Sunday, February 14, 2010

Snorkeling at Cemetery Beach (Feb 14, 2010)

Cemetery Beach is a pretty cool spot. It's a fairly popular beach on the way to Westbay, Grand Cayman.The graves here are shallow because that is the Caribbean style. Cemetery beach is a designated snorkeling spot so, there are some buoys marking points of underwater interest (reefs).Took this picture at the base of one the buoys. Thought it turned out pretty cool in an artistic kind of way.One cool thing about the Cemetery beach snorkel spot is that there are a bunch of sergeant major fish. The cool thing about sergeant majors is their pugnaciousness. They aren't scared of you and will swim right up to you for a closer look.

These two were real curious!A beautiful girl fish! There were lots of little fish swimming around. I suspect the little ones to be juvenile ring wrasses. Not sure what this fat gray one is called. I couldn't find it in my field guide...I think it might be a dusky sweetlips or a grey snapper?
This fish was really cool. It's fins moved in a unique way. I couldn't get that good of a picture of it because it was really shy and it wouldn't come close. This is a ocean trigger fish.

Pretty good day.

Snorkeling at Seven Mile Beach (Feb 12, 2010)

Not too eventful today. Cloudy water. Just wanted to get out there for 1/2 an hour. Check out the picts:

Just a bunch of different fish hanging out together......(some surgeon fish, parrot fish, snappers?)
This yellow-finned snapper is showing me a lobster (didn't notice the caribbean spiny lobster until I looked at the shot afterwards!)

That's all for today.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Snorkeling at Seven Mile Beach (Jan 28, 2010)

Pretty sweet day! The water was clear. The sky was partly cloudy and at times the light was less than optimal under the water. Also, I went just as the sun went down so, the light diminished as the snorkel progressed. Check out the shots:
This sting ray was a big one.This black and yellow fish was pretty cool. I thought it was it's own type a fish. Actually, it's a juvenile french angel fish that will look very different once it's an adult.
Couple of little nimble spray crabs (one's hiding).

This is young stoplight parrot fish. It's got some pretty good camo. I like this shoot because the blurry background make it look like it's swimming fast.
This lobster was right out in the open. I wasted to grab it, take it home, cook it up, and eat it. They don't have claws so I think it would be pretty easy. I not sure what the law says about taking lobsters down here in the Cayman's but, somebody told me your allowed up to 3 a day per person. I'll have to look into this. Also, I guess you're not allowed to catch them with you hand, you have to use some type of noose/lasso to catch them. So that will be sweet.
Hey. Check out this puffer fish! This type of puffer is called ballonfish. I've never seen one of these puff-up before. I think they probably have to be in pretty big danger before they'll puff. A fish-loving kind of guy like me wouldn't want to hurt one of these just to see it puff-up. One day, hopefully, I'll get lucky! Tetrodotoxin is present in puffer fish so, sushi fans beware! (Tetrodotoxin blocks the trigger zone of the action potential at the initial segment or axon.)