 |
 |
 |
 |
 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for the ‘Coral Reefs’Jan 12, 11 Comments Off
Good evening readers, here is something really cool, this is either a Doughnut Sea Rod or a Slit-Pore Sea Rod, please let me know if you know for sure. The problem is; less than half of the 60-70 reef gorgonians can be visually identified to species underwater. Positive identification requires microscopic examination of the location, pattern, shape and size of the skeletal spicules embedded in the polyp’s and colony’s common tissue. The top photo shows the polyps fully contracted and the below photo the polyps are retracted, cool huh. These Sea Rods are Octocorals or Gorgonians and are commonly called soft corals. These soft corals resemble thick-trunked, branched trees and are beautiful to watch as they sway back and forth with the passing of each wave. The stems and branches of all gorgonians have a central skeleton or axis. The central core in the suborder Scleraxonia is composed of either tightly bound or fused calcareous spicules. A wood-like core typifies the suborder Holaxonia. The core is surrounded by gelatinous material (not Jell-O Dan) called the rind. Still with me? So finally the polyps are embedded in the rind and extend their tentacles and bodies from the surface openings (apertures). The arrangement of the polyps (in rows, alternating bands, randomly scattered, etc.) is often helpful in the identification process.
My dive today was close to being a waste of time because of the strong current I was in! If I see something I want to shoot it’s almost impossible to turn around and go back, that’s how hard the current is pushing you, it’s like swimming up a river. Other than this fun shot I did get a few coral bleaching progress photos but that was about it, I ended up just doing a whole lot of kicking!
Have a great night, Barry
Jan 11, 11 Comments Off
Good morning all, here is something new I found on a deep dive yesterday. I think this is a Long Sea Whip? If any of you experts out there know for sure please drop me a line. I found this one at 125 feet out in front of the Sea Aquarium on our weekly dive for Lionfish and noticed it right away as being something different. Like the colorful sea whip and the bushy sea whip the long sea whip belongs to the family of Gorgonians or soft corals, and belong to the suborder Holaxonia. These colonial cnidarians are so named because they lack the permanent, rigid skeleton of hard corals. As octocorallians, they possess eight tentacles. Branches in gorgonians are arranged around a central axis but sea whip colonies are moderately branching into whip-like stalks. Polyps alternate in rows along two sides of each branch; rows are separated by distinct grooves on older main branches. The color of the colony is variable and may range from shades of purple, red, orange, yellow or white. Sea whip polyps are translucent to white. I will keep my eyes open for more and get a close up of the polyps the next time we go in search of lionfish. Oh and by the way we saw six lionfish at this depth, we caught four, they can move fast if threatened! I also noticed the corals are doing better every day but many just won’t make it, I saw may covered in Algae and are now a permanent home for a damselfish and his dumb garden, it’s so sad.
Curacao got hit with yet another insane downpour of rain yesterday, I just can’t believe it, we are now going into the 3rd month of moisture? I was out shopping when it hit so my drive home was slow as all the roads were raging rivers of water and of course it all flowed into the sea again!
I better get to work, have a great day, Barry
Jan 2, 11 Comments Off
Good evening all, here is a progress photo of the coral bleaching for you all this evening. On November 18th, I sent you this same photo except then it was completely bleached! First check it out at the link below so you can see the difference. http://www.coralreefphotos.com/bleached-grooved-brain-coral-faces-in-nature/ Now as you can see it’s starting to come back to life with small patches of brown all over. As I have said before Coral Bleaching, or the paling of zooxanthellate invertebrates, occurs when the densities of zooxanthellae decline and or the concentration of photosynthetic pigments within the zooxanthellae fall. When corals bleach they commonly lose 60-90% of their zooxanthellae and each zooxanthella may lose 50-80% of its photosynthetic pigments. The pale appearance of bleached scleractinian corals and hydrocorals is due to the cnidarian’s calcareous skeleton showing through the translucent tissues (that are nearly devoid of pigmented zooxanthellae). If the stress-causing bleaching is not too severe and if it decreases in time, the affected corals usually regain their symbiotic algae within several weeks or a few months. If zooxanthellae loss is prolonged, i.e. if the stress continues and depleted zooxanthellae populations do not recover, the coral host eventually dies . This boulder of grooved brain coral which I have named “my big happy coral face” is so far doing great on the road to recovery. I have photographed this coral head almost every day since November 18th and will continue to do so until it is completely back to normal so stay tuned for more.
