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Archive for the ‘Reef Scenes + Aerials’Mar 2, 10 Comments (0)
 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
Oct 10, 09 Comments (0)
 Reef Scene Hello friends, we just got home the airport and our guest arrived in perfect shape!! Her name is Eva, she is from the Denver Colorado area and she loves to dive, lucky me!! Aimee just made a great dinner even though it’s almost 11:00 here but we all had to eat! All of us are very tired, so this will be very short.
I found this photo in my folder from the last dive I did out in front of the Sea Aquarium a few weeks ago. I remember turning off the flashes because I just wanted you all to see how many fish we have swimming around on any given day, it’s really amazing! You can see the tall pillar corals in the distance and a few in the middle, those are my personal favorites. Without man-made light down here it’s all green and blue, the color red is only visible with a light or with the flashes I use, so why are fish so colorful?? I often wonder do fish see in color? They must otherwise it would all look like this to them and there would be no need to be so colorful, just a thought looking for an answer??
Off to bed, I am beat!! Have a great weekend, Barry
9-10-2009
Aug 17, 09 Comments (0)
 Sunken Propeller at Sea Aquarium Good evening friends, we had such a busy day today!! My friends from the States have asked about the economy here and as far as I can tell we seem to be fairly unaffected by it. I have heard that a few resorts around the island were struggling and that some of the new big resorts that are being built have slowed construction but other than that all seems well and busy! We were again as full today as we could be and even had programs today at 4:00, I have only seen that a few times.
Here’s a shot from out on our reef here at the Aquarium. This is a giant propeller that is now resting on the ocean floor at around 30 feet and is home to countless creatures! We have two seahorses that are still living here around this big prop and I heard today someone found a mantis shrimp somewhere here today as well. This morning there was supposed to be a dolphin dive around the area of this prop but super strong current put an end to that!! I was at the aquarium this morning taking photos of a dolphin swim when I watched as a dive boat pulled up outside on our reef and unloaded divers into the current. The divers were supposed to swim to the area of this propeller and meet George and our dolphin Annie but the second they jumped in, before they could even go under they were being taken away by the current, it’s nasty stuff folks! Most of the divers that come here for a vacation have never been in current and it catches them completely off guard and many of them panic! Tomorrow I will be back at Pen Resort all day photographing the reef again, if anyone wants to help or join please give me a call (661-5795) I always need extra help!
That’s about it, Aimee just got home, it’s 8:30 she was helping do something with the whale again while I took the dogs on a nice long walk! See ya, Barry
17-8-2009
May 6, 09 Comments (0)
 diver-photographing-stove-pipe-sponges Good evening from a very small island in the Caribbean! This is Aimee taking a picture of those beautiful purple stove pipe sponges and me getting my picture taken as well! To say it was strange being on the other end of the camera for once was an understatement and left me feeling a bit uncomfortable! Many of you have asked or noticed that my diving has slowed down a lot! The reason for that is my dumb eye! I have an appointment to see the doctor at the end of this month and hopefully by the beginning of June it will be fixed. Tomorrow Aimee and I are planning a dive somewhere, still not sure where yet maybe to the Superior?
Aimee was off today, she took Inca to the doctor first thing because she was acting strange but we think all is well the doctor couldn’t find anything really wrong. I had yet another very busy day at work and was going to go riding when I got home but just plain couldn’t get myself to go! Sorry so short, my head is blank tonight, talk to you tomorrow, see you, Barry
05-06-2009
Apr 11, 09 Comments (0)
 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
Mar 27, 09 Comments (0)
 School-of-Goatfish Good evening readers. This morning I started out the day by picking up our friend Cival and driving to his grandma’s house to see the hummingbird and her babies again. This time we were not as lucky with the photos as momma seemed to be a bit more afraid of us this time? After about 10 minutes of waiting for her to show up we decided to move out and give her a secure area to land and feed her babies. The little ones have their eyes now about half open and have more hair or I guess soon to be feathers.
