This is a Nurse shark. It was hiding under some coral. I swam in real close to snap this picture but then it got scared and swam away.
This is the nurse shark swimming away. I was surprised at how fast it took off.
Shark wasn't the only thing seen on this snorkeling adventure. Here's a lovely school of blue tangs.
Here's a baby spotted trunk-fish.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much see life to observe.
There were some fish swimming around the rock but they didn't want to bite my lure. Also, the rock was really sharp and that made it tough walk on. During this adventure, there was lots of stuff to step on. It would have been good to have shoes.
These are yellow grunts. They are really common. I was surprised to see that they were being sold at the downtown fish market because they're pretty small.
Here's a sea anemone. I'm surprised that there are so few of these here in the Cayman Islands.
This big barracuda showed up and wouldn't leave me alone...so this cut my snorkeling short.
Here's a gray angel fish. The picture turned up fine because this fish does not have many colours. The thing about photographing at a depth of 60 ft is that blue seems to be the only colour that makes it down that far. I guess expensive underwater photography uses lights and special flashes.
Spotted this little barracuda hanging out in the reef.
This fish it one of my favorites. It's a trumpet fish. The trumpet fish is a solitary ambusher of small fishes and crustaceans.
I believe this fish to be a queen parrot fish. Notice how there's no red in the picture. The yellow also seems absent. In the future I could use a red filter, a better flash, or more exposure compensation. I tried some post-editing using photoshop but, my photoshopping skills are lacking (so is free time), therefore, you see the pictures just as my camera takes them.
Here is a great specimen of a honeycomb cowfish. You can tell it's a cowfish and not a trunkfish because it has two spikes on its head. Looks like a tasty one.
This is a bicolor basslet. I guess the flash on my camera was working as the yellow was captured nicely. That's it for this dive. Enjoy the following video of a bunch of different fish swimming around some coral.
The plan was to check out the stingrays first and then do two more snorkels on our way back to shore (for a total of three snorkels).
Stingray city is a pretty cool place because it's at a sand bar way in the middle of the ocean. I'm not sure why so many stingrays congregate there. My guess is that the tourist company dropped food there over time and trained the wild stingray to 'show-up' in the same place all the time.
Funtimes!
Before we left for the next snorkel site, this trunk fish showed up
Once at the second snorkel site of the Stingray city excursion, we encountered a school of black trigger fish.
Here's a curious school master. (Sorry pal, no food for you)
At the third snorkel spot there were a bunch of sergeant majors.
This turtle was pretty sweet and didn't mind when I got close to snap this picture. He had some funky-looking moss growing on his back so he might have been sick.
I like this shot from deep underwater (~40 ft). You certainly do see a lot more fish scuba diving compared to just snorkeling.
This picture is not too great but, it's a really nice fish. This is a blue angelfish.
This trigger fish was pretty cool looking. And it was pretty small. I think it was a juvenile Queen Triggerfish.
Here's a Caribbean Reef Octopus munching on whatever was living in the shell. Octopus are pretty strong. I tried to take this shell, but it was too strong!
Here's a 'Spiny Brittle Star.' They move pretty fast and look creepy as they move. Kind of like a bunch of worms. They're mostly found hiding under rocks.
This is China moray eel. Pretty sweet. It's pattern is really unique. Pretty happy about this shot. Here comes one more with it's mouth open:
Here's a 'Red-ringed Clinging Crab.' Notice that it's not red. These crabs come in a variety of appearances such as; yellow-brown, red, and green.
Here's a couple of crabs hanging-out on some fire coral. I'm not sure about the identification here....I think that they're the same type as the above crab. The reason I'm not sure is because their carapaces are different in appearance. Perhaps they are younglings.
This is a sea cucumber. It appears to be a baby conical sea cucumber which is a rare find!
Here is the common, but rarely seen Dusky Squirrelfish. Enjoy this crisp photo!
Here's a Flamingo Tongue gastropod. The spots you see aren't actually on the shell. Part of the creature that lives inside the shell (the mantle, which is spotted) is wrapped around the surface of the shell which results in spots.
This purple and yellow fish is a juvenile Spanish Hogfish
This is a spotted trunkfish. It was swimming pretty good so I'm luck to have snapped this one.
This is some type of filefish. I'm not certain of the exact type. Maybe some kind of juvenile because it was pretty small.
Here's two Spotfin butterflyfish (See the little black spot?). They were swimming around together. I think they like each other.
This Caribbean Spiny Lobster was HUGE! I bet this sucker was about 100 years old! Awesome.
Here's a cool shot that includes a giant Caribbean Spiny Lobster, a juvenile French angel, and a blue-headed wrasse. I like this one so much I made it my desktop background on my laptop.
These are yellowfin goatfish!
This is a 'Red Night Shrimp'. There easy to spot because their eyes light up when they catch the beam from your flashlight. They get scared easily and will scoot off if you spoke them.
There was lots of lobsters out a night too. These looked a little too small to eat....unless you caught a bunch of them. Anyway, these too were hanging-out under this ledge. They are 'Spotted Spiny Lobster' (Contrast with the Caribbean Spiny Lobster which are more commonly used for human consumption).
Here's a balloonfish at night. Seems like he's chilln. It's cool how the camera sometime takes more-clear pictures at night. I guess the shutter only stays open for as long as the flash goes...? I should probably read up a bit a photography skills instead of 'trial & error.'
Here is a pretty interesting ray. It's a 'Yellow Stingray.' I was excited to see this one because they are most often buried in the sand. I thinking that they feed at night, that's why I was able to observe one.
Check out the red night shrimp hang-round this spotted spiny lobster. So many eyes! Reminds me of a looney toons cartoon where the characters are wondering about in the dark and only there eyes are animated. Yeah, more night-time adventures to come!
