Love Sculpture

After several bouts of bad weather, we finally made it back in the water at our favourite shore dive, Lighthouse Point. And this weekend was extra special seeing as it was the sinking of the new feature here, the Guardian of the Reef statue as sculpted by Simon Morris.

Pre dive assessment. Sceptre *check*, shield *check*, crown *check*

You may of heard of Simon Morris before as he was the creative mind behind the statue of Amphitrite which graces the waters at Sunset house and has been a regular attraction for divers the world over. No doubt, the Guardian of the reef will prove to be an equal draw for aquaholics everywhere.


At just shy of 4 metres (3.96m to be exact) and half a ton, he's a big boy to be sure and when sitting on his plinth, that boosts the height to around 4.5 metres , so you certainly wont miss him when you swim out over the mini wall.

The Guardian faces the dive centre and reef to keep a close eye on things and to make sure the nudibranchs and sea horses don't wander to far astray. With the bottom of the plinth sitting at 21m and the head at around 16m, this is a very easy dive for divers of all levels of certification and well worth making a visit to see.

Dedication to Jay and Nancy.

Unfortunately there are always some morons out there and we saw other divers sitting on the statues head and knocking their tanks off it and it had been in the water for less than 24 hours. People like that we definitely don't need in the water. Muppets.

The Guardian approves of your buoyancy control

Shhhh....be vewy qwiet. The Guardian is sleeping........

Morons aside, we spent the majority of the dive getting the shots I needed for the mags and making a mental note of the new positions of some of the mooring and marker buoys seeing as they've shuffled them around a bit to mark the statues position amongst other things.

Conditions were surprisingly good give the poor weather we've had the last 3-4 days and we had a 4-5 knot wind ESE with a mild surge in the shallows which was nominal.

Sunset and time to hunt nudibranch

The hardpan wasn't exactly jumping with life this evening and it proved a little challenge to find a few of my favourite things (like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles with warm woolen mittens, for all you Sound of Music fans out there).

On the way out to get a couple of macros shots of the Guardian, I spotted a really nice juvenile jawfish that was kind enough pose for a couple of shots. 

Open up and say "Ahhhhhh"

There was also an abundance of bristleworms out tonight in a multitude of different colours particularly some nice red-orange ones making their way over some sponges with baby bristleworms in tow.

Speaking of babys, there was the tiniest little Elysia crispata sitting all by itself. I've included my pinky finger nail to give you some sort of idea of the scale. It's positively dinky.

We had a reasonable selection of sailfin blennies and orange sided gobies hiding out this evening on the corals not to mention a few pea crabs, pistol shrimps and needle nose puffer fish to round things off.

All in all it was a nice night for a dive and nice to get back to the familiar stomping grounds after all rubbish weather recently and it'll be as equally nice to get back out to East End and jump off a perfectly good boat next weekend. Until then, safe diving everyone!

Undisclosed Desires

Off to the East End once again to spend some quality time with our good friends at Tortuga Divers, with Nige, Nat and Doug manning (and girling) the boat today. We had a slight overcast and a 7-8 knot South Easterly wind, so it was an easy choice to head North and pay another visit to Julie's Wall once again.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to get wet we go.....

 After splash down, we headed down the wall and West this time and were immediately accosted with some superb overhangs, sea whips and sponge formations with a healthy smattering of fusiliers and snappers. This is as close to diving Bloody Bay Wall as you'll get without having to fly to Little Cayman as the scenery here is good enough to make your camera blush with embarrassment and shame.

As always depth, time and SAC are major considerations, especially here where if you are not careful you can easily find yourself in a sticky situation particularly if you are focused (no pun  intended) on getting the perfect shot. If in doubt, stick you your guide like glue otherwise get in there and get some great photos of some truly epic scenery.

"One fish, two fish, eight fish, blue fish....."

The condition of the sponges and coral here are in excellent condition and we were also hoping to see some big stuff cruising by in the blue but alas, it was not meant to be today. Still with a plethora of colours and marine life at this dive site, how could you possibly feel hard done by?

After a good long dive at the depth, we reluctantly headed back up for the obligatory safety stop before motoring round to dive site number two, and today it was the turn of Little Bluff which we haven't done in quite some time, a very easy dive with long fingers of coral and crenelations separated with sandy areas to weave in and out of.

As always it pays to take your time and pay close attention to the small stuff hiding out amongst the corals like some lovely little female roughhead blennies.

Not to mention some fantastic little hydroids, which you definitely need patience and good lighting to get a decent shot of them, but they are incredibly nice.

There were a good selection of blennies scattered around with more than a few orange saddled more than happy to have their photos taken.

The surprise visitors of the day were the turtles however and fair do to Nige he did say that they were regular visitors here. We had three cruising around the reef on the day and although not totally comfortable with sharing space in the water they weren't out-right skittish and were happy to stop for a couple of shots before gliding off to do more important things. Like go down the pub. Or whatever it is that turtles do.

As always, another thoroughly enjoyable days diving with the boys and girls at Tortuga Divers at the East End. We look forward to seeing you there soon.

