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Archive for the ‘Octopus + Squid + Nautilus’Feb 17, 10 Comments (0)
 Caribbean Squid Beak Hi friends, here’s something really cool, this is a close-up of the mouth or beak as it’s called of a Caribbean Reef Squid. So many have asked me, “what and how do squid eat”?? This species, like most squid, is a voracious eater and typically consumes 30-60% of its body weight daily. Prey is caught using the club-like end of the long tentacles which are then pulled towards the mouth supported by the shorter arms. Like other cephalopods, it has a strong beak (as you see here) which it uses to cut the prey into parts so that the raspy tongue, or radula, can be used to further process the food. It consumes small fish, other molluscs, and crustaceans. Aimee and I have seen them with little red shrimps in their mouths and fish but trying to get close enough for a photo is close to impossible. As you can see from this cool beak they have to hold their prey and bite off small pieces one bite at a time, they can’t just swallow it so dinner time can sometimes take quite awhile. Anyways something different for my divers out there.
It was a VERY busy day at the Aquarium and at Dolphin Academy today, most of the trainers didn’t even get any lunch as there was no time. Aimee was off today she took the dogs for a fun ocean walk and then came home and went to bed for some much needed sleep.
I am finally heading to Bonaire in a few days for 5 days of diving! I will leave the evening of the 25th if possible and be back the evening of the 30th. And of course I will be staying at Wannadive,the finest resort on the island you can call them if you need to reach me.
I’m off to bed, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
Jan 28, 10 Comments (0)
 Common Octopus Good evening one and all, how was your day?? Mine was down right fantastic!! We started off the day with a nice much needed rain shower, something this island needed very bad! Aimee took the dogs on a fun run and I met some friends of ours who are here on vacation at the moment from Holland and off we went to the best sea glass beach in Curacao. I think it’s safe to say we all had a great time collecting polished glass shards of every color and shape and with every in-coming wave there is a whole new selection to choose from, it’s really great!! After around an hour we all figured we had enough for now and off we went in different ways. The minute I got home I started putting my underwater camera together and trying to find all my dive gear. Turns out I had to go to the aquarium to get the rest of my gear and while there I picked up two tanks from Hans owner of the new Sea Aquarium Animal Encounters Dive Shop, you can check out his new site at; www.curious2dive.com Once I located everything at the aquarium I took off back home to pick up Aimee and the camera and then off we went to the World famous Dive Bus Hut; www.the-dive-bus.com Here we unloaded the car and got ready for our long overdo dive, Aimee and I couldn’t even remember when we last dove together, it had been that long!! We jumped in around 11:30 and off we went in search of adventure. For some reason today I brought my 28-70 lens and for once I had the right lens as everything we found would have been way to big for the macro and not quite big enough for the wide angle. We first hunted for a possible Lionfish but never found it as it was only a rumor of it being there anyways. While searching for interesting photos I came across a nice little gold spotted eel and then a beautiful purple sea anemone it was just what I needed to get used to my camera and being underwater again. About half way thru the dive I was shooting a big school of grunts when Aimee signaled me by banging on her tank to get over here ASAP!! She pointed down at the reef and there just hanging out was this very big Common Octopus!! Folks this guy was just spectacular, maybe one of the biggest I have ever seen! And to find him out during the day cruising all over the corals, well it was just to good to be true! He was turning all different colors right in front of our eyes so we kind of just sat back and watched from a distance and enjoyed the show. I think we followed him around the reef for 10-15 minutes until he finally went down inside a metal girder and with that Aimee waved good-bye and off we went. The next thing we found was a beautiful little red frogfish, but he was too far down inside a sheet of firecoral to get any kind of a decent photo, but getting to see him was great. I noticed Aimee was getting cold so we started to head back and within minutes we surfaced with a face full of smiles! After rinsing dive gear and cleaning the camera I then took off on some errands around town like picking up my bike and returning the tanks. At 5:00 Aimee had a meeting at work and I went on a one hour bike ride but felt very tired still from the dive. I have to remember no diving and biking on the same day unless I go biking first, hmmmmm.
