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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for the ‘Snails + Clams + Nudibranchs’Dec 3, 09 Comments Off
 Red Nerite Snails Good evening friends, as promised here is your new ”snail of the week photo”. These are called Red Virgin Nerite Snails and are my personal favorites! These Nerites can be found in great numbers on every rock along the oceans edge and as you can see have the most beautiful markings and colors! The number one colors seem to be these reddish hot pink ones (shone here) there’s also the black and white only, yellow and red, and my personal favorite which is a bit harder to find is purple and black. If you notice most of the shells have a green or yellow tinge to them, that’s algae from the water, if you were to clean them with a brush they would be spectacular!! These Nerits are most always found just inches from the waters edge. They seem to prefer an area or a rock that is constantly getting wet or covered by each wave but they don’t like to be underwater. To my surprise they move very fast and as you may have already guessed they can grip a rock like you can’t believe otherwise they would be knocked off with each wave. I still have many more species on the way to you so stay tuned next thursday for another, the search continues!
I just got home from a fast one hour bike ride. After work I rushed home and changed and took off, it now gets dark at about 6:20 so we don’t have much time in the evenings anymore. I tried to do a dive today but something constantly came up plus the ocean was angry again, it’s been rough seas for weeks now really glad none of my friends are here now diving.
That’s about it, hope all is well with all of you, talk to you again tomorrow, Barry
Nov 25, 09 Comments Off
 Tiny Caribbean Snails Hi friends, as promised here is another species of snails that are common on Curacao. I found these today at the Curacao Sea Aquarium out along the edge of the ocean in a giant tide-pool. These are again about the size of your little finger nail and have really beautiful black and brown stripes and what’s most amazing is no two are alike! I searched and searched for a name but again found nothing so if you know something I don’t or can point me in the right direction please do. These little beauties seem to live just above the tide line and are out there in great numbers, in fact I had to really watch where I was walking as they covered almost everything! I did watch as a few big waves came in and completely flooded these guys but they held fast to the rock and not a one was lost! So this is your snail photo for the week still lots more varieties to come so stay tuned.
Thanks to everyone for the compliments on today’s seashell photo, I think in general everyone just loves shells!! I was thinking today that it’s a good thing I don’t live in a big shell area otherwise I would be collecting them day and night and probably not doing as much photography!
A friend of ours contacted me today and said she will take our broken Mac to the States and mail it for us, that made my day!! Aimee had the day off she took the dogs biking this morning along the north coast and then spent the rest of the day around the house. Well that’s about it for tonight, off to bed.
Another day in Paradise, Barry
Nov 22, 09 Comments Off
 Atlantic Gray Cowrie Good evening friends how was your Sunday?? I took the dogs to the ocean for three hours this morning! It was so windy and the waves were so big that even at Saint Joris this morning the dogs and I had a hard time wading thru what is normally fairly calm water. I took my camera and tripod and found a bunch of new snails to shoot this morning, it’s really amazing just how many there are now that I am actually looking for them. So as I set up the camera and played with my snails the dogs kept themselves busy chewing on everything and chasing each other all over the beach. Indi found the same leather glove she had two weeks ago, she must have had it stashed somewhere?? She also found a child’s bike tire and raced around with that in her mouth for at least 30 minutes!! She kept bringing that disgusting thing to me all dripping in slobber and covered in sand and wanted to play tug-o-war with it, I had to rinse it off first every time! There were a lot of tiny little shells this morning all over the beach and I mean tiny, most were about the size of your pinky fingernail! I did take a few shots of some of them laying in the sand but haven’t seen them yet so maybe that photo is headed your way soon. I once again found out that Sunday is a terrible day to take the dogs anywhere as every other person with dogs on the island is also out for that one day of the week, it was not fun getting back to the car.
I am really missing the Mac, it’s so weird to not have it around? I couldn’t do a whole lot today around the house because the neighbors were home and wanted to just relax on their Sunday and have to hear electric sanders and chop-saws a blazing! This means I got nothing done on my wood box. I did go shopping and at 3:00 took off on a one hour bike ride. It seemed like it had been forever since I had been riding, I got busy with some photos and then got sick but I am back riding again.
Your photo was taken a few weeks ago at night on the sunken ship the Superior Producer. We had just got down to the ship when I found this little treasure just crawling around this beautiful sponge. These Atlantic Gray Cowries are very common and one of my favorite things to find and to watch. They move around fairly fast and are completely unaffected by our lights. During the day they hide and at night they come out to feed and hopefully they don’t cross the path of an octopus who considers these a delicious snack!!
