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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for April, 2009Apr 15, 09 Comments Off
 two-cara-cara's Good evening all, I found these two Cara-Cara’s or as they say here in Curacao, Wara-Wara’s the other morning as we were leaving Saint Joris. I quickly pulled the car over along side the road and quietly got out but was only able to get one shot off before they spotted me and flew away to some other lucky cactus. They don’t seem to mind you staying in your car but once you open that door they usually always fly away, I guess this is why they invented the zoom lens! Aimee and I just never seem to get tired of seeing these magnificent flying hunting machines and we see them almost everyday on our travels around the island.
It was again really busy at work today! After work I raced home, put on my bike gear and took off for a fun one hour ride before dark. The island is slowly getting dryer from the lack of rain which is turning the trails into a dustbowl once again!!
That’s about it, Aimee and I are going diving together tomorrow can hardy wait!! bye, Barry
04-15-2009
Apr 14, 09 Comments Off
 red-warty-anemone Good evening readers how was your day?? I once again was like the Energizer Bunny all day and am now sitting here dreaming about going to bed! Did the usual this morning and took the dogs to the ocean for a nice long walk hoping that the rest of the day they would be worn out and quiet. We had a nice walk along the coast, it was a beautiful clear morning with a nice heavy wind to keep things cool. I collected a bunch of very fragile dried up sea urchins that I am going to use for a photo that I hope to get done and sent to you in the near future.
At around noon I took off back to the North coast one more time to see if anything new had arrived at the tidal pool. I still haven’t seen the two baby cowfish again no idea what happened to them? I did find another spectacular Red Warty Anemone seen here, it was so big I could only get sections of it in my field of view with my macro lens. I held my breath and laid on the bottom just watching this thing today, it is so cool and so beautiful, I could have stayed there all day. It’s mouth is towards the bottom of the photo and I watched as it would clean the trash away from it’s opening by using these two fan-like hands that were inside the mouth. I was there for around two hours floating around and when I left this guy was all closed up, it was just a red warty ball stuck to the side of the wall, such an amazing creature!
That’s about it, hope you all are doing well, I will be back tomorrow, bye now, Barry
04-14-2009
Apr 13, 09 Comments Off
 juvenile-banded-butterflyfish Hi guys, I have another fun picture from my little tidal pool, this is a juvenile banded butterflyfish hanging out in a small cave with his dead sea urchin. Finally I have a baby fish picture for you with something else in the picture for a bit of a size comparison. The fish was smaller than a quarter and was completely unafraid. This must have been his own personal cave because every time I passed by he was hanging out in front of it maybe guarding his prize urchin, who knows?? I did get bit by an eel reaching under an overhang to pull out a little crab to photograph, man did that ever hurt and drew a whole lot of blood. I never saw the eel, I reached into it with my thumb and index finger and had my pinky finger just dangling like a fish, I should have seen that one coming? Oh the things we do for a photo?
Not much else for you this evening, it was a very busy day at work with all the Easter holiday travelers, everyone sure had a great time today. For those of you coming to stay with us this year please let me know the dates ASAP so I can plan around them. So far we have a friend coming from Denver on October 9th but I know some of you are arriving sooner, just let us know.
I will talk to you tomorrow once again thanks for all the great notes. Bye now, Barry
04-13-2009
Apr 12, 09 Comments Off
 blue-hermit-crab Hi friends, how was your Easter Sunday?? Ours started at 5:30 with a challenging “follow the clues to your Easter basket game”! I photographed 24 items in plain sight with a macro lens so only showing part of the object and one by one she had to find them. I thought this would be easy and even had clues written on the back of each photo but it turns out it was a bit to difficult so I helped her thru it. After 30 minutes of following clues she opened the dishwasher to find her little Easter present. Then it was my turn, I only had to search but geez was it ever well hidden, I guess it goes to show we are never to old for the good o’l Easter bunny.
At 7:00 I took the dogs on an hour and a half walk around the World Cup race course. I carried a rake and broom and did some much needed maintenance while the dogs kept guard keeping me safe from all the scary lizards.