After getting home from that adventure I loaded up the hound dogs and took them to the ocean for an afternoon of fun in the sun. It was a fairly windy day so we got to watch the kite surfers and kite boarders racing all over the bay. I had two very dirty, wet and tired puppies after two hours of chasing each other in and out of the water, they slept the whole way home.
Your photo is a nice group of goatfish and a few grunts swimming together in front of Pier Baai. These are by far my favorite schooling fish to shoot as they always let you get very close.
Hope all is well, talk to you soon, Barry
03-22-2009
Jan 22, 09 Comments (0)
 diver-and-seafan Good evening gang, I have been home all day resting. I feel better than I did yesterday but still feel dizzy and fatigued. The strange thing about this illness is that I am able to eat? I am very hungry and very thirsty, go figure huh? The good side to staying home was that I was able to watch our new President get sworn in, that was quite the show!
This is our beautiful friend Floor. Some of you who have been on the list a long time have seen her before and I remember getting mail asking if she has a boyfriend?? Floor left us in tears yesterday with her island dog “Bubbles” headed back to Holland. I think we have known her since we first got here and to say we are going to miss her is a real understatement! We had talked for years about doing an underwater photo shoot with her but it just never seemed to happen, so like I always say “better late than never”! I want to thank her again for putting up with me underwater. For those of you who have dove with me you know I am a bit of a perfectionist! Like others I had poor Floor swim around that sea fan more times than I could count, but every shot is so different and only a few are to my liking!
That’s about it, the dogs are wanting fed, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
01-22-2009
Dec 25, 08 Comments (0)
 divers-next-to-a-stove-pipe-sponge Good evening one and all, did you all have a fun Christmas?? Ours was great! We first had Dutch pancakes then all sat in the living room and opened gifts, it was a lot of fun. I gave Aimee all her gifts from my trip to the States that friends sent with me to give to her, she loved them all! I got a two wheel cart to carry my dive gear back and forth on at the aquarium, that will really help save my back. Missy got me this cool green metal sculpture in the shape of a gecko that I will probably mount on a fun piece of driftwood. Aimee’s parents got me all kinds of cool things like my favorite movie on DVD, “the Goonies”, some new flip flops and an envelope filled with some bling-bling which will most likely go towards getting me a little dive computer. Aimee made out like a bandit as well with all kinds of new jewelry and clothes, she has had a smile pasted on her face all day! We ended up spending almost all day at work even though it was our day off playing and photographing the dolphins, I am sun-burned and fried and can hardly wait to go to bed! We had Christmas dinner at a little place called Surf and Turf. We had a table set up two feet from the waters edge in the sand, really what more could you ask for?
That’s about it, hope your day was as fun as ours, Sunny regards, Barry
Oh yeah, this is Aimee and her sister diving together on the reef in front of a cluster of purple stove pipe sponges.
12-25-2008
Dec 21, 08 Comments (0)
 diver-with-brown-tube-sponge Hey Gang, I know it’s the weekend and most of you won’t even get this till Monday but here it is just the same. I just got out of the water an hour ago with a fun little reef dive with Aimee and her sister Missy on the reef at the aquarium. This is Missy, and yes I agree they look a lot alike! Missy did a great job today helping me add some life to my underwater scenes by swimming back and forth over some selected sponges and coral like you see here. The dive was really nice, the water was very clear and there were fish everywhere, what else could you ask for, ok a shark or a turtle would have been nice! Everyone always asks, is the water so cold that you need wetsuits?? Good question! The water is around 79-81 degrees at any given time. You don’t need a wetsuit it just makes the dive much more comfortable, and it seems like the ladies always get cold easier than men, don’t ask me why? Also the wetsuits keep you protected from anything that stings like firecoral or little see-thru jellyfish.
I trust your all having a great weekend, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
12-21-2008
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