Little Cayman - above and below: March 2005

Elisa and a hawksbill turtle

scarlet-striped cleaner shrimps

Saturday, March 26, 2005 - a morning we will never forget..

WOW!! The dives have been incredible as of late. Sharks, eagle rays, nudibranchs, blah blah blah. BUT, the most exciting dive for me was on Saturday morning at Mixing Bowl. We originally went there to say hey to a little seahorse, but by the end, we were swimming through an underwater blizzard of sponge gametes.
When we first jumped in the water we noticed 2 male barrel sponges 'smoking' and one female barrel sponge pumping out millions of eggs nearby. By the end of the dive, most of the barrel sponges in the area were erupting like volcanoes. We even watched a large sponge start to pump out its gametes right before our eyes (as well as little Nathan the seahorse who lives only a few feet away). It was all over in a couple of hours, so we were very lucky to be on Bloody Bay Wall that one morning a year when this all takes place!

even the arrow crabs were getting in on the sudden 'flurry' of activity - breakfast!

Mike from MN checking out one of the barrel sponges

Krakatoa, east of Java...

female sponge spawning

male sponge spawning

Forget about the reef shark pic that I posted yesterday......

...cause today we saw a 3m/10foot hammerhead at Donna's Deee-Lite!!
We are very excited as this is a rare experience here, in fact, I have only seen 3 hammerheads in the past 4 years, and this is the largest. He was even nice enough to come within about 10 feet of me before turning and heading out into the blue off the wall. Even Jerri and Mini-me, our friendly Nassau groupers that live on that dive site were excited (or most likely petrified - lunch!)
OK, time to go celebrate hammerhead sharks, Easter weekend and Sue's (LCBR) going away party...

hammerhead, finally!

diving - Fun with a capital f

Check out the two balloonfish-boys chillin together on Great Wall East. The happy couple were recently joined in civil union on a tube sponge by a rabbi jewfish. Ellen Degeneres (aka Dory) and Portia de Rossi acted as best men. Their honeymoon is to be spent at a guesthouse in Key West.
This reef shark was found cruising the wall at Cumber's Caves (Kumberkavn for you Danes out there) and here is one of the two eagle rays that were digging in the sand for molluscs at the same dive site.

spotted eagle ray and hogfish

grey reef shark

balloonfish

neck crab

Ron, Liz, moi, Addy

Happy Saint Paddy's Day!

Have you ever seen photos from Jellyfish Lake on Palau?? We had a couple of dives recently that reminded me of this. The comb jellies were all over the water column at both Bush Gardens and Grundy's Gardens. Unfortunately it is next to impossible to understand the vast quantities unless you were there, as photos cannot do justice. I decided to post one pic below just because my simple point and shoot digital camera actually focused on one of these translucent animals for a change!
The other photo is of a little crab sitting in front of a colorful fileclam in the shoreline cave at Bush Gardens. I'm not sure if the fileclam offers protection, or if he got confused and thought he was hanging out with his usual pal, the giant anemone.

comb jelly

crab and a fileclam

Brown and Beautiful

Get this. Two groups heading down the wall at Randy's Gazebo yesterday. V in front with his, me following with mine. Misha is way ahead of me as usual because I go to slow for his liking (which is why he never sees what I point out, but I digress). Misha's drifting towards the wall and just before his fin kicks a gorgonian, V drops rapidly from above and pushes Misha away from the wall, sparing the life of this helpless seahorse. No, this is not the same one that V found a couple of weeks ago (see below) although they have a similar color pattern!

V finds yet another seahorse...

For KD and all you other bird-lovers out there...

We have experienced some interesting bird watching the past few days. A pair of brown (I think) pelicans decided to make Little Cayman, specifically the beach by Little Cayman Beach Resort, their new home. Whenever a boat arrives through the cut and heads towards the dock, the pelicans swim over and greet - most likely hoping to find a fishing boat that is about to gut its catch! They also like to catch fish themselves in the tidal pools in front of LCBR.
This royal tern and small heron were hanging out by our dock yesterday so I decided to include them in my avifaunal tribute.

a pair of brown pelicans

are you a heron-addict?

royal tern

Grab a date and head on over to Bloody Bay Wall!

It was Pairs Day today on Mixing Bowl. The divers were in 2's, there were 2 dive instructors on Banana Wind, we have 2 new engines, there were 2 pelicans hanging about, and there was 2 much wind and 2 much surge over on the north side!
We also found this pair of nudibranchs as soon as we headed over the wall which we don't see as often as we would like 2:-) AND this pair of 1 inch wide unidentified crabs that immediately mounted each other as I was about to take their photo. They were hanging out on a sponge on the wall at about 50 feet. Any ideas what species they are?? Post a comment!

a pair of crabs who really really like each other a lot (wink, wink)

a pair of purple-crowned sea goddesses

This yellowfin grouper seems to be having a hell-itosis of a day!

Little Cayman - above and below

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Saturday, March 26, 2005 - a morning we will never forget..

Friday, March 25, 2005

Forget about the reef shark pic that I posted yesterday......

Thursday, March 24, 2005

diving - Fun with a capital f

Friday, March 18, 2005

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Happy Saint Paddy's Day!

Brown and Beautiful

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

For KD and all you other bird-lovers out there...

Friday, March 11, 2005

Grab a date and head on over to Bloody Bay Wall!

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

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