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Archive for the ‘Bony Fish’Mar 9, 10 Comments (0)
 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 5, 10 Comments (0)
 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 (0)
 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 (0)
 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
Feb 27, 10 Comments (0)
 Juvenile Angelfish Hello everyone. I hope your Saturday was a nice one and that you have a good Sunday to follow. Today’s photo is of a juvenile Queen Angelfish. All angelfish have this distinctive shape, even when they are young, but with many fish, this one included, the juvenile colors can be different from the adult colors. Only the juveniles have these distinctive bright blue stripes. As the fish matures they will loose these stripes and have more of an overall yellow/blue/turquoise color. As they mature also you will get the classic “crown” for which the Queen Angelfish gets its name. If you look closely you can see the beginnings of it even now. As adults they are quite shy fish and usually hide behind a rock before a diver can get very close. But, if you are patient and just relax and wait, they are also curious and usually begin to peek around that rock to see who is looking at them. Well, the juveniles are even more skittish and it takes a tremendous amount of patience to get a nice photo. Luckily my husband has plenty of patience….
Hope you enjoy. Have a great weekend.
Aimee
Feb 20, 10 Comments (0)
 Juvenile Queen Angelfish (profile) Good morning ladies and gentlemen, once again I am late with the mail! I spent the evening packing as I have so much camera gear I am taking to Bonaire you really wouldn’t believe it. I think like last time I will take a photo of it all laid out on the bed once I get there and send that to you then when I get home. Last night I prepared photos for Aimee to send out to you every night while I am gone so there will be no interruption in the blog. Then when I get home I will do a week or two or probably more of shots and stories from the trip should be fun for all of us.
Here’s a baby or Juvenile Queen Angelfish that I found a few days ago in the shallows near the World Famous Dive Bus at Pier Baai. These fish like I have said before are so difficult to shoot, they are really shy!! This one came out of his or her cave just once to say hi and after quickly taking a few shots she disappeared never to be seen again. Really it was like a magic trick or something I searched and searched but never did find this little colorful thing again! Go back a few days ago to the adult Queen photo I sent you and now look at this one, it’s really quite the transformation. This one here is about a year old, the tiny ones are even more colorful and even harder to photograph but boy are they ever beautiful!!
Work is still as crazy as I have ever seen it, we call it mass confusion! Aimee has been working so hard and hardly gets enough sleep these days and like the other trainers lives in a wetsuit all day long!
That’s about it, need to get moving, already running late, Barry
Feb 18, 10 Comments (0)
 Sand Diver Hey, hey, hey it’s me again. Aimee and I both had the day off so I let her sleep in for the first time in 4 months and I took off with the dogs to continue my trail building at Saint Joris. I spent around an hour and a half on the trail and another hour walking the dogs along the water edge, fun was had by all. It’s now getting much hotter in Curacao and it’s so dry, we really need a big rain! By the time I got home Aimee was up so after a quick breakfast and washing the dogs we headed out to the airport to pick up and pay for my Bonaire ticket. I am now leaving on the evening of the 24th and returning the evening of the 2nd, it will be 6 days of non-stop diving excitement!! We have friends that will be flying in from Rapid City, South Dakota from the dive shop there and some other friends I have never met but talk to all the time on-line, so it should be a fantastic trip. Aimee and I put together a list of items today that I will try to find on this trip, including a white and a black frogfish!
After running all over town, driving to the airport and going grocery shopping we finally got back home around 12:30. I called Mark at the World Famous Dive Bus Hut and asked what were the diving conditions today, he said perfect! That’s all I needed to hear so off I went down for an afternoon dive at Pier Baai. Mark was right other than cold water right now the diving was great and calm. The first creature I came across was a juvenile Queen Angelfish and did manage to get a few nice shots but after that like magic she was gone, I couldn’t find her anywhere? My next subject was this big Sand Diver as you see here. This grumpy guy was sitting on the top of a big boulder in plain sight, normally they hide under the sand! Before I went in for the shot I let him get used to me in front of his face from a long ways off and then slowly and I mean slowly (it took 15 minutes) got close enough with the macro lens for the shot I needed. I was expecting him to take off at top speed after the flash fired but he never moved so I just kept shooting. These Sand Divers are really mean fish and eat their share of reef fish and talk about fast, I have seen one strike and eat an unsuspecting fish so fast it was over before I could react!! After playing with this guy I then moved on to an area with lots of little Secretary Blennies and spent the rest of the dive with them, they have the best facial expressions! By the time I got out I could hardly feel my fingers, our water is cold right now!