Aimee just made incredible authentic red enchilada’s with grilled chicken, fried potatoes and topped with an egg, that has to be one of my favorite dishes!! Ok, I am tired now, long day, my returned Mac is working great so glad to have it back!! Thanks for all the notes, you folks are the best!! Curacao regards, Barry
Jan 21, 10 Comments (0)
 Spirula, Rams Horn Squid Good afternoon friends, I have a meeting at work early this afternoon so am getting this out early today. I had a friend ask about the Spirula Ram’s Horn Squid shells that we find here so today I got them all out and made a little tree out of them. Actually the tree is made from a dead sea fan I found washed ashore and the colorful base is a few of the beautiful colors of beach glass that we find near the house. Spirula is a species of deepwater squid-like cephalopod mollusk. It is the only extant member of the genus Spirula, the family Spirulidae, and the order Spirulida. It is commonly known as the ram’s horn squid or little post horn squid. Live specimens of this cephalopod are very rarely seen, because it is a deep ocean dweller. These shells your looking at act as a Buoyancy organ inside the body of the squid. The chambers are filled with gas which keeps the spirula in a vertical, head-down posture. The posterior also contains a light-emitting organ that can glow for hours at a time. Aimee and I find one or two of these almost every time we head to the North coast. They are very buoyant and fairly strong so the shells can drift out to sea for a long time until they finally end up on some beach waiting to be picked up and taken home.
It’s super windy here today and the waves are big, not a great day for being outside! I wish I had more for you all, need to get moving. Bye, Barry
Nov 3, 09 Comments (0)
 Baby Squids Good morning all, with Aimee gone again I am finding it hard to get everything done by bedtime so I decided last night to just do this in the morning. Yesterday at 1:30 I asked my friend Kenji for help photographing my new found squid eggs. This is always a two person job as the eggs are always placed underneath some kind of rock and one person has to gently lift while the other takes the photos. So as planned everything went perfect, the eggs are still in perfect shape and as you can see from today’s photo little baby squids are quickly forming inside each sac. I tried to count just how many babies there were and I guessed around 40-50! These eggs are in only about nine feet of water making it very easy to get to especially with this super calm water we are having. Also because of the calm water I was able to shoot specimens yesterday that only can be found in the shallows and normally it’s to rough to get close to the rocks, so I was super happy with that alone yesterday! After shooting the eggs I handed Kenji the camera and I every so slowly put them back the way I had found them and placed a few rocks around the edges to keep anyone else out. I am looking for a volunteer to go out again at night and shoot these again but this time I want to try back-lighting them, anyone interested??
I have been getting lots of mail about friends finding the Scuba Diver book, so it is out!! Please show some support and grab an issue, we really appreciate these folks using our pictures and hope for a continued relationship in the future.
Yesterday at around 10:00 I passed Alberto Contidor like he was standing still, in my car! Yes him and a few other top pros took off on a ride with a big film crew in front of them preparing for the Amstel Gold race that happens on Saturday the 7th!
I have a super busy day ahead, first taking the dogs for a walk, errands, diving and a two hour mountain bike ride starting at 4:00 so I better get moving! Have a wonderful day, Barry
Oct 7, 09 Comments (0)
 Reef Squid Good morning friends, once again just to tired in the evening to send out the daily so to make up for it I had to get up at 5:00am. I had quite a busy day yesterday beginning with taking the dogs by the leash and riding the bike at the same time along the side of the road, looking for an adventure try that one, it’s not easy!! Really they could make that an Olympic event. Just for fun try to ride your bike on a sidewalk with one hand on the bars and the other holding two dogs who are playing with each other, stopping instantly to smell or chase something or like Inca would do grab pieces of grass as we passed by, it must have looked silly to anyone watching?? We spent around two hours riding around the trails and doing a little clean-up, and by the time we got home I had two very tired puppies who are still fast asleep! I then rode the bike up to the garage, they told me they need a part and they can’t find it but would call me by noon to let me know what was going on, they never did! I then spent the rest of the day building furniture and cleaning up the house, we are just three days away from Eva arriving from the Denver area. I went for a short bike ride with a friend at 4:45 but with some kind of shifting problem had to quit early. Aimee came home from work at 5;30 driving our friend Gordys truck, she then went to the store before walking the dogs around our place, so thanks G-Man for letting us use your truck!! I put a few more pictures on the underwater photography site you can just type in my name to find them and vote on them as well if you like here’s the link again, www.underwaterphotography.com/photo-contest/default.aspx
Here’s another fun little Caribbean Reef squid shot I took the other night. This was the one I told you all about that let me get so close that I was able to reach out and pet him over and over and eventually held him in one of my hands. As I held him he changed all different colors, you just have to see it yourself in person to believe it!! Squid are abundant in all oceans of the world. Approximately 40 species are known to live along the west coast of North America alone. A few live in shallow water close to shore, but most live in the open ocean far from land, often at great depths. Here’s a link if you want to learn more, www.marinebio.org/species.asp?id=286
