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….
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
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.
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
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.
A relatively small percentage of my time is spent underwater shooting macro subjects. Why? In large part it is much harder for me to spot the small critters that are on a dive and most of the time we do not go to the same dive sites more than once. That means that if I am trying to keep up with the rest of the group of divers, I either shoot wide angle close focus and get quite a few shots, or I shoot macro and get very few shots many of which don’t turn out for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is I often rush the shot.
A peppermint gobey resting on star coral. Take a look at this at 100% and see the incredible detain in his pectoral fin and in the star coral polyps
Nevertheless, I found when I was down in the Grenadines that the amount of small critters to shoot was quite substantial and I didn’t have to wait too long to find shots. Chrismas tree worms have fascinated me for years, so I do take quite a few shots of them. Their structure when spread out in the water allows them to gather the plankton on which they feed very efficiently. The extraordinary detail in each little branch is just amazing.
Fire worms also have amazing detail in tuffs which carry their venon which when you look, closely resemble small whiskers.
If you want to get a real sense of what a fire worm looks like, look that this version of the image which is just a 60 percent crop; got to 100 percent crop and in addition to the fire worm you will see a couple legs of an arrow crab. Each little fiber can pack a punch with its venom — look but don’t touch
Of course, the dimensions of the creature can get very small. I found a secretary blenny who was not much wider than 1mm who made a christmas tree worm look large. The christmas tree worm is on the top right and the blenny is on the bottom left of the image.
A secretary blenny hiding out in his hiding hold in star coral
But as I mentioned in an earlier post on the blog, sometimes you see something that just isn’t a macro subject ordinarily, but because I can’t change lens underwater, I shoot it with the macro lens and see what we get. Hence, the next image is LOBZILLA, who deserved wide angle treatment because he was huge, think two dinner plates, but he was relegated to macro lens shooting. At this range, LOBZILLA looks like something from outer space
Thus, there is quite a variety of small creatures to shoot in the Grenadines. But, you should be prepared to shoot the big critters with a macro lens when the opportunity presents itself.
Not long ago, I got back from a trip to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Getting to the Grenadines from Dallas gave me an odd sense of replaying the old John Candy movie: “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”. Only thing was, it was three planes, and a ferry to get to our starting point. That is, Dallas to Houston (an hour) Houston to Trinidad (almost 5 hours) Trinidad to St. Vincent (an hour) and a ferry from St. Vincent to Bequia where we picked up the sailboat that we lived on for a week (1 hour). Dragging my camera and underwater housing along on the trip was a bit of a beast. Thirty pounds of camera gear in my backpack, 45 pounds of underwater housing in a pelican case, and almost 50 pounds of suitcase filled mostly with dive gear, a couple of swim suits and a few tee shirts for surface time.
I will write more about the individual dive sites later. We had four divers on the trip, my wife, one of my daughters Megan, and cousin Dave who was going to experience his first “blue water dives”. Now Dave, while not having many dives under his weight belt, has to be considered a pretty committed diver. In order to get certified in time for the trip to the Grenadines, he did his check out dives in less than 37 degree water (2 degrees Celsius) and finished the week before we went on the trip. By the end of the trip to the Grenadines, Dave had gained a lot of experience, 8 dives back to back can help you get better pretty quickly.
Of course, Chandre, the captain of our ship “Freedom” joined us on most dives. Chronologically, Chandre was the youngest person on the ship, but was mature and wise beyond his years.
In general the dive sites in the Grenadines were full of sea life. Vast schools of a variety of fish joined us on most dives. On some dives it was creole wrasses. Most dives there were what can best be described as clouds of brown Chromis. The sponges were numerous, colorful and ranged widely in variety, size and texture. The sponges were healthy and reminded me of some of the colorful dives we had in Dominica a few years ago. We saw relatively few lion fish, but the ones we did see were enormous. The real attractions on many of the dives were the little “critters”. The sea horses, the arrow crabs and such. And, I do not remember ever seeing so many moray eels. So the short answer to the question of: is it worth going to the Grenadines, it is, and because it is, I will have to write more about it in the coming days.
