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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for March, 2010Mar 16, 10 Comments Off
 Yellowface Pikeblenny Hey gang, here’s by far one of the coolest things I saw on my Bonaire trip, this is a tiny male Yellowface Pikeblenny!! Just so you have some kind of an idea of how small this thing was go and grab a round toothpick and lay it on your computer table and then look at the photo, that’s about the same size as this guy was. So now imagine your toothpick with an attitude! I wish so badly I could take credit for finding this but as usual it was pointed out to me by the one and only “Eagle Eyes Sal”. This was found again at the Eden Beach area in all the sand and rock rubble. When Sal first pointed to it I really had to get close and look, it was so small. He lives in a sand tube and from what I observed has two females nearby that constantly fight over him, yeah what a life. I ended up spending around three total hours with him in 25 feet of water on two different dives. As I watched he would slowly come out of his home and if a female was near he would flare his dorsal fin up and open his mouth as wide as he could, what a little show-off. The females are very plain looking and do not have that cool fin or bright colors on the mouth and seemed to be more brave than the male. In the hours I laid there all three of them freely swam all around me and at times within inches showing no fear at all. So yet another cool fish I have never seen and never would of if it wasn’t for Sal, Bonaire Rocks!!
Today has been another crazy busy day. I took the dogs out to the trails and did trail maintenance for two hours and by 9:30 it was so bloody hot we all went running home. I then spent hours driving around doing errand after errand. I have my Geocachers arriving on the cruise ship Thursday morning so I spent a lot of the day preparing for that all day adventure. Aimee is still in training for her triathlon that is coming up soon, she is a swimming, running, biking machine!
Still lots to do this evening, talk to you more tomorrow, Barry
Mar 16, 10 Comments Off
 Curacao Kites Good morning all, here’s something I have been meaning to shoot for years and finally for once had my camera with me as I passed by. Curacao is big into kites, check out www.curacaokites.com they have meetings, contests, shows, everything and the coolest thing is they are all made by hand. We have seen this guy before usually about this same time every year because March is a big month for the kites because of all the wind. When I pulled in and walked over the first thing I did was ask to take a photo but as you may have already guessed I had to buy a kite in order to get the photo, but that’s fine by me anything to help out a local who is doing something good for the island. The kite cost me around 15 guilders which is around $6 and I also had to buy a roll of string and a tail each sold separately, so I spent around 25 guilders, money well spent.
Not a whole lot to report today, I am taking the dogs for a walk shortly and then have a million things to do again. Curacao is still burning up in the sun, the desert is now as dry as it gets, I don’t know how these plants and animals survive?? The cactus look awful and thin and like every other plant just waiting for that first big rain, I sure hope it comes soon because it’s way to early in the year for such a dry spell.
See you tonight, Barry
Mar 14, 10 Comments Off
 Lunch Time Hi again, I never want it to be said that I always sent the o’l stuff, so here’s my lunch today. I went to a 100% Dutch grocery store today called Albert Heijn and while passing by the freshly sliced meat counter I saw this smiling bologna begging me to take it home, so I did! I just stared at it wondering how in the heck do they make this stuff, or did I even want to know? I have never seen this before in the States have any of you?? As I was checking out I ran into our dolphin trainer Zenzi and she said yes it’s a Dutch thing and it’s mainly for the kids. I told her I was going to go straight home and take a picture of it, it’s just too cool. So the last thing Zenzi said to me as I was leaving was, “you only bought the meat to photograph it”?? I said yep, I did try it but ended up giving it to my two four legged un-picky food eaters and put ham on instead, it just wasn’t for me.
About the only thing I did today was to take the dogs on a two hour hike along the coast. You can come here and walk along our North coast all day and never see a single person, it’s a big area. I checked out some little remote beaches that I had not been to in a long time and they were just filled with great wood. I spent and hour moving wood from one place to another where others won’t find it, I can now go back anytime and pick it all up. The dogs had a wonderful time running and swimming and are currently passed out in bed. I was planning on going for a short bike ride later after it cools down but am still undecided.