That’s about it, I have to go wake up the family and make some delicious Highlander Groog, it’s the best time of the day!! As always thanks for all your kind notes, talk to more later tonight, Barry
6-10-2009
Oct 1, 09 Comments (0)
 Mating Squids Good evening readers, well Aimee and I had quite the little adventure tonight! Today I went thru more old driftwood we had laying around and figured a lot of this stuff was just un-useable! So I slowly loaded it back into the car and at 4:30 we took off for Saint Joris to return what we had once collected. To get to our fun beach area on the far side of the bay over by Koral Tabak we have to drive down a one mile semi-rough dirt road. Well tonight before we even got to our destination our little car we call “Shari” broke down! I unfortunately know nothing about cars! We got out and on the ground we found four round marble sized ball bearings, not a good sign at all. Thank the good Lord for cell phones and being smart enough to put three different towing companies on my call list. So I made a call, and just like that it was taken care of. They said they would have someone come to our rescue with 30 minutes so we locked the doors and started walking back up the long dirt road with the dogs. Aimee called our buddy Matthias who dropped everything and came to our rescue as well, he took Aimee and the dogs home while I waited for the tow-truck. The truck arrived right on time, he was a super nice local guy named Michael and spoke pretty good English. On the way to the garage he told me not to worry, it’s gonna be alright and not to let it ruin your night, honestly folks this guy was one of the most positive people I have ever met and I tipped him well for it!! So we left Shari in front of our local garage we use, I will call them first thing in the morning to see what the doctor can do??
This is another photo of the same two mating squids I sent out to you a few weeks ago. I have about seven shots in this series I will eventfully get them all to you so you can kind of piece the whole event together yourself. I really have to thank my dive buddy and good friend Kenji for pointing them out to me, I may have never seen them if it wasn’t for him and his great eyes! I’m kind of known for missing a lot of the bigger reef creatures as I always seem to be so focused on the tiny things hiding on the reef and miss all the action that’s swimming over my head! A friend of mine from Bonaire sent me a photo he took this week of seven Jackknife fish together all in a little cluster, I so wish I could see such a thing!!
I worked on some more driftwood creations today and spent a lot of hours on the computer, it was another day at home. Many thanks for all the notes we both love hearing from you all! Gotta run, Barry
01-10-2009
Sep 8, 09 Comments (0)
 Squid Colors Good evening friends. So much for a quiet relaxing day off, it was the complete opposite. If you haven’t already noticed some or many of my days off are like a contest to see how much the human body can do in one day!! Today was no exception! I got in after midnight from my night dive which wasn’t so great and the dogs had me up at 5:30am. The coolest thing I saw last night was a tiny baby barracuda?? What is he doing out on the reef, that was a first?? I tried to get a good shot but we had nasty waves rolling over causing me to be tossed around like a rag doll! Diving at night in shallow water in rough seas trying to take pictures with a macro lens is as frustrating as it gets and close to impossible! I was out there for an hour and a half and never saw any spawning. On the way back in I encountered two large squids that became entranced by my lights and swam with me the whole way back. They were so close in fact that I was able to reach out and pet them and take macro shots as they stood still in front of my lights. The pattern you see here was taken from above shooting down onto his back, he never moved at all that’s why I love night diving!
Today I walked the dogs for two hours while cleaning trails, I cleaned the house, worked on the computer, went shopping, and did a long mountain bike ride at 5:30. I was supposed to go diving tonight but I accidentally kicked a rock outside today while feeding the birds and really hurt my toe, it’s black and blue now!!
My friend Kenji put a short 24 second clip of me photographing those mating squids here is the link;
I finally heard from Aimee, all is well but her sister still has not had the baby. That’s about it, I am very tired, see you tomorrow, Barry
8-9-2009
Sep 5, 09 Comments (0)
 School of Squids Good evening from Curacao! I first want to say THANKS for all the compliments on the mating squids, that was obviously a big success! We received so many letters today concerning that picture and they are still coming in. And to answer a few questions, I used my 28-70 Nikon lens at F10 with double strobes. Today I went back out and found around 40 squids in a big spread out school. I apologize for the not so great photo but I just wanted you to get an idea what they look like all together. Most of the time they really spread out so it’s very difficult if not close to impossible to get a photo with all of them together. I tried and tried today to get closer to these guys but every time I tried they just kept moving away. At one point I stopped following them because I was completely surrounded, there were squid all around me and all in perfect formation, these are smart animals! The dive today was pretty murky, a lot of sand in the water and of course good o’l current was right there as well.