I had a better day than yesterday. I first took my super cool dogs for a two hour adventure. I ended up spending around 30 minutes repairing my bridge I had made a month ago, it’s still standing and doing what it was built for, I just had to add a whole lot of more big rocks today. I also went to the glass beach and went for an hour and half bike ride, so at least I feel like I accomplished a bit more than yesterday! That’s about it, see you again tomorrow, 2011 here we come!! Barry
Dec 19, 10 Comments Off
Good evening or good morning, I am guessing most of you are reading this first thing Monday morning and wondering like me again “where did the weekend go”?? First things first, for you guys out there I posted a web only Christmas photo on my www.coralreefphotos.com site, it won’t be sent as a daily so you have to check it out there, don’t say I never send you anything!
Today was a pretty nice weather day even if it did rain a little in the morning. I left the house at 7:30 with two “ready for adventure dogs” and ended up walking and cleaning trails for two and a half hours. I came home completely soaked in sweat or as we call it here”stewing in your own filth”!! My poor trails are such a major mess, the Calabash takes ten minutes longer to ride now because of all the overgrown jungle bush! Many time today during the ride I could not see the trail but I knew it was there and just closed my eyes and went thru although many time vines got caught on my bars and made me come to a complete stop!! At 4:30 I grabbed the bike and took off for a fast hour and a half ride and came home covered in mud and plants stuck to every part of me, but it sure was fun.
Here’s something by request, this is a beautiful fan of Firecoral! Not only is the fan made of Firecoral the stuff behind it to the right is as well. Firecoral can be found in such a large variety of shapes and sizes and completely decorates almost every part of the reef. Fire corals have a bright yellow-green and brown skeletal covering and are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical waters. They appear in small brush-like growths on rocks and coral. Divers often mistake fire coral for seaweed, and accidental contact is common. Upon contact, an intense pain can be felt that can last from two days to two weeks. The very small nematocysts on fire corals contain tentacles that protrude from numerous surface pores (similar to jellyfish stings). In addition, fire corals have a sharp, calcified external skeleton that can scrape the skin. Fire coral has several common growth forms; these include branching, plate and encrusting. Branching adopts a calcerious structure which branches off, to rounded finger-like tips. Plate adopts a shape similar to that of the smaller non-sheet lettuce corals; therefore erect, thin sheets, which group together to form a colony. The latter; “encrusting”, is where the fire coral forms on the calcerious structure of other coral or gorgonian structures.
To treat fire coral stings, divers recommend a variety of remedies such as urine, vinegar, and rinsing with salt water. Do not wash a fire coral sting with fresh water, as this will cause the stinging cells lodged in the diver’s skin to fire, increasing the burning sensation. If possible, divers should remove the stinging hairs from the wounded area with tweezers. Antibiotic and anti-itch cream may be applied to the injury as needed. Fire coral stings become infected easily, and the burning sensation can lead to scratching, which increases the chance of infection and irritation. Always monitor any patient with a marine life injury for faintness, shortness of breath, and other signs of an allergic reaction.
Time for bed, don’t forget to check out the on-line only Christmas card, see you tomorrow, Barry
Dec 11, 10 Comments Off
Good morning boys and girls, it’s weekend time! It’s hard to believe Christmas is right around the corner, for me I am worry free this year, I have all my presents bought, wrapped and are under our little artificial tree! I had a very busy but very fun day at work yesterday. I first did a dive with Johnny (the Curacao Lionfish Hunter) and did a photo shoot of him catching three big Lionfish. He looked great with his colorful wetsuit and his Hawaiian-Sling and then moments later with the three Lionfish, it made for a great photo which will be used to show people that they are not welcome here but they are great eating. Right after we exited the water he cleaned the fish and took them over to Augusto’s our local onsite restaurant and had them prepared for lunch. I asked him after “how were they” and he said pretty good, in fact good enough that he wants more.
So after that I hauled all my gear over to Dolphin Academy and did a really fun Christmas dive/photo shoot with our beautiful trainer Zenzi. Like all the girls here each year they want to create their own fun unique dolphin Christmas card. Zenzi wore a Santa type bikini (red with the white fluffy edges) with a Santa’s hat and a cool little Christmas arm-band, she looked great. She wanted to do this also with no fins and no mask, not an easy task but it turned out great. I was underwater and time after time with her eyes wide open and bare feet she brought Annie down in front of me and gave her a big kiss on the rostrum. I was pretty much laughing the whole time because of the silly hat she was wearing, she tried so hard to keep it on but it kept slowly wanting to float to the surface. In the end we got some pretty fun stuff, I will have to ask her if I can send one out to you all, you would love it!
