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Archive for the ‘Crabs + Shrimp + Lobsters’Jan 25, 10 Comments Off
 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 Off
 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 Off
 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 Off
 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 Off
 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 Off
 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
Jul 13, 09 Comments Off
 Mating Ocellate Swimming Crabs Good evening from Curacao! I had a wonderful night dive last night, it was one of those non-stop “finding cool stuff every minute” kind of dives, you divers know what I mean. Aimee and Emily got a table on the beach in front of the Dive Bus shack and ordered dinner just as we were heading in the ocean just a few feet from her table. We found one of the coolest sleeping parrotfish I have ever seen and it wasn’t the fish itself that was so unique it was where he decided to sleep for the night that was so cool, I will send it soon. We found countless octopus, eels of every kind, “and a few out hunting”, giant coral crabs, these mating crabs you see here and dozens and dozens of other wonderful things it was a blast. These two mating Ocellate Swimming Crabs could have cared less I was there! I am sure the larger male crab had spent a good part of the evening finding a mate and wasn’t ready to let her go! If she moved, he moved, I thought they made a nice couple? I am doing another dive here again in about an hour so I need to get a move on!
I have to go in at 6:15 am tomorrow for my eye surgery, Aimee will most likely send your photo out to you when she can find time, I am sure I will be in bed!
Have a great evening and fun day tomorrow, see you soon (no pun intended) Barry
13-07-2009
Jul 7, 09 Comments Off
 Spotted Cleaner Shrimp Good day all how is everyone doing?? Feel free to answer! I have had a crazy busy day of running around doing the “honey do list” and making preparations for our new house guest that arrives tomorrow night. I spent a good part of the day cleaning out our spare bedroom that is currently being used for storing wood tools, bikes, and dive gear! After hours of finding new homes for all that stuff it now looks like a cozy little room again and is open for business.
I just got a call from my eye doctor he said next Tuesday I have an appointment for my cataract surgery, I am so excited I can hardly stand it, finally!!! Aimee will take the day off and bring me back home I won’t be in any shape for driving! The doctor said it would be around two weeks before I could dive again but that’s no big deal will be great to see again!!
Our little puppy slept all thru the night and has had a great day but Raven on the other hand is having a more difficult time adjusting to her new home although it’s only been a day. I just talked to the family they said she is still a bit scared but eating well. The first puppy we adopted out ”Blacky” is doing really great, I also just talked to them as well tonight, she is in puppy heaven over there! We have another family stopping by tomorrow to look at Brave Heart, I wish so bad we could keep her but we can’t.
Your photo this evening is by far one of my favorite creatures out there!! This little Spotted Cleaner Shrimp was just a thrill to watch as it danced all over this swaying anemone. They are completely fearless, you can stick your finger out and they will come over and give you a good cleaning if needed. Their jobs are to drift from arm to arm cleaning debris along the way looking for any particles that should not be there and in return they get a nice safe place to hang out. I could easily spend my whole dive shooting these beautiful creatures. I just lay on the sand, get comfortable and try to follow him as he dances all over the anemone it would be a great video clip!
Alright I have to get back to helping Aimee clean up this place, see ya tomorrow, Barry
07-07-2009
May 21, 09 Comments Off
 caribbean-spiny-lobster Hi again everyone! Aimee and I had a fun adventure this morning, we did something that we have wanted to do for four years! We met a friend at 9:30 and loaded our dive gear onto a small boat and took off in rough seas to a nearby area called Saba. This is a dive spot that is around a mile up the coast from the Sea Aquarium and is only accessible by boat. Our plan was to get dumped off at Saba and dive all the way back to the House reef in front of the Aquarium. One by one we rolled off like Navy Seals and down we went watching as the boat left us to explore at will. Being that we had such a long way to go we decided to level out at 40 feet to conserve on air. It was a nice dive but not anything like I had imagined, maybe our last storm “Omar” destroyed this area as it was fairly bare in a lot of areas. We did the whole dive along a big wall so we could see way down below us and stuff above us, turned out to be a good cruising depth. Your photo this evening is one of Aimee’s cool finds, this is a giant Caribbean Spiny Lobster. This lobster was really beautiful sitting in his little cave with his “million dollar view”, Aimee went around to one side and I went to the other. We pretty much just swam from one cool sponge outcrop to another taking pictures the whole way although the waves overhead were really starting to affect the visibility and taking pictures became more and more difficult. It was a fun dive but not sure I would do it again, think I will stick to our reef or my favorite place in front of Breezes!
Our day went by so fast today, at 3:00 we took off to the store only to find it was another holiday and everything was closed? So instead of running around I went on a mountain bike ride with some friends and later met Aimee on the trails running with the dogs, that’s our day.
Talk to you more tomorrow, Barry
05-21-2009
May 20, 09 Comments Off
 burrowing-mud-crab Good evening one and all, welcome to another day in Curacao. Tonight I have another different crab for you all, not sure of his name so I am just calling him a burrowing mud crab. When the tide goes out around the bay in the area of the mangroves you will see thousands of tiny holes in the mud and each one of these holes contains one of these little crabs. This little guy here was less than half an inch and very hard to get close to. I just randomly picked a hole and set up the tripod and waited and it wasn’t long before out popped this tiny crab. You can see he was not getting to far from his safe underwater mud cave, the slightest movement sent him flying back into his hole at top speed, I was shocked at how fast they can move? Anyways just another cool crab from Curacao and found it interesting enough to photograph.
Not much else for you this evening, it was a day at work entertaining folks from the Adventure of the Sea’s cruise ship, everyone left with smiles on their faces!!
See you tomorrow, Barry
05-20-2009
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