At 9:30 I loaded up the car with my underwater camera and snorkel gear and took off by myself back to Canoa. I wanted to check the tidal pool again and see if the little cowfish were still around? When I arrived the low tide was just starting and would be at it lowest by noon so I had to get moving, if it gets too low I have no water to even float in. I ended up snorkeling there for three hours never leaving the water once! I never found the baby cowfish but found this little baby blue hermit crab instead. What’s really cool about this shot other than the crab to shell ratio is that this shell is only found on land! So at some point it washed into the sea and this little guy claimed it as his home, really cool huh?? The shell is less than a half of an inch long just to give you an idea of how tiny this little guy is. I was completely shocked at how well he was able to maneuver this big shell, I mean talk about a load on your back! I had a wonderful time floating around taking pictures today one breath at a time. Remember the red warty anemone picture I sent to you the other day? Well today he was closed and looked so different I may send that to you as well.
For those of you who have ever been caught in the shower without any shampoo and wondered if your dogs shampoo would work, it does! And not only does it work it’s fantastic! It was some kind of Hertz brand with oatmeal, it smelled great and left my coat shiny clean!!
I just got home for an hour and a half of mountain biking, it was the first ride since I have started riding again that I felt a noticeable differnce in my condition.
Dinners ready gotta run, see you tomorrow, Curacao regards, Barry
04-12-2009
Apr 11, 09 Comments Off
 curacao-reef-scene Good evening all, I had a request for a picture of the reef out in front of the Sea Aquarium so here you go. This is just a tiny section of our own personal play ground, not bad huh? This photo shows how the reef around Curacao just drops off down to thousands of feet. There are many spots around the island that instead of this gradual slope downwards it’s just a solid rock wall leading it’s visitors straight down into the darkness.
Tomorrow I am heading back to the tide pool on the north coast with my underwater camera at noon, anyone want to join?? I will most likely be there for two to three hours then head out for a bike ride after.
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter morning and are enjoying your well deserved weekend. Till tomorrow, Barry
04-11-2009
Apr 10, 09 Comments Off
 red-warty-anemone Good evening friends, here is another first for the Barry and Aimee underwater collection, this is a beautiful Red Warty Anemone. We found this very near where the baby cowfish were swimming in only two feet of water. After taking this and getting home I noticed there are little blue hermit crabs everywhere! I didn’t see them when I was there but you can bet come Sunday and tide permitting I will be taking their photos as well! Because of this full moon we are having creating these low tides we are able to get to these tidal pools which are normally always underwater and in very rough surf.
I was dragging my feet today at work and still feel very tired from our day of fun. Our little kitty left today with her new owners at 1:30. It was so sad to see her go! I received calls all day with kitty updates saying she is doing great and adjusting to her new home with no problems at all.
Sorry but I am joining Inca in bed, I am beat! Talk to you tomorrow, Barry
04-10-2009
Apr 9, 09 Comments Off
 Good evening from Curacao! Today was the Greatest Day Ever!! After hunting for five years Aimee found our first Juvenile Cowfish!!! I am so happy I can hardy stand it! Here’s the unbelievable story. At 7:30 we loaded our bikes and took off to Saint Joris followed by our friend Eveline. They dropped me off along the road with my bike at the entrance to the Aloe Vera Plantation and they continued on to another area to start their ride with the dogs. I wanted to get a nice long ride in by myself today so off I went headed to Canoa via the dirt trails and roads along the coast. On my way back from Canoa after an hour of riding I ran into the girls and the dogs, they were just arriving to a little beach area and I was headed back the same way I just came, we just said hi and bye never getting off the bikes! Well after twenty minutes my phone started ringing and without stopping I answered it while still keeping my pace, it was Eveline!! The first thing she said was “you have to turn around and come back”!! I said “what”? She said Aimee just found a baby cowfish in a tidal pool! I had a hard time believing what I was hearing! I said a cowfish?, are you sure?? I was now five miles away and back at the car, I told her to tell Aimee to just get back here to the car ASAP and we will come back with the underwater camera, hurry!! Well since I was back at Saint Joris and the girls had a thirty minute ride themselves to get here I decided to just ride home, it was about seven more miles. I was so excited thinking about the possibility of going back and finding this cowfish again that I could hardly think about anything else. I rode like the wind home and ended up riding for two straight hours putting in twenty two miles and was covered in dirt! Aimee arrived