It’s off to bed, good luck with your Monday, see ya, Barry
Nov 17, 09 Comments Off
 Common Curacao Land Snails Good evening friends, feeling much better today, I took the dogs on a two hour hike along the shores of Saint Joris bay this morning equipped with a camera, tripod and a macro lens. I had so many replies about the last snail photo I sent out a few days ago that I figured what the heck send some more. In fact two different readers asked me how many different snails do we have on the island, my answer to that question, a lot!! I think what I am going to do is each week starting now send you one new and different species of snail, let’s just see how many I can find, might be kind of fun?? Well this is hands down the most common of all the Curacao snails, they cover everything in the desert and I am not kidding! There are so many in fact that wherever you walk in the desert the ground is white with empty shells! They cling to every rock, blade of grass, tree, aluminum can, and cactus in the desert, it’s really quite an amazing sight. These are mainly land snails and seem to stay dormant until it rains then they are really busy walking and climbing all over everything! To my amazement the locals don’t use the empty shells for anything, I could think of 20 different arts and crafts these things would be great for because the shells are hard as rock!! The empty shells that lay on the ground are a favorite shell of the hermit crabs but only for the babies as the shell itself is about the same size as you see it here in the photo.
I had a fast paced day of doing so many odds and ends. The Scuba Diver magazine finally arrived here in Curacao so that means you all should be able to find in anywhere in the States now so get out there and grab your copy, the helicopter shot with Mark is awesome!! I worked on my driftwood wood for about an hour until I was sweating so bad I had to go take another shower!
That’s about it for tonight, I am tired and off to bed! Take care, Barry
Nov 11, 09 Comments Off
 Snails Good evening friends, here’s something a little different tonight, these are yet another species of snails we have all over the island! I found these in great quantities at Saint Joris bay the other day along the waters edge basking in the sun. I couldn’t find a name for these so once again I ask for your help out there! These beautiful shells are around a half an inch tall and the shell itself is super thick and strong unlike the snails we have all around our house, step on one of those and it’s game over! There are areas I have found around the bay like this where the snails are just thick and just cover all the recently deposited driftwood and rocks, it’s really pretty cool. Anyways something a little different, thought they were cool and thought you would like them as well.
I did a dive with a couple of my fellow co-workers today at around 2:00. About the coolest thing we found was two seahorses! They were both black, very big and just out in the open feeding, it’s always a treat to see those on a dive.
Alberto Contador and his team left today but dropped off a few more things to us before he headed back to Spain. So I think I have everyone taken care of that asked me for something, will send him a big thank-you card to him and his brother (who is his manager) in a few days.
As of this moment I am coming down with something?? I have been starting to feel something coming on for the past few hours and it seems to be getting worse? Aimee bought us tickets to the Michael Jackson movie for tonight, gonna be a late light.
Till tomorrow, Barry
Sep 22, 09 Comments Off
 Ragged Sea Hare Good evening friends, I found something new for you all, this is a Ragged Sea Hare. These cool creatures have been showing up everywhere around the shallow waters of the Aquarium lately!? They appear to be eating machines which is good news considering our lagoons have been filled with moss and sargassum from the lack of water flow. Everyone has been telling me about these things so today I finally jumped in to see what all the talk was about. Well just like they said, they were everywhere and in all colors including white ones! I picked one up today and held it in my hands, it felt like putting your hands in a bowl of Jell-O! They move pretty fast across the sand like big slugs and breath and poop out of these two holes on their backs, I must say they are pretty cool!
Well let’s see what did we do today in Curacao?? I took off to the ocean early for a dive before conditions got any worse. My goal again was to photograph the baby Elkhorn tiles that the scientists left and try and get some progress photos for them. I did have a little better success today, I found a really good one that had lots of new coral growth and worked on shooting that one and that one only for over an hour, topside conditions made this task very difficult. Once out I jumped in again in the shallows and played with the Ragged Sea Hares for about an hour, they were just to cool. I spent the rest of the day at the house working on the computer and at 5:00 left the house for an hour and forty five minute bike ride with the local group I ride with on tuesdays now. We rode about every trail we could find and some more than once and it never seems to get boring!
That’s about it, Aimee is making dinner the dogs are resting after their evening walk and I am still cooling down from a fast paced ride. Talk to you tomorrow, Barry
22-9-2009
Sep 21, 09 Comments Off
 Lettuce Sea Slug Hey gang, I found this really beautiful ultra blue Lettuce Sea Slug the other day and thought it would be perfect for a daily photo. These blue ones are very hard to find and this may be the most colorful one I have ever found. These slugs are only around two inches in length and are not poisonous at all. They can be found just about everywhere on the reef during the day or at night but seem to like the shallows the best. The ones we have all over the aquarium are white or green, I once saw a purple one but didn’t have a camera. It’s easy to see how they get their name, it really does look like a pile of blue lettuce!
After work today Aimee and I raced to Saint Joris with the dogs! I tell you it was great to not see that giant pile of trash that was at the waters edge for once, it was all cleaned up and taken away!! We had a very short but fun walk, it’s getting dark here now close to 6:30 making our evenings now very short.
We had a very rough ocean today!! Big waves smashed the coast all day and high wind, there would have been no way you could have dove here today!! It’s off to bed, see you tomorrow, Barry
21-9-2009
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