After the Wreck of Cali was sufficiently explored, we headed out to the East End for some fried fish and more snorkeling. Saying 'snorkeling at the East End' is pretty vague cuz it's a huge area with lots of different beaches. Not sure exactly where the snorkel spot was. Yeah so, here comes the fish:
Here's a French angelfish. I've blogged about this here fish in a
previous post. The reason that this picture is cool is because the fish is in the transitional stage between juvenile and adult (fish puberty?).
Here's a green moray eel. They can grow to be 6+ feet! This specimen was in the upper end of the size spectrum. I think I was getting on his nerves!
This cool-looking fish is called a 'Spotted trunkfish.' It feeds on turnicates, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and seagrasses. This picture is nice because the fish is focused!
This is the back side of a lionfish. They are really cool and there spines are poison (they hurt but won't kill you). They show you there backside while in the defensive position. It's interesting to see one of this here in the Cayman islands because, they're not indigenous to this area. According to an
article about lionfish on Wikipedia, a hurricane in Florida release these fish from an aquarium and now there proliferation is disrupting the ecosystem of the Caribbean coral reefs.
Snatched up a lobster for dinner on the way home before the end of lobster season.
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.
Here's a French angelfish. I've blogged about this here fish in a previous post. The reason that this picture is cool is because the fish is in the transitional stage between juvenile and adult (fish puberty?).
Here's a green moray eel. They can grow to be 6+ feet! This specimen was in the upper end of the size spectrum. I think I was getting on his nerves!
This cool-looking fish is called a 'Spotted trunkfish.' It feeds on turnicates, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and seagrasses. This picture is nice because the fish is focused!
This is the back side of a lionfish. They are really cool and there spines are poison (they hurt but won't kill you). They show you there backside while in the defensive position. It's interesting to see one of this here in the Cayman islands because, they're not indigenous to this area. According to an article about lionfish on Wikipedia, a hurricane in Florida release these fish from an aquarium and now there proliferation is disrupting the ecosystem of the Caribbean coral reefs.
Pretty cool spot to enter the water from. There's a wreck underwater out there somewhere.
I noticed this fuzzy chiton before entering the water. I guess some people eat these!?! You have to pry them off the rock using a knife.
Once in the water, I came upon this group of baby surgeon fish.
The Wreck of Cali is a cool snorkel spot because there's a bunch of these tarpon swimming around. They're pretty big so that's exciting. Tarpons are a type of primitive silvery fish.
Here's part of the Wreck of Cali. Pretty cool that you can see a ship wreck while snorkeling.
Here we have a male blue parrotfish (the female has a yellow stripe on its less square head). There was a bunch of these guys here. They get to be a good size too.
