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Archive for the ‘Crabs + Shrimp + Lobsters’Mar 13, 10 Comments (0)
 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 (0)
 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
Feb 21, 10 Comments (0)
 Lobster Eggs Morning all, talk about a late e-mail, I almost forgot all about it this morning. Yesterday was to busy and to crazy to get this out and I left the house early this morning to walk the dogs and work on my new trail at Saint Joris. Busy, busy, busy!!
Here’s something I have never seen before, this is the tail of a live lobster filled with thousands of eggs! Yesterday while at work my friend Kelly who runs most of the aquarium area asked if I wanted to see something really crazy and of course I said lead the way. Well he took me to one of the new aquariums that had two big female Caribbean Spiny Lobsters inside and ever so carefully picked one up to show me the thousands of tiny eggs underneath her tail, it was amazing!! A freshly laid lobster egg is the size of the head of a pin (1/16″). A 1-pound female lobster usually carries approximately 8,000 eggs. A 9-pound female may carry more than 100,000 eggs. The female lobster carries the eggs inside for 9 to 12 months and then for another 9 to 12 months externally attached to the swimmerets under her tail. When the eggs hatch, the larvae will float near the surface for 4 to 6 weeks. The few that survive will settle to the bottom and continue to develop as baby lobsters. From every 50,000 eggs only 2 lobsters are expected to survive to legal size. Lobster babies swim at water surface for 25 days. Only one percent make it to the bottom. These young lobsters shed their shells about ten times in their first year. A near-shore lobster has a 90% chance of ending up on someone’s dinner plate. Pretty amazing huh?? My friend Kelly who helped yesterday got pretty cut up from holding the lobster, they have very sharp spines all over their bodies and antenna.
Tomorrow’s Aimee’s birthday, her e-mail is aimeedolphins@yahoo.com I have to go, so much to do today!! Enjoy the weekend, Barry
Feb 6, 10 Comments (0)
 Lobster Hi friends, guess what I did today?? Yes that is correct, NOTHING!! My knee is pretty swollen and stiff making it difficult to even get around the house. I didn’t work today I just sat home watching movies and t.v. with my leg propped up with ice on it.
Here’s a big Caribbean Spiny Lobster that we found the other day while searching for the Lionfish. This big fella was standing under a coral overhang at the mouth of a big cave. I carefully pushed the camera into his cave opening and snapped away while he used those two big antenna to check me out, it was pretty cool!
Back to the movies and the sore knee, Barry
Jan 25, 10 Comments (0)
 Crab in a bottle Hi all, how is your Monday going?? Or should I ask? Mine went fast like every day on this island. Curacao again got blown away today by super strong winds which in turn created giant waves! When I was outside today photographing the dolphins it seemed like almost every hour a set of extra large waves would roll in and just pound the side of the coast with a deafening crash and send walls of water and sea foam into the lagoons! I tell you it’s a wonder my cameras survive a month in this hostile salty environment, it’s really no place for electronics!
This photo’s for Emily who was with me when we came across this tiny little blue crab at low tide investigating the inside of this old bottle. These beautiful little crabs occupy almost ever single little shell just below the waters surface. These are not hermit crabs, they can not live for long on land they must have water but are known to come ashore to search for new shells during low tides as long as the sand is still moist. For you locals the next time your at the ocean and it’s low tide, just get down on all fours and stop and look, all those tiny, tiny shells you see slowly moving has one of these cuties inside.
That’s about it, all is well, be back tomorrow, Barry
Dec 7, 09 Comments (0)
 Spotted Cleaner Shrimp Hello all, just a quick note to say hi and that we made it thru our Monday fairly easy. Aimee and I both worked today and it was fairly busy or maybe it just seemed busy because we were short staffed and I had to do more work than normal? For the past three days now the ocean has been fairly calm and the diving is again back to being great. This month is usually when we get a lot of rain but so far it has been small showers here and there, but I am sure those tropical downpours are looming on the horizon!
Here’s a beautiful little Spotted Cleaner Shrimp hanging out on the end of an arm of a Giant Anemone. You can pretty much bet that any anemone you find while diving will have at least one of these Spotted Cleaner Shrimps living inside, just stop and look closely. They are kind of the care-takers of the anemone keeping it free of bacteria and sand and in return the anemone offers a great safe hiding place for the shrimp. This colorful little shrimp was less than an inch in length and is constantly moving around making the task of getting his photo a bit difficult!
We both just got home a little while ago, the first thing we do other than let the girls out is to make ourselves a cup of Highlander Groog and we usually take the time to just sit, relax and enjoy it before continuing with the nightly chores! That’s about it, Barry
Nov 3, 09 Comments (0)
 Translucent Shrimp Hi friends, remember a few weeks ago I mentioned shooting some Zoanthids and then coming home and finding a little surprise? Well here’s the little surprise, a fairly big translucent shrimp of some kind! Aimee and her eagle eyes spotted this I may have never seen it! But now that I think about it the last time I photographed this same kind of zoanthid we found this same kind of shrimp as well sitting motionless on top when we got home and looked at the photos. Maybe it’s some kind of new zoanthid shrimp, I couldn’t find it in the book? The actual size of this guy is less than an inch, that’s pretty small, the next time I am out again with the macro I will start paying closer attention.