home around twenty minutes after I did then we both raced around the house getting things ready to go back to Canoa. On the drive there we talked about the odds of spotting this illusive fish in a tidal pool of all places! I drove like the wind hitting every bump in the road, I was so worried that we may be to late thinking either the tide had come back in or he may have just swam to a new area. Once we arrived I put on my wetsuit and booties while Aimee searched for him from the rocks looking down into the water. She was looking before I got in and said she couldn’t see him now and didn’t know where he was? This had me worried. The water was only two to three feet deep all I wore was the wetsuit, booties, mask and a weight belt, no snorkel. Well friends the second I went under I saw him!!!! He was about the size of the tip of your finger and just as cute as a fish can be. For those of you who saw my winning photo of the “kissing cowfish” on the NANPA site this is the baby of that fish! After holding my breath and shooting for ten or fifteen minutes I spotted another!! I came up out of the water and yelled to Aimee, “there are two of them”!! I gave her my mask so she could she as well. I ended up shooting for over two hours!! It was great! These two little cuties stayed in one area the whole time and occasionally would be next to each other. Besides this little treasure we ended up shooting all kinds of new things that we have never seen before and will be going back again soon to check on these two. I got out with a smile on my face and the worst case of wrinkled hands you have ever seen but what a blast. We drove home around 3:00 giving me just enough time to rinse the camera and my gear and reload the car for a two hour hike with Inca back at Saint Joris. Inca never went with the girls this morning that eight mile ride would have hurt her feet! I ended up sweeping the old bike loop that passes thru the palm tree area, it is ready to ride again!! When I got back to the car at 6:00 I really started to feel tired from the days activities and am now almost asleep writing this!
I will send a picture of the other cowfish as well, he is more orange than this one. Off to bed, talk to you all tomorrow, Baby Cowfish regards, Barry
04-08-2009
Apr 8, 09 Comments Off
 baby-dolphin Good evening friends, by request this evening for my neglected dolphin fans out there, this is baby Pasku at just 17 days old. Can you say cute!! Getting to swim with these babies has been one of my top ten favorite things to do ever!! To see them underwater in their natural habitat is just unbelievable!!! I was just laying calmly at the surface when this was shot, Tela brought her baby right to me. As the baby passed he opened his mouth and started squawking and squealing at me in dolphin language, it was so funny, I was getting yelled at by a baby dolphin with no teeth but with tons of attitude. As you may remember this little beauty was born on Christmas morning with no complications at all! Today I watched as he started learning to jump out of the water being chased by his slightly older brother Tikal, it was a thrill a minute. The babies will be nursing from their mothers for up to two years but have already started to eat a fish now and then although it looked like today they were just playing with them.
Aimee was off all day, she took the dogs on a fun bike ride this morning and from the looks of it spent the rest of the day cleaning up the house. Our kitty will be leaving to her new house sometime on Friday, we sure are going to miss her but rest assured she is going to a great home!!
We are both off tomorrow, I am doing a long two hour bike ride by myself while Aimee, Eveline and all the dogs go for another bike ride. Talk to you tomorrow, Barry
04-07-2009
Apr 7, 09 Comments Off
 mans-best-friend Good evening one and all how was your Tuesday?? Mine was so crazy busy it would take forever to tell you about it so I will try to be brief. The first thing I did was take the dogs to Saint Joris for two and a half hours. We did something a little different today and cleaned up one of the trails that the mountain bikers have been using. I took a saw and cut a bunch of the bigger branches clearing a nice path so they no longer have to get off their bikes when riding thru the palm tree area. I am also going to take a broom over there on Thursday and do a bit of sweeping, the pica thorns are just terrible and have to be cleaned up. After getting home and washing the dogs and myself I set out for three hours of driving around town. I had what seemed like an endless list of things to do today and one by one I checked them off the list. I even found a few hours today to work on my big driftwood table that I have been putting off week after week. Aimee helped me get it outside this morning and we just brought it back in a few minutes ago but I still have lots to do. At 5:00 I drove to Canoa to meet my friend and co-worker Fahruni and her beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback (dog). This dog folks is so spectacular and has this cool ridge of hair on it’s back and when it stood on it’s hind legs was bigger than Fahruni. I watched as they played into the sunset leaving me wishing I had brought Inca, truly mans best friend or in this case woman’s best friend!!