Hope your all having a wonderful Sunday, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
Mar 13, 10 Comments Off
 Caribbean Lobster Good evening from Curacao. This is for my lobster fan club out there and believe it or not we get a lot of requests for them. Many of you who have dove with me in the past know I ignore these on just about every night dive and for the most part you have to force me to photograph one as they are just so common. This is called a Spotted Spiny Lobster and is the one we see the most on night dives. Well I found this guy and a bunch of his buddies in shallow water in front of Eden Beach while on a night dive in Bonaire and for some reason I was just inclined to shoot away, maybe it was because of the beautiful orange cup corals in the background?
Aimee and I worked all day and we both came home very tired, after this is out I am off to bed. Our new friends we met Mike and Susan just stopped by to get directions to some fun attractions for their West coast trip tomorrow and brought us some ice cream as well. Hope you all are having a great weekend, I will be back tomorrow, Barry
Mar 12, 10 Comments Off
 Black Point Sculling Crab Good evening friends, here’s another new find from Bonaire. I found this on a night dive I did in the shallows in front of Eden Beach, this is a male and female Black Point Sculling Crab. I am guessing this is a mating ritual like we see here at night with our crabs but boy the female sure is small? If anyone has any different info or has other theories on this please let us know. While shooting this romantic scene I quickly noticed that the male on top was very protective of his little lady and wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. If you look close you can see the male holding the female and also look at the males rear legs, they are like paddles on the ends these are used for swimming, cool huh? I went here in search of carrier crabs but after Omar everything has changed.
Not much to report we both worked today and the dogs stayed home and relaxed. I did do a short dive this afternoon out on our reef to check out the seahorse’s that are still here after a year or so, it’s too bad they are black that’s the worst color to photograph. After work I went to Moon Resort and did an underwater photo-shoot in their pool for a promotional flyer they needed, that was quite an adventure. A girlfriend of mine that I used to work with was the model and she tossed in a broken record player and ear-phones to create a pool party type atmosphere on the bottom of the pool. On the count of three we dove to the bottom time after time trying to get the right shot with her pretending to be an underwater disk jockey and lots of people swimming above us for the party portion of the photo. Needless to say we caused quite a riot and within minutes we had everyone gathering around the pool to watch, it was a lot of fun.
Off to bed, talk to you all tomorrow, Barry
Mar 12, 10 Comments Off
 New Coral Growth Good morning all, such a busy day yesterday I had no energy left last night for anything! We got home from our night dive to the Superior around 10:00 and the dive was great. We did have a little difficulty getting in and out as usual but the Superior reef is really worth exploring. Well the next morning (yesterday) I had to get up real early to meet a couple I met that is here from Virginia, Mike and Susan and they are here just to explore the island on bikes. They have no rental car, just the bikes so I told them I would give them a sort of grand tour. We started out by riding many of my single-track trails and then rode over to the salt ponds, from there we took off to the North coast. At the North coast we started at Saint Joris bay then rode over the mountain to the ocean along the coast to the windmills and then back, we were gone for three hours! It was a great ride and after I left them at the Aquarium. There they parked their bikes and walked to Mambo beach and found a nice chair under the palms and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and snorkeling. I on the other hand, cleaned my very dirty bike, went shopping, returned tanks from the night-dive, worked on my honey-do-list and played on the computer. I had wanted to take a nap and rest but never found the time. At 5:00 I rode back down to the aquarium and picked up our two new friends and had them follow me to our house where Aimee served up a wonderful homemade pizza dinner. After dinner I loaded their bikes on the car and took them back to their hotel which is down near Hooks Hut and upon getting back home fell into bed!
Here’s a real cool photo from a dive site in Bonaire called Invisibles. This is a new Grooved Brain Coral colony just starting to grow on this old rock. Hopefully if all goes well, this coral will keep spreading out more and more and will eventually cover that whole rock, and that will take years but could someday be quite a big specimen.
Running late, I need to get moving, talk to you tonight, Barry
Mar 10, 10 Comments Off
 School of Goatfish Good evening friends, I have to be quick this evening as Aimee and I are headed out for a fun night dive at the Superior Producer. But this time instead of diving on the ship we are going to just explore the reef something none of us have ever done. We are meeting our friend Marco there at 7:30 tonight, that’s just and hour and a half away.