How a moray eel eats

Very interesting fact about morays if you're not overly familiar with them. They have a secondary set of grasping jaws called the Pharyngeal jaw. This evolutionary adaptation is surprisingly common among fish with more than 30,000 known species employing a set. However, none are as mobile (or frightening) as the Moray's.

Since these eels can't suck in and gulp down their prey as other predatory fish do, they instead evolved this swing-out set of small, grabbing mandibles. The eel first captures its prey with its primary jaws, then swings out its secondary set to grab the fish and pull it down the eel's throat while the first set of jaws chomp down on the next length of flesh.

Check out the great video below as well. Superb. Thanks to UC Davis for this!

Paper Chase

Another week, another photo of the week in the local rag. This time thanks to Tortuga Divers for the transportation to Julie's Wall where this shot was taken. You should give it a visit next time you're on the North side.

Hairy Frogfish

Pretty incredible short video of the striated frogfish (or hairy frogfish) by Jose Lachat.  An oldie but a goodie.

Antennarius striatus (Striped, Striated, Splitlure, Zebra or Hairy frogfish) is a singulary interesting frogfish, mainly because of its large and well visible worm-like lure which it likes to move a lot. Because of its perfect camouflage it is not that easy to find though.

The pectoral fins are angled, and with the pelvic fins, allow the frogfish to "walk" on the sea bottom and to keep a stable position for ambush.

The striated frogfish is found in the tropical and subtropical waters from the Indian Ocean to the center of the Pacific Ocean, and in the Atlantic Ocean on the western coast of Africa and from the New Jersey coast to the southern Brazilian coast including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean at depths varying from the surface to 210 m with average occurrence at 40 m deep.

Link: HERE

When Julie comes around

Well once we got past the road race going on at the bottom of our road, we immediately hit a cycle race that was going on. All the way to the East End. With a police escort. And no overtaking was allowed. Ever driven anywhere at 10 mph for a long time? It's like watching paint dry. Anyway, frustrations aside, we joined our good fiends at Tortuga Divers once again and set sail for high adventures and tales of derring-do. With a 5-6 knots NE wind, it was relatively calm today which gave us a nice excuse to head Northward.

Nat's back!

Captain Nige motored us over to Julie's Wall for the first dive which if you haven't done it before is a particularly nice wall dive which backs onto Babylon. If your air management is particularly good, you can easily do Julie's Wall and several laps round the Babylon pinnacle and be back in time for tea.

You've got some really nice cuts and over hangs on the wall at this site if you head East with some great sponge formations and vibrant colours which really "pop" under strobe light. There were also some very large shoals of triggerfish, grunts, fusiliers and sweetlips cruising the top of the wall which made for some nice silhouette shots. We also had our faithful pet snapper follow us as usual as it wouldn't be a dive otherwise.

Unfortunately we had to dive with the lowest common denominator, so by the time we came up from depth and back at the boat we still had half a tank left which was a shame as we could have easily got an extra 30 minutes in, but hey, when paying tourists are on the boat, you got make do. Still a very nice dive though.

If you head West along the wall (away from Babylon) there is supposed to be a very nice overhang wall as described in the brief by Captain Nige, which maybe we'll get around to visiting the next trip out as I'd really like to see what photo opportunities are available there.

After a quick motor back round to the East side, we moored up at Cinderellas Castle with is a nice shallow little site with some nice twisty little swim throughs and pinnacles to get yourself lost in. Be sure to have a good look under some of the shelfs as you may miss some nice stuff like lobsters and turtles. Just be prepared for a tight squeeze to get some of the shots.

A nice big turtle as relayed to us by Captain Nige.

Given that the top of the Castle is relatively shallow, be ready to take a beating from the surge and the visibility to drop, however the rewards are worth it if you can up close and personal. Right under the boat there were some fine examples of juvenile tritonia hamnerorum at only a couple of millimetres big, clinging on for dear life.

There were also some fine examples of rough head blennies scattered all around the coral heads, albeit very tricky to shoot with an ultra macro lens in the conditions, but worth the effort.

Also keep an eye out for some nice shoals of yellow goatfish, cruising barracuda, gliding lionfish and plenty of lazy red hinds, which should be more than enough to keep you entertained for a good 70-80 minutes. If you're really lucky, you'll find some nurse sharks here as well. A lovely little dive site for a second dive that's close to home base.

Watch how I soar......

Well we've been saying for years, why explore outer space when most of the worlds oceans are still unexplored?

Link: HERE

"Even though they cover two-third's of the planet's surface, we know precious little about how the oceans actually interact with the continents and atmosphere. What's more, our oceanic models are woefully incomplete—only capable of showing large areas with reduced resolution or in high detail over a limited area. But a new fleet of autonomous research submarines are about to rectify that problem."

"These 16 gliders were built as part of Rutgers University's Challenger mission to explore and quantify deep ocean currents and provide researchers a means of testing existing oceanic models for accuracy against the collected data. Each UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) measures just over seven feet long and utilizes buoyancy changes within the water column to propel it along at speeds of 21 miles per day. That's pretty slow, even by conventional seafaring standards, but over the course of the next two years, these gliders are expected to cover a total of 128,000 square kilometers (nearly 80,000 square miles) throughout five ocean basins—each one covering 6,000 to 8,000 km individually."