Aimee and I are completely exhausted and will be crashing early tonight. Once again many, many thanks for all the compliments on the photos, the kitty on the rope was a big hit and NO that was not photoshoped!
Till tomorrow, Barry, Aimee, Inca, Indi, Mundi and the Cat!
04-07-2009
Apr 6, 09 Comments Off
 curacao-rocks Good evening, I trust you all again received your “pile-o-blogs” I sent to you this evening, have been waiting for four days to send those to you. We were lucky in getting the repair guy to come back to our house today and after messing around with everything and scratching his head he finally figured out we had a problem with our computer. He said we needed a new network card and sent me to a place very close by to get one. I hauled my whole computer inside expecting the worse but instead was met by kindness and a speedy on the spot repair. So after taking it apart and cleaning it, adding a new network card and a new “D” drive (for free) I was back in business! The place I took it to was called the PC Clinic very nice guy in there!
This was just a cool design in nature kind of picture I came across the other day while out hiking and thought you might like it as well. All these rocks were fused to one bigger piece of rock. They look like they are just laying there loose but I couldn’t find one that was even a little bit willing to come home with me.
Our little kitty is doing great, she is learning so much and eating on her own not to mention she sleeps all night long. We are hoping her new family will take her soon before she gets to used to us and her surroundings. Many thanks for the ocean of kitty picture compliments, would not have been possible with out Aimee’s help!
Glad to be back on line sure hope it lasts. See you tomorrow, Barry
04-06-2009
Apr 6, 09 Comments Off
 curacao-fossils Hi Gang, our internet is still down so most of you will be getting this in the next few days. Many of you know I am in the fossil business and have asked me so many times if there was anything to be found in Curacao?? Well this is what we have, shells, and lots of them!! Unfortunately nothing rare and in most cases many of these fossil shells which are now embedded in solid limestone are still living in the ocean today and still look exactly the same, we call them extant species. For those of you interested Saint Joris is by far the best spot for finding this stuff. Most of the good specimens are about ten to twenty feet above the water line in the dark grey limestone cliffs that surround the waters edge. Your going need an assortment of chisels and a good hammer if you plan on doing some collecting, and that limestone can be as hard as concrete! I found a really nice area today that was completely loaded with these shells which are most likely tens of thousands of years old, they look pretty good for their age!
I ended up only taking Inca today because Indi started out the day on a bad note! As I was putting them in the car to leave our little troublemaker took off up the stairs to the neighbors house, ran inside, jumped on their couch and ate all their cat’s food, the lady was chasing her all over. So someone got to spend the morning in her crate. Inca and I hiked and took photos for three hours and I did find a few fossils that I myself will go back for and remove from the rock at a later date.
Our Curacao heat is finally back after almost six months, it’s still raining a little but nothing like it was.
I hurt my back yesterday lifting my dive gear into the car and today it’s really killing me. That’s about it, hope to be back online tomorrow, Sunny regards, Barry
04-05-2009
Apr 6, 09 Comments Off
 open-ocean-dolphin-dive Good evening, we finally had a repair guy come to the house after a week and a half of phone calls to fix our phone line. He worked for two hours doing something, the internet was working briefly but moments after he left it was out again! Can you say frustration! So now it’s the weekend and we again will have to wait until Monday to call him back.