Here’s another great Bonaire reef scene from Leonora’s reef on Klein Bonaire. This was a photo I almost missed. We were all on our way back and I was watching something out in deeper water and this coral head you see here was to my left. When I looked at this mountain of coral as I passed there where no fish and nothing stood out so I kept going. Well moments after passing I found a trumpetfish shadowing a parrotfish and joined in the pursuit. Well wouldn’t you know it I ended up going right back to the same coral head I had just passed but this time there was a beautiful school of Goatfish all stacked on top of each other hiding from all the divers on the other side, I would have missed it for sure if I would have kept going. These Goatfish spend most of the day digging in the sand for food and when in resting mode gather together in schools like this.
I need to get going, have to load the car and grab some food. See you tomorrow, Barry
Mar 9, 10 Comments Off
 Web Burrfish Good evening from the Caribbean melting pot!! Well today like every day off flew by so fast it made my head spin!! This morning I grabbed the dogs and a big push broom and went out to do 3 hours of trail work. This sounds like a big deal but when your out there sweeping and raking time goes by very fast and if it wasn’t for the scorching heat I would have stayed longer. On our way back home this morning Inca jumped into the ocean to cool off and swam out a little ways. I noticed some waves coming in behind her and called for her to turn around and come back now! Well she almost made it but one wave picked her up and like a dog at a talent show she was surfing! I was laughing pretty hard as that wave picked her up and carried her the whole way in. Her eyes were huge and upon touching down onto shore she got a case of the crazies and just started racing around in circles, it was so funny! After washing dogs and feeding myself I took off to do my “honey do list” and then spent the rest of the afternoon sorting thru hundreds of pictures I just took from Bonaire. At 4:00 I took off on a long bike ride to savor my freshly cleaned trails from this morning, it was hot and dusty but it was fun!
Ok on to the good stuff! For years Aimee and I have been hunting for this fish and finally we found one in Bonaire. This is beautiful Web Burrfish we found hanging out in the rubble at Eden Beach right in front of the Wannadive dive shop. This incredible creature is in the Porcupinefish family but is in a class of his own. When we first found this guy he was un-inflated and laying kind of hidden in the rocky rubble but seconds upon our arrival “which was very quiet” he started to puff-up into the ball you see here! I have no clue what made this guy so upset but he was on the defense from the start, maybe he had a bad run-in with other divers or some big scary fish? These fish are not fast they just inflate and float and usually keep their backs to you at all times. For me this one of my highlights of the trip to finally get to see one of these and days later I would get to see another on Klein Bonaire, such a great place! How big was this guy you ask?? I think close to a foot and was just so colorful, I have a face view as well and will be sending that out in a few days, stay tuned.
It’s dinner time, talk to you tomorrow, Puffed Up Web Burrfish Regards, Barry
Mar 8, 10 Comments Off
 Rope Sponge Hi folks, here’s another fun shot from the dive site called Red Beryl in Bonaire. This is an incredible display of what is probably a very old and apparently a very healthy outcrop of Row Pore Rope Sponges. Before I even snapped a photo I just sat back and tried to take it all in, I was really quite shocked at how massive this sponge was. This rope sponge was also home to hundreds of tiny fish and who knows how many cool creatures must be under that thing as well. There’s a big parrotfish floating on his side over to the left above the sponge and he was being cleaned by some smaller fish, it was pretty cool. Again the best thing about diving in Bonaire is the wide variety of treasures to be found and every single dive site I really love that place!
Nothing else worth reporting tonight, we both worked and it was scorching hot! Thanks for keeping in touch, you guys are wonderful, see you tomorrow, Barry
Mar 7, 10 Comments Off
 Bonaire Reef Scene Good evening friends, here’s yet another beautiful reef scene from Bonaire. This was taken on the day I went with Scott and his group on a boat to the tiny island of Klein Bonaire. The dive site is called Leonora’s Reef named after one of the many girlfriends of Captain Don who named almost all the sites in Bonaire. This spectacular sponge cluster was found almost directly under the boat and if you visit there sometime soon there is a giant seahorse 20 feet away at the same depth to the left, see if you can find him! I highly recommend any new readers taking a boat trip or two to Klein Bonaire it’s just filled with great stuff. These sponges here are very plain looking underwater, if fact they are green but hit them with some flash and “Bammo” you have instant color. A big thanks again to Scott and Tammi for setting me up with this boat dive, I had a blast and took so many great reef scene photos and some even have Scott in the background.
