Up next will be some smallish stuff from Grand Cayman. This Harlequin Bass is about 2 1/2 inches long.

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One last Turtle image from Grand Cayman.

We ran across this guy on an afternoon dive from the dock at Cobalt Coast.

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Continuing with turtles:

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Like I said in last week’s UW Wednesday, I’ll be showing some turtle images from our recent trip to Grand Cayman for the next couple of weeks.

I found this guy munching away at the base of  this barrel sponge (the whiter area above his left front flipper in the image below). By the about that has been removed I’d say this guys visits this sponge on a regular basis.

As I approached he turned toward me and gave me a look like, “What are you doing interrupting my lunch?”

And then swam right over me; literally inches away.

A very exciting encounter. Read more »

During our recent trip to Grand Cayman we had a number of encounters with Hawksbill Turtles. There has been a lot on news programs about how the environmental disaster in the Gulf is, and will continue to, affect sea turtles. So I think I will post a few turtle pix over the next few days. Hope you enjoy them.

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Tarpon are difficult to get good shots of. First, they are often quite skittish. I spent 3-5 minutes approaching this guy. Moving slowly closer on a diagonal, not directly at him, while trying to keep my breathing rate and volume down in order to not generate a lot of exhalation bubbles. (I guess I could invest in a rebreather to fix that problem.) Plus looking straight ahead, and not at him, occasionally catching a glance out of the corner on my eye. And during the day tarpon on not out in the open they are hanging out in the shadows of ledges. So most of the light has to come your strobes. However, their large silvery scales are VERY reflective. A lot of trapon pictures look like a picture of a mirror with the strobes facing dirctly at the mirror. The trick is the kick the strobes out so most of the light falls outside the edges of the frame and the center of the frame is lit only with the edges of the cone of light from each strobe.

I knew I would only get one shot. When the strobes fire he will slowly move 10-15 feet away–and underwater that may a well be 2 football fields away. Read more »

I won’t write about what an ecological disaster the introduction of lionfish to the Caribbean has become. You can Google “Lionfish in Caribbean” to see what the experts have to say. But in Grand Cayman, marine part officials have licenced local divemasters to remove any found. This by no means a solution; but it can mitigate their impact until a solution is fund. Anyway, that’s the backstory for these two images.

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In my last Underwater Wednesday post I mentioned that I happen to be in the Cayman Islands. For the next few weeks I will be posting images from that trip. This one is a pretty scene along a formation they call the mini-wall out in front of our resort.  It is a place where the reef has broken away and collapsed leaving a long ridge with some 20 feet of relief. This is relatively shallow, around 50-60 feet. The main wall in further out and the wall drops off from about 90 feet.

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