As a dive site, Littlehails laird has an abundance of marine life. There were quite few grunts of various species. But while it is know for a variety of grunts we were fortunate to see a turtle swim through the site within minutes of getting to the bottom. Like most hawksbill turtles he reminded me of a grumpy old man. In my mind I could hear him saying: ‘oh bother another diver trying to follow me, quick I will show him I can out swim him in a matter of moments.” And, of course he was right, but not before I shot about a thirty second video climp of him swimming over the reef.
Moments later, a gray reef shark swam by as if to say welcome to the reef. I did not manage to get the video light on before he had disappeared over the reef. It must be nice to go up in down in the water column without worrying if you have exceeded a maximum ascent rate. In something under 10 seconds he had gone up and back down 30 feet in the water column. It must be nice to be able to do that. Divers are limited to 30 feet up in a minute. So there is no way of safely trying to follow a shark, we can just wait for them to make another pass. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but the anticipation is what makes it fun– at least for me. I’m usually thinking, is there a way to position my self so that if the shark or turtle or other wildlife that has just passed me will come back just to see me, at least out of curiousity.
Anyone who has been around animals for long probably realizes that it is just when we think that we can predict what any particular animal will do that they surprise us. Not long ago when I was in the Bahamas, I was watching a large group of grey sharks swimming in amongst our dive group. After watching the sharks circle and swim through our group for about 10 minutes, I had one shark zig towards me rather unexpectedly. I managed to get the camera in position and shoot but also managed to get my fin in the picture. Now the shark was maybe only a foot a way from my fin, but because he had changed course rather suddenly to get to where I saw him, it was unexpected, unsettling and had me thinking: Did I leave bait in my pocket? Well I hadn’t, but it was the thought that ran through my mind.
Most of the time the surprise adds an element of freshness to the encounter. Sometimes the event makes us laugh or at least smile. Sometimes things get a little to close for comfort. And, yet it is in those moments of the unexpected that we see the one thing that we often are looking for — it is the untamed aspect of how animals behave. For me it’s those moments that I realize I may never see that particular behaviour replicated in my lifetime. But, at least for me it is the adventure and the hope that one of these great moments will re-appear that keeps me coming back.
Coming at you
I hope 2016 brings you many moments of spectacular animal behaviour.
Like many places in the Caribbean there have been at times ships that have on their face appeared to be normal cargo ships, while at the same time also being used to smuggle illegal drugs. One such ship was the Sea Star which was eventually apprehended in Bahamian waters. When the ship was sold through a forfeiture sale, it sold for a dollar and was eventually sunk as a purposefully sunk wreck. It is the second largest wreck in Grand Bahama. The person who purchased the Sea Star died in an automobile accident shortly before the sinking of the Sea Star. If you circumnavigate the wreck a plaque with the owners name is towards the ship’s stern, near an external staircase.
As of 2015 the Sea Star has been down since 2002 or about 13 years. It has a fair amount of coral and sponge growth upon it. Much of the hull is in pretty good condition. However, the stern was twisted at a right angle from the rest of the ship when a hurricane came through the Bahamas a few years ago. Given that the Sea Star is over 30 feet wide and its hull was made of steel it must have taken a tremendous amount of force to twist the stern as the hurricane did.
From the cargo bay looking towards the bot
The Sea Star has become home to a significant number of reef fish. Towards the stern there was a sizeable school of blue striped grunts. In the holds there were a number of arrow crabs. I also found an enormous black grouper who was well ensconced in part of the hold.
The day we dove the Sea Star there was a current. Towards the end of the dive we ascended up the stern line up to our boat. The current was quick enough that if you held on to the line the current would hold your body out at a right angle so we all looked like flags blowing in the wind.
For divers who like to dive wrecks the Sea Star is a wreck worth diving. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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.
(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.
Sponges come in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Generally, they can be classified as by shape as: tubes, vases, barrels, balls, ropes, encrusting, and boring sponges among others. They are multicellular animals whose design usually allows the sponge to draw water into the sponge, which provides the sponge food and oxygen, and then filters out the water. The water exits out of the sponge’s interior through excurrent openings or oscula.
Sponges can provide habitat for a variety of sea creatures. For instance, it is not uncommon for seahorses to hide among rope sponges.
Other animals, like lobsters, may hide under ball sponges.
As someone who takes a lot of pictures underwater, it is not unusual for me to look inside as many sponges as I see, just to try to find the various creatures that are often hiding, in, around or just near sponges.