Today was crazy busy. I first took the dogs to Saint Joris for some trail building and playing in the sand and water and after two hours I carted two very muddy and sandy dogs back home. I then raced over to a friends house to help them paint the inside of their new house. The walls were painted pink and our job was to try and cover that terrible color, it took layer after layer of white to achieve this goal but slowly it got done. I then went back home at around 3:00 and met Aimee who got off work early. Her and I took off on a fun one hour bike ride, half on the road and half on the dirt, it was a lot of fun. We are now sitting here watching the last episode of Life on Mars and then off to bed.
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, Barry
Mar 6, 10 Comments Off
 Rufo Hi friends, just a very quick note tonight to just say hi and all is well. I received a note a week ago from a friend on the list asking about our Dolphin Academy mascot Rufo so here he is. I shot this yesterday as he hung from one of the many palm fronds in his personal little palm tree. Rufo is so funny to watch and is a super big hit with the guests each day. He will hang completely upside down holding on with just one leg and then like a circus performer he will swing his body and pop his head up thru the palm fronds as you see here as if to say “here I am”, we love him!
I went for a deep dive today down to 102 feet with a friend from work out in front of the aquarium in search of new sponges. We found a great new area that was just loaded with goodies, will take Aimee back there on her next day off to help me search for photo worthy shots. After work I went on a nice fast hour and a half mountain bike ride in the wilds of Curacao. The trails are so dusty and loose now, man does the Caribbean ever need rain!!
That’s about it, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
Mar 5, 10 Comments Off
 Bonaire, Red Beryl Good evening from Hotville!! Man-o-man today was a warm one!! With very little wind a blowing this place can get very uncomfortable quick! Aimee and some of the other trainers went for a nice ocean swim today in-between training sessions to cool off and I hid in the air-co all day. My dearest is training for a triathlon that she will compete in on the 28th, I will of course be helping her and taking photos, cool huh?? I finally got gas in the car but I heard that the strike is not over so I really filled it up!!
Here’s another Bonaire photo that when I saw it I thought, “dang that would make a great cover” it was picture perfect! This is a beautiful school of Mahogany Snappers hanging out in the safety of the gorgonian forest. This was taken at a dive site called “Red Beryl” which is the 7th dive site past the salt mines, I highly recommend it!! I have other great shots of this area still on their way to you and in one of the photos I found a tall gorgonian on top of the reef and all these fish were under this one single soft coral, it was truly beautiful!! I again must thank Sal and Patty for taking me here, I kind of told them what I was looking for and they knew just the right spot, it’s great to have friends! I did find out once again just how hard it was to shoot silver reflective fish as the flash can easily bounce off their shiny bodies so I kept back further than normal this time and for the most part it seemed to work. I don’t think this was very deep because we were on the way back from the dive, I am guessing around 30 feet and as usual the Bonaire waters were just spectacular. I’m having diving with-draws these past few days, I sure wish I was back there, the gang at Wannadive and my new friends made leaving very difficult.
That’s about it, I smell pizza!! Hope you all are well, thanks for all the notes, till tomorrow, Barry
Mar 4, 10 Comments Off
 Bonaire frogfish Hi friends, being that we have no gas in the car we are having to stick very close to home today. I did take off on a brief sight seeing tour to see if the gas stations were in fact really OUT of gas and sure enough it’s really gone!! It was easy to see while out that the streets were very empty for a Thursday afternoon, I guess I was not the only one low on fuel. I did manage to pick up some more food but then went directly home to save what little gas we have left. Good times!!
Aimee and I took the dogs over to the trails behind the aquarium this morning, she ran and I rode the bike. This was the first time since we have been here that I have ever seen my woman run and I must say she’s pretty fast and in great shape. We did a three and a half mile loop and some parts of the trail it was difficult to keep up to my bionic woman, she keeps a fast pace up the hills while I slow down quite a bit. I really wish it would rain, it sometimes looks like it going to but time after time we get nothing!
