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Archive for the ‘Sea Shells (non-living)’Jan 30, 10 Comments (0)
 Spiny Oyster Good evening guys, here’s another colorful sea creature from the Brown studio. This is a beautiful Spondylus or as it’s more commonly called, a Spiny Oyster or a Thorny Oyster. This is another specimen I borrowed from work and just couldn’t wait to get it home to play with. I thought photographing this would be super easy but it turned out to be another big challenge and I had to make another special holder for it. You would think these spines would be fragile but they are not. These oysters are found all over the reef attached or should I say cemented to all kinds of rocks and dead coral heads and those spines help keep unwanted predators from attacking them. These oysters also love to make their homes on any kind of rusted materials, they are all over the side of the Superior Producer and on all the posts that hold up the piers around the island. Spondylus have multiple eyes around the edges of the shell, and they have a relatively well developed nervous systems. Obviously the shells are very attractive making them a hot commodity on the shell market, seashell collectors just love them! What I have noticed from diving is that they are very hard to see. The shells don’t look like this underwater, they are covered in moss and encrusting sponges you really have to look to see them and if your real still you may be able to observe them while feeding and get to see their colorful mantle.
Crazy day at work, so glad I am home!! Many thanks for the notes, couldn’t do this without your continuing support! Enjoy your weekend, Barry
Jan 23, 10 Comments (0)
 Sand Dollar Hey guys, just a quick note this evening, I have learned over the years that there are very few people who respond to my blogs on the weekends so I will just keep it short.
This is a Sand Pancake or a Sand Dollar, some call it by one name and some call it another. I got this specimen from work the other day and brought it home to play with in the Brown “mini studio”. This is again only the skeleton, the live animals live under the sand, and at night would most likely be the only time you would ever see one alive. Again just something different from the aqua world we now live in!!
We are headed out to dinner, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
Nov 24, 09 Comments (0)
 Curacao Sea Shells Good evening all, look what I found today at the beach, it was tiny sea shell heaven!! I found all of these in about 10 minutes of crawling on all fours and yes I got real wet but it was worth it! Once I had them all in hand I carefully rinsed them and laid them all in the sand as you see here. I then unpacked my tripod and camera and got all ready to take the photo when I noticed that 1/4th of my shells were gone!! As I stared in disbelief and looked closer my beautiful little shells were moving at top speed back to the waters edge and with closer inspection I found a little blue crab inside each one!! So many of the shells you see here did not come home with me with us today. The photo I originally had was really cool but after trying and trying to keep those little crabs still long enough for a picture I finally just said, go then, be free!! The rough waves must be the main reason there are so many little shells right now but you really have to stop and look carefully to find them. Some of the shells that ran away were really spectacular and I hated to see them go but hey it was fun finding them! We ended up being out there around three hours today and twice had to run for shelter under a big rock overhang from passing storms, tis the season! I brought home two very muddy and very happy little dogs this morning after a nice shower and a little snack they slept the rest of the day.
The rest of my day consisted of trying to figure out what to do with a dead Mac! My friend Michael Copini has been such a great help! Today he opened up the sick Mac and was able to save all my old pictures and programs onto one of my many 500GB mini hard drives, so the good news is I haven’t lost any photos! And just to let you know what a great guy he is, he sent me home with his back-up Macbook Pro for me to use until I get mine fixed or repaired, talk about a great friend!! My question to my locals out there tonight is, “anyone going to the States any time soon”?? Would pay you to take my Mac and send it to the repair center for me, I don’t want to ship it from here! I am currently sitting here playing with the new Mac and just down-loaded some photos from today. Again thanks a bunch Michael for all your help at least I can continue with the daily for now.
I did go for a fast one hour mountain bike ride but am finding out that those weeks of sickness and being busy have caused me to slip into out-o-shapeness! That’s about it, still have tons of Mac stuff to do tonight, talk to you tomorrow.