That’s basically what I did today, I am going to start packing my underwater equipment tonight so I have plenty of time to make sure I have everything! A big thanks to all of you for the compliments on the Caribbean Squid Beak from yesterday, I am shocked at how many of you liked that! Gotta go, Barry
Feb 16, 10 Comments (0)
 Giant Porcupinefish Good evening readers. As I am finding out many folks out there don’t even read these blogs I send out they only look at the photos and I know this for a fact because I always am quizzing friends on a daily basis! Busted! Yeah you know who you are.
I had a very busy day. I finally have a good working knee again so I took the dogs and my trail building tools and off we went to Saint Joris. I have been wanting to start building a new little trail in the area we hike so finally today was the day and I started it. Curacao is so dry right now and it’s the perfect time to cut a new trail and today it went very well and was very easy, I just followed an already existing game trail!! We stayed out there for around two hours and every 20 minutes or so I would walk the dogs back down to the waters edge and let them cool off in the water, it was really hot by 10:00!! I left all my tools out there because we go out there so much, it should go pretty fast. After washing the dogs and eating breakfast I took off on a wild-goose hunt in search of something for Aimee’s up-coming birthday on the 22nd. While out I quickly found out again that there must be another holiday that we know nothing about, turns out almost everything was closed due to Carnival. At 5:00 I cleaned up the bike and put air in the tires and took off on a long overdo ride, it’s been 10 days!! The ride went well, my knee did well in fact riding felt better than walking!
Here’s another big beautiful Giant Porcupinefish, I just love these things!!!
Heads up all, Aimee has a new e-mail address, PLEASE make a note of it, aimeedolphins@yahoo.com she would love to hear from you all as well! Till tomorrow, Barry
Feb 15, 10 Comments (0)
 Queen Angelfish Good evening friends how was your day?? And please one and all feel free to answer, I would love to hear from you all! I have not heard a word from hundreds of you for what seems like years so if this sounds like the case with you, send us a note to let us know your still out there! How many people are on the daily list?? You don’t want to know! Let’s just say a whole lot!
Here’s a beautiful Queen Angelfish I found weeks ago deep on our reef. This was not shot at night, to get a nice non-distracting black background turn your lens or dial your camera to f-22 or f-25 and pump up the flash, it gives you the look of night and takes away the bad background that kills many nice underwater shots. These Queen Angelfish are by far the most beautiful fish we have in Curacao but getting close enough to get a nice shot sometimes is darn near impossible. Typically these fish hang out in deeper water below 50 feet and hate divers, they are scared to death of everything! This one here swam into a cave and I waited and waited and waited until finally he made a run for it and all I got was one shot as he took off to much deeper and safer depths! Many of my diver friends out there have found the baby Queens before and know how beautiful those are but again even more difficult shoot as they never stop swimming in circles!! The Queen Angelfish gets its name from the crown-like ring on its head. Its diet consists mostly of sponges and algae.
That’s it for tonight, we had yet another mind blowing busy day, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
Feb 14, 10 Comments (0)
 Flounder Happy Valentines Day!! Aimee had to be to work early again so we already celebrated with some fun gifts, like yummy chocolates!! Guess what I’m having for breakfast!?
Work has been really crazy this past month, Aimee needs about a week of sleep! And speaking of Aimee she has officially moved back to Dolphin Academy as of yesterday to join our crew once again. When we first moved here in 2004 her and I worked together but within a year or so she left and went to work with the other dolphins we have on the premises (that are on the other side of the aquarium) and has been over there ever since. Well she is back. Yesterday the dolphins she has been training and working with got moved to our side so now her and our friend Michelle will be part of the crew again, it’s great! So you know what this means, yep more photos of Aimee doing the “Rocket Ride” and other cool training behaviors, I can hardly wait. Most of the photos I have of her from 2004 are missing or the junky cd’s I used then can not be read so daddy finally gets some new shots.
Here’s a close-up view of the eye and part of the mouth of a Peacock Flounder that I found on my last dive outside in front of the aquarium. These flounders are so cool to watch as they glide across the sand or bury themselves under it, really an interesting creature. As I said the other day as well, Tela or dolphin loves to hunt these things while out on the reef. Even if the flounder buries himself in the sand she can still find it and catch it with her Echo Location, one of those things you have to see to believe.
I have to go, dogs are waiting to be run, have a great day, Barry
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