Here’s a beautiful Longlure Frogfish that my buddy Sal took me to see on the last dive I did Tuesday morning. This incredible creature was just sitting there on top of those sponges with his little fishing lure out trying to catch his morning breakfast. We found this beauty at my favorite dive site in Bonaire in front of Wannadive at Eden Beach, it’s one of the best places I found for so many cool creatures. My friend Sal has the eyes of a hawk underwater and proved over and over that he was the hands down fish finding master of the Caribbean, need to get him to come here to help me find stuff! I laid on the sand watching this guy for quite awhile by myself, he’s so fascinating especially when he wiggles his little white fishing lure trying to attract some poor unsuspecting fish which he’s very, very good at!!!
Aimee has been watching a series my mom sent to us called “Life on Mars” all day and I am going to take off on a bike ride in an hour. Talk to you all tomorrow, Barry
Mar 3, 10 Comments Off
 Bonaire Reef Scene Good evening from HOT Curacao!! Still no rain and the desert is getting as dry as a bone and is quickly turning into a dust bowl! After work this evening I gave Aimee a much needed break and took the dogs out for a quick walk and really got a first hand look at how dry our little island is and it’s so early in the year for this? It was a bit strange being back at work today I kept looking around for my dive gear but remembered it was all at home airing out still. We had some kind of a strike going on at the oil refinery and they were telling folks to get gas because no one knew how long it would last? So Aimee took the car and headed out to fill up but found out immediately she couldn’t even get close to the station as there was a line of cars waiting a mile long so she just went back home. And because of no gas that means other services are down as well like making breads and stuff you don’t even think of so like a good girl she raced to the store and joined in the madness of everyone stocking up. Our electricity was off for most of the afternoon but came back on before I got home so that is good although no telling how long it will last so if you don’t hear from us that’s why! Ahh the joys of living on a Caribbean island!
Here’s another shot from O’l Blue in Bonaire. This a big beautiful Schoolmaster (Snapper) just hanging out in front of a gorgonian with his head into the current. I saw these fish everywhere on this trip, sometimes by themselves as seen here and many times in small schools. The first dive we did was by far the clearest dive we did the whole trip you could see for a hundred feet in every direction, it was great. Again thanks to Sal, Patty, Scott and Tammi for constantly waiting on me while I ever so quietly moved in for shot after shot, it takes a bunch of patience to get a nice picture with fish in it sometimes. I have so many fun shots from this trip and will be sending them out one by one, so again stay tuned for more.
Need to close early just in case the power goes out again, see you tomorrow, Barry
Mar 2, 10 Comments Off
 Sal Good evening readers I am back!!! What a GREAT trip to say the least, the folks in Bonaire ROCK!! Our friends Sal and Patty who spend 3 months a year in Bonaire met me at the airport and delivered me to the folks at Wannadive where I then stayed for the next 6 days. Sal and Patty picked me up from the Wannadive Hotel every morning and off we went to some new fun dive spot in search of new creatures and coral reef scenes. I was also lucky enough to have friends from Rapid City diving here at this time as well. Their names are Scott and Tammi and they are the owners of Black Hills Scuba, please stop in and say hi to them for me they are such great people! Everyone I met or ran into was so nice and everyone went out of their way to make me feel at home, so to all of you, thanks for everything!!! So the first morning Sal, Patty and I met Scott and Tammi at the Wannadive shop at Eden Beach and off we went up the coast for our first dive together. The dive spot was called O’l Blue and within minutes of arriving we spotted a giant pod of Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins swimming right out over the dive spot headed towards Bonaire at a very slow pace. Upon seeing this we all quickly got our gear on and raced to the water but by the time we all got out and under they had already passed. Even though we didn’t see dolphins it was a really beautiful dive. This is Sal floating over a beautiful cluster of tube sponges which this spot had plenty of, I kind of just raced from one to the next like a man on a mission. Bonaire has such beautiful diving! Almost every spot we went to we saw big fish and lots of them, something Curacao has very little of as our reef’s are fished hard! I think it’s safe to say we all had a wonderful dive here, Scott shot video and Tammi did a little posing for me over a few gorgonians, what else could a man ask for?
Well more tomorrow, it’s late and I am beat! Again thank you all, Barry
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