Regards from windy and rainy Curacao, Barry
Apr 6, 09 Comments (0)
 curacao-fossils Hi Gang, our internet is still down so most of you will be getting this in the next few days. Many of you know I am in the fossil business and have asked me so many times if there was anything to be found in Curacao?? Well this is what we have, shells, and lots of them!! Unfortunately nothing rare and in most cases many of these fossil shells which are now embedded in solid limestone are still living in the ocean today and still look exactly the same, we call them extant species. For those of you interested Saint Joris is by far the best spot for finding this stuff. Most of the good specimens are about ten to twenty feet above the water line in the dark grey limestone cliffs that surround the waters edge. Your going need an assortment of chisels and a good hammer if you plan on doing some collecting, and that limestone can be as hard as concrete! I found a really nice area today that was completely loaded with these shells which are most likely tens of thousands of years old, they look pretty good for their age!
I ended up only taking Inca today because Indi started out the day on a bad note! As I was putting them in the car to leave our little troublemaker took off up the stairs to the neighbors house, ran inside, jumped on their couch and ate all their cat’s food, the lady was chasing her all over. So someone got to spend the morning in her crate. Inca and I hiked and took photos for three hours and I did find a few fossils that I myself will go back for and remove from the rock at a later date.
Our Curacao heat is finally back after almost six months, it’s still raining a little but nothing like it was.
I hurt my back yesterday lifting my dive gear into the car and today it’s really killing me. That’s about it, hope to be back online tomorrow, Sunny regards, Barry
04-05-2009
Mar 27, 09 Comments (0)
 Seashells Good evening friends. The other day when I shot that photo of Indi with her tongue out I also took this for you. While waiting for the batteries to drain on both dogs I collected a few shells at my feet and threw them all in one big shell for a fun “little treasures” photo. These are for the most part the most common shells we find, I picked these up in less than five minutes. The cool looking white spiral shell on the left is very unique and it’s called a Spirula and comes from the inside of a tiny squid called a Rams Horn Squid. The squid lives out in the open ocean at depths of 1000 meters! When it dies this cool shell floats to shore and hopefully finds it’s way to me, they are very fragile but I love them! Anyways something different, hope you like it!?
Let’s see for the daily adventure I went on a two hour bike ride starting at Saint Joris. I rode all the way to Canoa and back that’s around 20 miles. At the half way point I was feeling pretty good and was thinking I was going pretty fast. Well when I turned around to go back the reality of a strong head wind hit me straight in the face causing me to think I may have just made a big mistake! What a difference going back, not fun at all!! My ride kind of went downhill fast with getting caught in a severe tropical downpour about half way back! I was now unable to see the trail in front of me as the rain was just beating me to death and the mud and sand was now clogging every part on the bike, I was crying for my mommy! Soaked to the bone in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to hide is a depressing situation but all I could do was press on one pedal stoke after another! When I finally got back to the road, I was completely soaked in mud and sand and had no fresh water left to rinse my face with, good thing it was still pouring! I had about a two mile ride back on the road still pouring but at least it was better than the trails and if there was a good side, my bike was slowly getting washed! I was so glad to get back to that car, people where driving by looking at me and I can only imagine what they were thinking!!
Have a great evening and a super day tomorrow, rainy regards, Barry
03-26-2009
Jan 10, 09 Comments (0)
 split-shell Good evening friends, what a busy day I had! First of all let me explain this photo a bit. I did two dives with the sub today leaving them at 100 feet. Well on the second trip they came back with this very rare Split Shell collected at around 500 plus feet!! What Aimee is holding here is worth around $2000 dollars and has only been seen by a handful of people, is that cool or what? I know what your thinking, “how did they pick it up”?? Glad you asked. This new sub has a cool first of it’s kind robot arm on one side and now has a collecting bucket on the other side, it’s pretty much up to the sub pilot to get as close as possible then the person in front uses a joystick to operate the arm which had a small net attached and carefully dumps it in the bucket. My question again is, “why is something so colorful living in complete darkness and at such great depth”?? I was trusted to bring the shell home for a short time to my little indoor studio I made, and let me tell you I was nervous the whole time but had a blast shooting it! As I learn more about this shell I will tell you, am sure we will be finding more cool stuff as well so stay tuned.
I also did another great snorkel with our dolphins today, got some really fun pictures that I know everyone will love. I am up late tonight had to get these shell photos ready for Dutch to see tomorrow, this is a good case of there are not enough hours in the day!! That’s about it in a nutshell, I am really tired and headed to bed, hope you enjoy the beautiful shell, Barry
01-10-2009
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