I came home completely exhausted tonight, after I took the dogs for their walk I could hardly make dinner, I need to get some rest. I’m going to make it short tonight have a busy day ahead tomorrow with biking, night diving and dog walks.
Have a great weekend, Barry
5-9-2009
Sep 4, 09 Comments (0)
 Mating Squids Hello my faithful ones how was your day?? I worked today but in the afternoon I went on a super fun dive with my friend Kenji. We immediately were greeted by our old friend the current but we both just gently swam into it and really didn’t have too much of a problem the whole dive. We first went down to 62 feet and hung out around a big red barrel sponge. There we found a big beautiful really pretty sea cucumber, I will sent that photo as well in the coming days. I saw the two shrimps in the sponge again but they didn’t want to come all the way up and out for a photo so I just said hi and left. While Kenji chased a giant porcupinefish I found a really unique encrusting sponge with orange zoanthids growing out of it, I just need to go back with the macro lens for a better shot! We hung out waiting and watching for sponges to spawn but ended up never seeing anything but fear not I will be back out there again tomorrow to give it another try! So as we headed up to shallower water Kenji banged on his tank and signaled me and pointed to two large Caribbean Reef Squids just a few yards in front of me! That’s one of my biggest problems I’m always looking for stuff in the reef and not spending enough time looking around or above me. Well I ever so carefully moved closer but the single squid gently swam off passing right above my head and with the click of the shutter I had some nice shots of her alone. So we both continued to follow. Within seconds the male and female approached each other and rose high above the reef and did this spectacular mating ritual which lasted just a few seconds!! Kenji got some cool footage on video of me taking this photo, I will try and get it and put it on YouTube for you soon. I shot the whole sequence of squid love making, this is the second time I have ever seen this. When we got out I asked “did you get that on video”? and he said yes and he asked “did you get any good shots”?, I said I think so but I’m not sure it happened so fast! Yet another fun filled dive in our own beautiful backyard!
After work I took the dogs on a two hour walk around the Saint Joris area. They had so much fun tonight probably because they were inside a hot house patiently waiting all day. I found so much great wood tonight, the storms that have passed by the other islands are bringing a lot of new stuff to our shores.
I just talked to Aimee on Skype for 40 minutes, all is going great but no baby yet!! She showed me all these great things she found at a local yard sale today, the girl did good!
That’s about it, I have two tired dogs laying here and my eyes are slowly closing! Thanks for all the compliments and wonderful heart felt stories, you guys are a great group!! Till tomorrow, Barry
4-9-2009
Aug 29, 09 Comments (0)
 Octopus Eye Hello everyone, tonight on my way to Saint Joris I finally confirmed what Aimee and I have guessed to be true all along, there are no driving laws of any kind in Curacao!! Tonight as we drove to ocean I was following a police car and like a bolt of lightning two guys on these super fast racing quads passed me and the cop like we were standing still!! I briefly thought, finally some justice will be served but nothing happened!? I’m guessing as fast as those two maniacs were going the police just knew it would be in vain anyways. For the most part I have adapted to the no driving rules thing over the years, in fact it can be down right fun! You can park or drive on any sidewalk if you so choose, pass on any street at any time, drive as slow or as fast as you like and no one minds if you throw your trash out the windows, heck I guess it’s driving paradise! We had another great evening at the beach! The wind was blowing super hard and the water was as high as I have ever seen it but that didn’t stop us all from getting wet and muddy!
Well, I just had myself a little dinner, the dogs are cleaned and it’s about time for bed. I haven’t heard from Aimee much, I guess she hasn’t learned to use e-mail yet but loves that Facebook stuff! I am 100% sure she is having a super great time surrounded by family and friends and one of these nights we will talk to her.
I found this octopus the other day while out cruising around the Elkhorn corals. He was in a little cave and only had his head sticking out with only one eye open and was just waiting for darkness to fall.
Off to bed, talk to you all tomorrow, Barry
29-8-2009
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