Immediately after that I met Johnny again at the Dolphin Academy East pool and off we went on another dive with new tanks. This time the plan was to meet the sub and do some photos of it and all the coral bleaching together. When we arrived at the meeting spot there was no sub so Johnny quickly took off down to the Tugs to get the last two big Lionfish that we had seen there. I waited above him and watched while he did his thing and seconds later the sub came into view. The sub and Johnny slowly came up from the depths and once I had them in front of me I had them follow me to our chosen coral bleaching area. As you can plainly see it’s a coral bleaching nightmare here! 85% of all the Star coral has been hit hard, it honestly looks like it snowed underwater. The good news is I think it’s getting better because of the cooler water temperatures this week. See the brown spot on the big chunk of Star coral in front of the sub? That is good, this is the color it should all look like and lets hope it continues! This photo will be sent to our local papers to help educate the public about our changing World and what they can do to help.
I have to get moving, doing a Sea Glass photo shoot with a friend at 9:00 and still need to walk the dogs! Have a great weekend, Barry
Dec 9, 10 Comments Off
Good evening friends and new visitors. Over the past years we have all been starting to see a real change in our reefs here in Curacao and not for the better. I think it’s safe to say, the reefs are in trouble along with the rest of the planet. There are now countless spots in Curacao where we have moss or algae growing on top of our poor corals and you can’t remove it like you can with sand and silt with the wave of your hand, this stuff sticks like glue! Scientists have discovered an indirect microbial mechanism whereby bacteria kill coral with the help of algae. Human activities are contributing to the growth of algae on coral reefs, setting the stage for the long-term continued decline of coral. A recent scientific study shows that bacteria are the front line that kill corals, algae release sugar, fueling bacterial growth on the corals. These bacteria suffocate the coral by cutting off the supply of oxygen. Once the corals die, this frees more space for more algae to grow. Scientists think this process sets up a positive feedback loop that accelerates the rate of decline in already damaged reef ecosystems. There are also many other conditions that put coral reefs at risk. Overfishing reduces the number of fish that graze on algae, thus increasing the amount of algae on the reef. Nutrients from sewage and agricultural run-off fertilize the algae. Warmer water and more intense hurricanes resulting from global climate change are also blamed for coral death. Hey, it’s all good information, public awareness is the first step the rest is up to us. I did 2 dives today and for the first time in a long time the water was pretty clear. After taking photos of the sub Johnny and I dropped to 100 feet and did some Lionfish hunting, I am dead set on keeping them off our reef, it can be done! At 1:30 our whole Substation group took the sub out into 20 feet of water and we attempted to shoot a Christmas card. There were four people inside the sub wearing red Santa hats and on the outside we had four divers (including myself) and two free-divers! So on the count of 3 the free-divers swam down and held onto the top of the sub and the rest of us posed trying hard not to laugh but it was a lost cause! A friend of ours took the photo but after seeing them inside and laughing till we all cried we said it would have to re-done again!
We did get a little rain today but nothing bad, we are all loving the sun again! Better go, Curacao regards, Barry
Dec 8, 10 Comments Off
Good morning my blog reading friends, I am curious how winter is treating you all this fine Wednesday morning?? I came across this beautiful Porous Sea-Rod or (Gorgonian if you will) the other day and had to stop and take it’s picture. And yes I see a lot of these so why did this one catch my eye?? I think it was the way it was separated from the rest of the gorgonian forest and just standing out in the open all by itself and it was fairly small and very complete. On our Sea Aquarium reef we have one spot in general that is in fact a forest of swaying gorgonian corals of every kind and every shape, it’s one of my favorite places to dive! Most of you already know that these sea-rods are corals and corals are animals, they are often mistaken for plants due to their sessile habit and bushy or tree like shapes. Large aggregations of corals may resemble small forests or thickets. Some coral colonies may exceed fifteen feet (five meters) in height and form extensive deep-water “coral gardens”. These are often associated with large numbers of fish and other marine life. Deep-sea corals inhabit the deeper continental shelves, slopes, canyons and seamounts of the ocean at depths anywhere from one hundred sixty feet (fifty meters) to ten thousand feet (more than three thousand meters). During the day the polyps are open as you see here meaning they are feeding, eating anything small enough that passes thru their branches if you will. Without the polyps out this sea-rod would look like a bunch of broom-handles tied together and have a much different appearance.