Yesterday morning which was Saturday I geared up for a fun dolphin dive out on the reef at 9:00. I was joined by George seen here with our dolphin Annie and three friends from work plus three other divers it was a full house! We all hung out mid-water at around forty feet watching Annie dive into these big schools of small fish eating as fast as she could. You just can’t believe what great hunters these animals are until you see them in action underwater! In-between her feeding frenzy she would gently glide on in for a pit-stop for some loving and petting from George. I swam around trying to get photos of everyone with Annie which turned out to be quite a task because all she wanted to do was play and catch fish!!
Hope you all are doing well, so sorry about all these dumb internet problems, when it rains it pours!! Till tomorrow, Barry
04-04-2009
Apr 4, 09 Comments Off
 Taking-blood-from-a-dolphin Hi everyone, I have had countless questions about how do we “when needed” take blood from the dolphins?? The first step to this process starts with training! This is called a fluke present where the dolphin voluntarily gives their tail or fluke to the trainer by laying on it’s back. The trainer then gently pulls the fluke up and out of the water and onto their laps caressing and comforting the dolphin the whole time. They start training this behavior when the dolphins are very young because it’s so important that we check their blood periodically. So after they learn this “laying upside down fluke present” we carefully swab the area to be poked with alcohol, carefully poke the needle into their very hard to find vain and “wahla” we have blood! Blood is only drawn from the tail it’s the easiest place to get blood from. If you look carefully at this photo and look where the needle is stuck you can clearly see that vain, usually it’s very hard to see and find leaving this job for only the experts! I hope that helps a little bit, please e-mail with any other questions I will have my expert answer them for you in more detail.
We are still having internet problems can’t get anyone to come to the house? The single worst thing we hate about Curacao is the customer service here, it’s completely non-existent!
Aimee just got home from a four mile run with the dogs! She wants to start entering a few triathlons in the future and running for her is the hardest part. Obviously swimming is her strongest area and her mountain biking is second which she is also very good at, can hardly wait to cheer her on!
Hope all is well, see you tomorrow, Barry
04-03-2009
Apr 4, 09 Comments Off
 Kitten-at-the-end-of-a-rope Good afternoon all, I think we can all relate to this photo in one way or another, it’s kind of the common “at the end of your rope” comment we hear so much if things are not going as planned! Yes as you can see we are still having a blast with the kitty! I have build so many wooden props for her over the past few days to use for photos, combine that with an animal trainer and we have the makings for some really fun pictures! We have named her Mundi (not sure if that is spelled right) it’s a local word for the desert where I found her. She is getting fatter by the day and is eating on her own but is still so tiny!! I am open for any other ideas of how we could pose the kitty, don’t be shy let me know I may just do it.
Believe it or not or internet went out again today, we had to drive back to UTS and have them re-configure the little blue connection box again, what a drag! We have begged them to send someone out here but so far no luck, our main phone line is still not working.
We did another really fun hiking trip to Saint Joris this morning and again we saw the white tailed hawks in the same area, there has to be a nest there somewhere? We saw so many cara-cara’s and kestrels this morning, it’s a birders paradise! The dogs and Aimee are currently fast asleep, after I finish this I have to run to the store and clean up around here.
Talk to you tomorrow, Barry
04-02-2009
Apr 1, 09 Comments Off
 Sea-Grass Good evening friends and family, did everyone receive their “make-up” blogs from the past four days?? If not please let me know what day your missing and I will resend.
Aimee spent most of the day standing in lines waiting for someone to help her fix our stupid UTS broadband connection box so thank her for us getting back on-line.
Your photo is another from our hike to Saint Joris last Sunday. I shot this from high above standing on a cliff shooting down into the water. It was a minus low tide leaving this beautiful green sea grass or what I call turtle grass almost out of the water. The turtles love this stuff and can be seen munching on it early in the mornings or late in the afternoons. Normally this is covered in two feet of water but the morning we were there only a tiny delicate little wave rolling in every few seconds was all that was keeping it wet.
The little kitty is doing great! Her new mommy was here earlier but we are still keeping her for a few more weeks. Talk to you tomorrow, Barry
04-01-2009
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