abdomen is adapted to clasp strongly onto the columella of the snail shell. Most hermit crabs are nocturnal.

So I was not expecting to swim around a part of the reef only to come face to face with a hermit crab whose home shell was as big as my head.

The biggest hermit crab I've ever seen
The biggest hermit crab I’ve ever seen

Even assuming the crab did not fill the shell entirely, he was enormous, and obviously quite strong because he did not seem to have any problem trying to carry about such a large shell.

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
Grenadines, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you ever seen an electric ray?

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This fellow reminded me of sleeping on a hammock
This fellow reminded me of sleeping on a hammock

I have been diving for quite some time and have done hundreds of dives in blue water.  And yet, it was only recently that I came across an electric ray.  Not an electric eel, but an electric ray.  According to my fish book they are uncommon to rare in the northern part of Caribbean such as in the Bahamas and Florida.  They are more common in the southern Caribbean.  They tend to be unconcerned and won’t move when approached by divers, but if touched can produce a mild electric shock of between 14 and 37 volts.

From doing a little research it appears there are over 60 species of rays world wide, but far fewer are electric. The electric ray I found was what is known as a lesser electric ray.  I looked, but the could not find a “greater electric ray”;  who says naming protocols are logical?

The better known electric ray is the Torpedo fish. The really odd part is that the ancient Greeks used electric rays to numb the pain of childbirth and operations. In his dialogue Meno, Plato has the character Meno accuse Socrates of “stunning” people with his puzzling questions, in a manner similar to the way the torpedo fish stuns with electricity. Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician, recorded the use of torpedo fish for treatment of headaches and gout in his Compositiones Medicae of 46 AD.

I think I’m glad I can quite happily stop by the local pharmacy and find my choice of aspirin or other pain relievers.  Which brings me to my next rumination?  Is there such a thing as finding too many interesting creatures under the sea?  That is, is there a point where there is too much of a good thing?  I think it is kind of like asking can you take too many vacations?  Not  a chance….

Grenadines, Macro, Uncategorized, wide angle

Where are the turtles? Tobago Caye of course

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In the Grenadines, the government has created a marine park in and around Tobago Cayes.  Although the park is not particularly large, it is well placed.  The marine park is bounded by several small islands and the depth of the water in much of the park is relatively shallow.  With  shallow water and a white sand bottom, this creates some amazingly pretty turquoises water.

Sailing in to Tobago Cayes with just a hint of the turquoises water that we will see
Sailing in to Tobago Cayes with just a hint of the turquoises water that we will see

We had barely had time to anchor and we spotted several green sea turtles surfacing for air, only to return to the bottom to feed on turtle grass. We arrived in the afternoon and after lunch we were picked up by a local dive shot to go diving.

I did two dives with a macro set up.  The first dive was horseshoe reef.  With alot of newby divers we had some challenges, particularly since the current changed twice in about a half an hour.  I did manage to get a few interesting critter shots.

This banded shrimp almost reminded me of an old west gun fighter with her guns drawn; I guess you could call her "Two guns". I say her, because I think if you look closely you can see eggs.
This banded shrimp almost reminded me of an old west gun fighter with her guns drawn; I guess you could call her “Two guns”. I say her, because I think if you look closely you can see eggs.

After the second dive I switched the camera to a wide angle set up for the next morning when we would go to the marine park looking for green sea turtles.

If you have to anchor somewhere, Tobago Cayes is pretty spectacular
If you have to anchor somewhere, Tobago Cayes is pretty spectacular

Unfortunately, no diving was allowed near the island where the turtles were, but on snorkel we were successful in finding sea turtles with which to swim.  Below is a video from our swimming with green sea turtles at Tobago Cayes.