Well yesterday the sun was out and it was great! I did one sub-dive at 3:00 and after did a super fun, super fast hour and a half bike ride with two of the fastest kids on the island, they are keeping this o’l man in great shape! That’s about it for today, I have to be in the water at 9:00 so I better get moving!
Have a wonderful day, Barry Dec 2, 10 Comments (4)
Good morning friends, your Curacao reporter here, how is winter treating everyone?? I can hardly wait until the day when I can once again say ”it was a beautiful sunny day here in Curacao” but so far that line in no where in site! It rained again yesterday and most of last again adding more fuel to the already crazy population of mosquitoes! Yesterday morning when we went outside for the first time (after the rain) we found this big slug crawling across our porch? That’s how much rain we have had, I have never seen one of those here before plus we have frogs jumping everywhere around the house, different than the little one that makes all the noise at night. I didn’t have my camera at the house so I made a cool home for the slug in a big Tupperware container with a tin-foil top and last night when I got home I took him out and we had a fun slug photo shoot, he’s super cool!
Yesterday I did another deep dive to 150 feet with the sub. I was only there for 4 minutes and ended up not getting the shot I wanted due to poor visibility. And yes I know, what I call poor visibility is considered great diving for most of you who dive in the States but I am pretty picky now about shooting in less than perfect conditions. On the way up the slope while doing my 5 minute safety stop I found this cool piece of completely Bleached Brain Coral with a fantastic design on the side of it. Some have been saying that the bleaching is getting better around here but really I haven’t seen much evidence yet but the good news is that the water temps are a bit cooler lately so that will definitely help! After the sub returned the captain told me they saw nine Lionfish on that one dive! Apparently there are 3 more at the tugs, 3 in a nearby cave and others by them selves, wait till this time next year and you divers will see the population has exploded!
At 12:30 yesterday Aimee and I played Santa Clause and gave each dolphin trainer at the Sea Aquarium a new training whistle. They currently are using the standard black ones but we found out they are made in all different colors so months ago we ordered a few boxes for everyone as a little gift. Aimee made brownies and I handed out the whistles, it was really fun! If you did not get yours stop by my office and pick one up!
Well, off to the Substation, Aimee is off and will have to walk the dogs in the rain again! See you tomorrow, Barry
Nov 25, 10 Comment (1)
Good morning friends, as you may have already guessed I am having major problems with my e-mail providers so I am using my back-up plan and sending this out through my Yahoo account. For some reason my current e-mail is rejecting my passwords and such and I can not figure out how to reset them, it’s a major mess. So if your trying to reach me, please for the time being send stuff to me here at, curacaobarry@yahoo.com I spent a good part of yesterday importing my address book which I had a terrible time with but finally got it done. I did a deep dive yesterday with my co-worker Johnny, we dove down to 145 feet and hovered a few feet above the two sunken tug-boats that we have on our reef. Our goal was to clean up some of the invasive Lionfish that we had seen the day before but only ended up finding a few. Like everyone I first thought the Lionfish were and are beautiful but folks they are taking over and this time next year we will have a major problem. I strongly suggest that any of you who are fond of a particular dive-site start doing what you can to keep the numbers down. After work yesterday I went for a nice hour bike ride and then we went to see the new Harry Potter movie. These last few HP movies are dark and much different than the first ones, not sure if I will go to another. Your photo today is yet another in my quest to document the reef and the effects that this terrible warm and dirty water is having on our reefs. This is a giant ball of bleached Grooved Brain Coral, it has turned completely white now and if the water doesn’t cool soon, I will be sending you a picture of another dead ball of coral! I hope this finds you all save and well, better get to work, Barry
Nov 18, 10 Comments Off
Good morning friends, Aimee and I were busy last night working on photos we have recently sold to assorted magazines which ended up consuming our evening and I was too tired to get this out after. I worked yesterday and Aimee was off. At around 8:30 I got a call, it was Aimee saying “we are soaked to the bone”, she was under a tree with the dogs trying to seek shelter from a morning downpour but from the sounds of it there was no place to run and no place to hide! We do have places out along the trail with caves to hide in during the rain but apparently she was no where near those. I did call her back 20 minutes later to check on her and she was then under a rock overhang waiting for the rain to pass and watching wild dolphins swim by so the wait wasn’t that bad. As you can see it’s still raining, really unbelievable!