I had a pretty busy day. I first took the dogs to the beach for two hours, we haven’t done that for a week!! After I got home and washed the mud and salt off the dogs I spent the next few hours doing stuff around town, like the bank, dropping off laundry, the grocery store and the hardware store. I then went to the Sea Aquarium and put up some shelves for Aimee in her office. She has asked and asked for help to get her office finished but the workers are always busy with more pressing matters so I told her I would just do it for her! By the time I finished it was pouring rain killing my bike ride at 4:00. So instead I am now going to go do a night dive at the Superior Producer with some friends from work, that’s guaranteed to be a blast!
Sorry so short, I need to get moving I have one hour to get a whole lot done!! Glad everyone liked the baby squids they really are cool!! Curacao regards, Barry
Sep 20, 09 Comments (0)
 Mantis Shrimp Good evening all, did you have an enjoyable Sunday?? My day started with a dive in front of the Sea Aquarium. My plan was to photograph the Elkhorn Coral babies but big waves and strong surge put an end to that idea. I can now see that trying to keep a photographic record of their new growth is going to be very tough as they are in very shallow water and we always have waves, I need a new plan. While out there today I found this very cool Mantis Shrimp. Actually I already knew where he was as I found his home a few weeks ago on a night dive. These Mantis Shrimps burrow a deep hole in the sand and then cover the entrance with sand mixed with mucus. So today I knew the exact spot his hole was at and I gently blew the sand away from over his hole with my hand and let me tell you Mr. Mantis did not like that at all!! Immediately as you can see here he brought up a big clawful of sand that had just fallen in the hole and proceed to repair his entrance that I had just destroyed. I laid there and watched and within minutes his tube was completely sealed shut again, really an amazing creature. These guys normally hide just under their trap sand door and wait for a passing fish or crab and are super fast and very dangerous. I have read that many divers have had the tips of their fingers removed from their razor sharp scissor-like claws, you don’t want to mess with these guys.
I took the two lucky dogs to Saint Joris at 4:00 and we didn’t get home till 6:30. There was just a ton of cool stuff along the shores tonight because of this high tide and strong winds we are having, so I got to treasure hunt while the hound dogs chased each other and chewed on everything they could find.
Off to bed, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
20-9-2009
Sep 2, 09 Comments (0)
 Banded Coral Shrimps Hello friends, I just got home from having dinner with our friends Mark and Suzy, owner of the World famous Dive Bus diving company!! I had to do a long minute and a half drive to their house but it was worth it!! Mark made his famous chili and after Suzy pulled out some vanilla ice cream with jelly beans on top and man was that ever good! They have three great dogs one of them is Nik-Nak who many of you may remember as she used to be down at the Hut all the time until finally they just had to take her home. It was a great evening, we made plans to hide a Geocache somewhere around their shop tomorrow, will be fun to see all the tourists stop in with their GPS and try to find this thing.
I worked most of the day, did a dive at 3:00 and took the dogs for a walk at 5:00, Indi was terrible tonight! It’s like Aimee told her before she left, “be a good girl for at least a week and then you can do whatever”?? Well tonight she just left three times to go eat something and I could not find her, I called and called and called, bad girl would be an understatement! Someone with four legs still licking her lips met my broom handle tonight!! After yelling at Indi, Inca immediately turned into a perfect little spotted angel and never left my side!
I found these two Banded Coral Shrimps in a Brown Bowl sponge today on my dive but had the wrong lens once again! I shot this with my 16mm and had to crop it quite a bit, would have been awesome with the other lens but it’s still a pretty cool reef scene!
Time for bed, Barry
2-9-2009
Aug 8, 09 Comments (0)
 Batwing Coral Crab Good evening friends, another late night dive with no coral spawning! But again Aimee’s group at the Sea Aquarium did see a bunch!! So guess where I am going to night? Yep, you guessed it, Aimee and I are diving together starting at 9:00 tonight and hopefully we will see something? While following coral researchers all around the reef last night just waiting for eggs, I spotted this guy wedged between the rocks wondering what was going on? This is a beautiful 10 inch Batwing Coral crab, it’s called this because of the bat design on top of his shell. These crabs are completely fearless of divers, you can lay right in front of them and they will just go about their business and if necessary go around you. It was another late night, I actually got home from my dive before Aimee, she came in at around 11:00 and just said good night! I am hoping we get to see some spawning tonight because tomorrow night I have to shoot a friends wedding on the West side of the island and again won’t be home till late.
Sorry not much for you all tonight, I still have so much to do before we leave. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their summer. Off to the ocean, Barry
8-8-2009
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