So next time you are out diving, be sure to look in and around the sponges you see. You never know what you might find.
[Note: It’s Thanksgiving, and I almost did not run this piece today because it is pretty dark, but then it occurred to me that it does fit Thanksgiving; see if you agree…
One of the downsides of advanced scuba certification is that you become aware, and sometimes its painful awareness, of how many people struggle with scuba diving. You also tend to become more sensitive to watching and listening to other divers to find out if they are likely to have problems with the dive. Typically I am watching to see how divers put their gear together to see whether they know how it should be assembled and to see how confident they are in their topside skills. If they don’t know how their gear goes together, that is usually a pretty good sign someone on the dive needs to keep an eye on them underwater because chances are pretty good if something goes sideways they could easily panic and hurt themselves. Sometimes I hear divers say things that just don’t make any sense to me; like an average sized diver asking for about twice as much weight as I would expect he would need. I’m learning that when I hear things like that I really need to watch those divers.
One of the really bad sounds to hear when you are underwater is the captain of the boat pounding a weight on the hull of the boat as a recall signal. A repeated Bang bang bang sound usually means that something has gone very wrong for someone on the dive.
Not long ago I was diving in the Bahamas. We had quite a few dive professionals on the boat; and we had one rookie blue water diver and an older diver among others. The rookie was buddied up with a dive master and the older diver was buddied up with another dive master. My buddy and I were near the other dive leader and were following him into the current to get to some swim throughs. I noticed that the older diver seemed to have some problems with buoyancy, and he was way too involved in looking at his go pro. The rookie diver looked like he would huff through his air pretty fast. I figured he would be on the surface inside of 20 minutes on what otherwise would have been at least a 45 minute dive. Once I saw Harry, the older diver in the water, it was pretty obvious he would be all over the place, would have bouyancy problems and I figures he might be down 25 minutes.
At about the 20 minute mark my buddy and I had entered a swim through and were quite a ways into the swim through when I heard the dreaded bang bang bang of the recall signal. We came out of the swim through and headed to the boat with the current at our backs. We were going relatively quickly, in part because the current was at our backs. Not long after I heard the recall signal, I shut down the camera and started kicking towards the boat. We rose in the water column and did most of our safety stop on the way back to the boat. When we got on board, the rookie was sitting on the floor of the boat, but otherwise appeared to be alright. I looked around for Harry and he was no where in sight. I hadn’t seen Harry on the way back to the boat so I assumed something was wrong. Actually, after I looked around the boat and realized Harry wasn’t there, the first thought that came to mind was “oh boy” Harry’s dead.
The captain looked a little nervous, but did not seem to be completely upset. I kept looking in the vicinity of the boat expecting to see other divers. Finally, when my gaze shifted out to about 200 meters away from the boat I could see someone holding on to another mooring line. As the boat made its way over to the other mooring line I could see Harry holding on to the mooring bouy and one of the dive staff was with him. Harry had blown thorough his air and had not been able to swim back to the boat because of the current. Fortunately, the dive leader assigned to him had helped him drop weights after he surfaced and had manually inflated his BC. Harry was ok, but needed help getting back on the boat. Had Harry not been with a professional, Harry could have gotten himself into some real trouble. Harry by his own admission was overweighted, underinflated and unable to do anything except hold on to the mooring bouy. And, until his weights were dropped by the diver professional, Harry was “drinking” a lot of sea water. Harry’s situation could have gotten really bad if he had not had immediate help.
The dive staff earned their pay that day. And just in case you are curious what it sounds like to hear a weight banging on the hull of a boat, here is the last bit of the dive with the banging at the end.
In reflection, the dives for 2015 for me, are pretty much done for the year. Everyone came back more or less in one piece. No one got bent. No one suffered a serious injury. So I do have a lot to be thankful for; I just wish the Harry’s of the diving world would be a little more careful, and maybe take a refresher course so they wouldn’t take such big risks.
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.
We have just finished swimming through a swim through
A peppermint gobey resting on star coral. Take a look at this at 100% and see the incredible detain in his pectoral fin and in the star coral polyps
Each little fiber can pack a punch with its venom — look but don’t touch
At this range, LOBZILLA looks like something from outer space