After talking to Aimee I did a dive with the sub and after waving good-bye to all inside I went on my normal short dive to see what new things I could find and say hi to the school of boga’s. Imagine my surprise finding this big cool face on a chunk of bleaching grooved brain coral in an area I had been over dozens of times! Please tell me you can see it, Aimee thinks I have lost my mind on this one and does not see the face, I love the big nose! The bleaching is still as bad as ever, I have not seen any healing of any kind yet but will sure keep you posted.
After work I did a ride with my young friend Stijn who will be one fast kid in the years to come! We did a one hour fast road ride to Montana (sounds like mon-tonn-ya) and back and he never missed a beat and he passed me on sprints at the top of all the climbs, love it! I have been forced to ride on the road now due to the excessive amount of rain, the trails are a complete mess!
We had a historic piece of Sea Aquarium equipment leave the facility yesterday, curious? That will be the photo tonight, see you, have a great day and thanks for sending my mom all the Birthday wishes! Bye-now, Barry
Nov 15, 10 Comment (1)
Good morning all, sorry for the late mail again we had some serious computer problems last night but I think we have it resolved. Saturday night at 2:30 in the morning we got hit with yet another insane tropical downpour! Aimee and I were again outside trying to divert water from flooding our porch and coming into the house, it was a major mess! I again had to quickly build all kinds of water troughs out of driftwood to keep the water that was coming off the roof from going into the house, this involved using mop buckets and umbrellas as well. I think it’s safe to say this is the most water this island has had, the island looks like a Brazilian Rainforest which makes it very difficult to get out and do anything because of all the mosquitoes and mud! So yesterday I was more or less forced to stay home because everything was wet and diving was out of the question.
Here is a new Coral Bleaching photo I took a few days ago, this is just a small taste of how bad it has gotten! All the white you see is for the most part Star Coral, it has been hit the hardest due to all this rain plus sand and dirt in the water and of course Global warming. For some reason the Finger Corals, Elkhorn Corals and Staghorn Corals and most of the Gorgonians seem to be unaffected but everything else is bleached and stressed beyond belief! I can’t even take my beloved beauty scenes of the reef anymore because of how awful everything looks! How much longer will this last? No one really knows. If it would stop raining that would help, we need our cool ocean currents to return, they have been gone for months now and I have no idea when those will return. Some of these bleached corals will survive this but not all, many will die and then slowly become covered in algae and then be a reminder to divers of the terrible year of 2010 when the bleaching was so bad!
Off to work, ok it’s not really work it a fun job diving and photographing a state of the art mini-sub, well someone has to do it! Be back soon, Barry
Oct 31, 10 Comments Off
Hi Earthlings, how’s that weekend treating you? We are currently getting dumped on with a big rainstorm most likely from Tropical Storm Tomas as it passed by. Today was a lazy o’l Sunday for once and we really didn’t do much of anything!! I took the dogs for an hour and a half walk this morning with our new friends from an area near London. The walk was beautiful with it being so green and all but by the time we got back to the car we all looked like we had jumped in the ocean, it was so humid! Other than going to the grocery store and stopping at the sea glass beach we all spent the day hiding in our Caribbean cave.
Here is another shot from our dives yesterday. This is a white Christmas Tree Worm sitting high atop a big head of Bleached Star coral. For the worm it’s just another day in paradise as they can not move from home to home, this is again his home and no matter what he will continue to live here. I see many dead corals that did not survive for one reason or another and the worms as seen here are still alive and happy. As you may or may not know already, Christmas Tree Worms burrow into the surface of coral. They use their feathery appendages to filter tiny plankton out of the water column. The gills have a dual function, they allow the worm to breathe and collect the plankton which the worms eat and when disturbed, the worms will quickly retreat into their burrows and slowly emerge again after a while, if you Avatar you know what I am talking about!
Time to go push water out of the driveway and dinner is almost ready! Be back tomorrow, Barry
Oct 31, 10 Comments Off
Good morning all, I had a super fun day of diving yesterday with my new friend Richard from London. We did two dives in front of the Curacao Sea Aquarium and the water for once was crystal clear! Both dives I carried a macro lens as I really wanted to capture some of the unique shots that were happening due to all this Coral Bleaching happening right now. One of the first and coolest things I found was this tiny, beautiful Sharknose Goby resting on a sheet of completely Bleached Grooved Brain Coral. This is actually a pretty powerful photo because even though his personal piece of coral is dying he is not leaving, it’s his home and he will stay as long as he possibly can! Remember there is a chance that if the seas start to cool now or soon this piece of coral like others will heal itself and start to come back to life and maybe the Goby knows this. These tiny cleaning fish are very territorial so it will take more than this to get him to abandon his home, from where I was sitting it looked like he was laying on snow or ice. There was recently an article in the Washington Post that many of you should read on “the value of nature to world’s economies” and how we have underestimated the economic value of nature! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102000452.html
Here is the link above, please pass it on to others there is still so much we can do to help. I fear in the not so distant future we may be all sitting on our own piece of Bleached Coral wondering what will happen next, the Earth is going down hill fast!
I have heard that Hurricane Tomas has turned North, good news for us bad news AGAIN for Haiti! Geez those poor people! I sure home they are able to start seeking some kind of shelter today or at least get away from the spots that will or could get hit the hardest!
Hope your all having a great Sunday, remember if any of you want to go to Fiji with me diving drop me a line or check out the daily from yesterday to register, it will be a great time. And it goes without saying that there will be fantastic pictures and stories headed your way with that trip!
I am doing a private underwater photo shoot this week with Frank and Andy Schleck (Tour de France champs) as they do a fun snorkel with the dolphins, so stay tuned for that, I can hardly wait!
Off to the trail, more tonight, Barry
Oct 30, 10 Comments Off
Good morning from Curacao. As some of you know we have Hurricane Tomas heading our way and should be in the area around Sunday. From the charts I have seen the eye is hundreds of miles away but I am sure we will see big waves and rain just the same. Most Hurricanes start down here in these warm waters and then head all the way up to the States generating speed and power the whole way up. I did take my normal precautionary storm warming steps by going to the store and buying bottled water and dried foods yesterday just in case, better to be safe than sorry.
Yesterday I did four dives and went to bed sooooo tired! I did 3 very short sub dives all lasting about 10 minutes each and one dive to the Superior Producer. I met some Americans staying at Royal Resorts and they wanted to go dive the Superior but had no idea how to find it. So since I had a few hours to kill in between sub dives we loaded up their rental van and took off to the Mega Pier. There was a big cruise ship parked at the Mega Pier but no one seemed to care about us doing a dive underneath it so off we went! The trip was fast and great! We took a few shots on deck and explored the ship but minutes later we had to leave, our time was up. On the way back we saw a baby Green Turtle laying in the corals but when I approached for a shot he took off. I think we set some kind of Superior Dive record yesterday for getting in and out and being back in a little over an hour!
Yesterday I signed up for a dive to Beqa (pronounced Benga) Lagoon Resort in Fiji, for 2012! There are still spots available for anyone wanting to dive with me and maybe learn a little photography or who just want to dive with a great group of folks from my home town in Rapid City, SD, check out the attachment to register and learn more.
Below is yet another beautiful Coral Reef Setting with a Large Cupped Boulder Star coral on the bottom and a beautiful Gorgonian on the top, I just love this stuff!
Time to walk the dogs, see you, Barry
Oct 29, 10 Comments Off
Good morning friends and readers how are you all doing today? I had yesterday off with Aimee for a change. We met some friends that are here from London and took them out for a nice hour hike along the coast which was just beautiful with all this green! When we got to the ocean it was as calm as a lake so I emptied my pockets and dove in followed by to great swimming dogs! I usually swim out a ways until it’s deep enough for me to stand and wait for the dogs to come to me, they love to be held out there or rest on my lap, Aimee says it looked so finny from shore. After a shower for everyone we headed into town for a delicious breakfast at Deli France and then went grocery shopping. Next I did something I never do, I took a nap with Aimee, yes I slept the day away! I was just so tired still from last nights dive and not getting much sleep as I got home at around 11:30. The dive was uneventful, just lots and lots of terrible coral bleaching.
Speaking of coral bleaching here is a new shot from just a few days ago. This is Boulder Star Coral that is really beginning to bleach. This particular coral head has been one of my favorites for years and I have kind of adopted it as my own. This coral head has been used in countless photos either with divers or with fish and has recently been published in the new “Our Coral Reef” Book that is only available in Curacao. My buddy Gordy Cox shot all the reef pictures for the first edition which sold out fast but the second edition has about 10 of my pictures and one of them is this exact coral head. We have a coral expert working at the Aquarium who says she noticed some of the bleaching getting better but so far I haven’t seen it, the reef in the worst shape I have ever seen it and this rain is not helping!
I need to get to work, talk to you more later, Barry
SITE MAP
CategoriesArchives |
|
