Le Monde du Silence, or The Silent World, is a 1956 film directed by Jacques-Yves Cousteu and Louis Malle. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Oscar for Best Documentary. But you know all that.
There are many striking aspects to the film. One is that it is beautifully shot, perhaps the most artistic underwater documentary ever made. Also, scuba diving itself was still in its infancy. The equipment and safety standards were quite primitive by today’s standards. Unfortunately, they also do horrible things to some of the animals, which is probably why it is very hard to get a copy of the movie.
Despite the lack of a modern environmentalist sensibility, the film is probably the most important film in all of diving. For millions, it was the first glimpse at the underwater world. Cousteau and his team were true pioneers, not only old school exploring (which they did), but developing equipment and doing serious research. For the modern viewer, it’s amazing just to see how much sea life there was back then.
I’ve deliberately omitted references to specific scenes. Each is fascinating, and to give away the details would diminish the sheer awe of seeing this film for the first time. Suffice to say, there are whales, dolphins, sea turtles and many, many fish. There are also Frenchmen in speedos, pipes and lots of red hats. It is a documentary of not only the undersea world, but the people who explored it.
I don’t think Cousteau ever matched the brilliance of this film, and his later works became increasingly less shocking as they came to reflect more modern techniques and attitudes towards diving and environmentalism. Le Monde du Silence is where it all started, and of all the undersea documentaries made in the fifty years since, none has been more important.
It had been more than two months since my last visit to Goat Mountain, and recent rains have left it quite green and inviting. So, of course, I had to go. Someone fixed the fence I used to hop by the Grand Case Beach Club, so I headed up across from the airport, which ended up being a nice change of scenery. One of my goals was to investigate the possibility of caves near the summit, but there were only a few tiny cracks and holes. They did prompt the question: why are there bones in small caves? I’m not sure if scavengers bring bodies or body parts back to eat them, or if sick animals shelter in caves and die there. Maybe bones just stay put in little caves rather than being washed downhill by the rain.
I did see some interesting things, like a goat skull with a hatched gecko egg in it, a pair of goats, a cicada larva exoskeleton and some lovely views of Grand Case. On my way back I found a cluster of large, black beetles under a board and one poor individual being attacked by ants while trying to crawl away.
After my explorations were so richly rewarded at Creole Rock, I decided to stray from the typical route at Rocher Marcel as well. Instead of traveling around the rock, I headed straight out beside it and headed down a gradual slope in the general direction of Anguilla. While I didn’t find any particularly interesting topography, I did learn that the reef hits a sandy channel at about 13.5 meters which I took down to 15.5 meters (about 50 feet). This isn’t very deep, but it was interesting to me because a typical dive at this site maxes out at 25-30 feet.
In the sand, I found a couple large stingrays. A combination of overcast skies and relatively low visibility made it seem a little deeper than it was and a tad spooky. I headed back over the reef to return to the boat, but I have a hunch that the sandy channel may wrap all the way around the rock to where we were anchored. Perhaps next time I can figure out if that’s true.
After working in the shop this morning, I hopped on the dive boat to do some exploring and photography at some of the local dive sites. First up was Creole Rock, a site I’ve been to dozens of times. I headed off to the mini-wall just around the right-hand corner and tried to get some good shots of the schools of tiny fish that congregate near the overhang there. With some time left, I decided to take a bearing and head out away from the rock.
I passed the flat, sparsely populated area surrounding the rock, skipping from one freestanding coral head to the next. Before I knew it, I happened upon a long raised coral bed varying between eight and fifteen feet wide. It extended for hundreds of feet with sand on either side. There was also an almost-continuous overhang which met in some places to form tunnels from one side to the other that were a few tantalizing inches short of being suitable for swimming through.
It was very exciting to find a brand new area of an old, familiar site. There was abundant sea life as well, including schools of gigantic snapper, a southern stingray, a hawksbill turtle and all the regular tropical fish we see in the area.
My online research has indicated that there are two known bat caves on Saint Martin (the third and largest was destroyed in development some years back). After a couple months of anticipation, today I entered one for the first time. Located on Billy Folly, the hill behind the Pelican resort, I was able to find it using a combination of GPS coordinates and panorama photographs taken at the cave and posted to flickr.
After plotting the coordinates on Google Maps, I headed up behind the Pelican and parked near an expansive villa with the mysterious name Cleavage. I started down a small trail, but then veered off towards the summit of Billy Folly, doing a little rock climbing and crossing over the top. From there, I used the panoramic photos to identify the general location of the cave and soon found the small hole in the ceiling of the cave. Within, a bit of light gave me the general direction of the main entrance and I headed down the rocky cliff to reach it.
The entrance to the cave is a small arch, perhaps two feet high. Once inside, I discovered the cave is quite large, perhaps 20 feet tall in places and about 30 feet wide. Smaller caverns lead off in all directions from the floor and walls of the cave. Many are large enough to crawl into, but small enough to make that a bad idea if you are alone. Perhaps a half-dozen bats were hanging from the ceiling in the main chamber, while most apparently roost in the side passages. Periodically one or more bats would fly in circles around the cave. It was spooky, and awesome.
After exploring that cave, I headed around the base of the rocks and found two more caves, although I did not see any bats in them. The second cave was quite large, with a similar large main cavern with a small hole in the top that let in light. The third cave was the smallest, with an entrance you could walk through that quickly narrowed after about ten or fifteen feet with no significant crevices that I could see.
I look forward to future explorations of this cave, and perhaps a chance to search for additional caves in the area. After that, I will try to find the cave near Mont Rouge!
When hiking, it is very important to keep an eye out for bird pellets or animal droppings so you can collect them and analyze their contents. I typically carry some ziplock bags for storage, leaving some air in them to protect the contents while in my backpack. Below are some photos of what I believe are bird pellets that I collected on a recent walk. Bird pellets are made of indigestible matter (in this case primarily bones and fur) that are regurgitated by birds. I often see them beneath large trees where birds may roost, but in this case they were on a stone wall.
As you can see, this bird was primarily eating rodents. The bulk of the pellets was made of fur, but portions of the stronger bones, like the jaws and teeth, were still intact within the pellets. I did also find bits of beetle carapace, perhaps an hors d’oeuvr, as well. It may be interesting to note that there are no native rodents on the island, although mice and rats have been here for hundreds of years now. Of course, any migratory bird may also be used to eating rodents back on the continent where they are native.
Yesterday we spent a day at Pinel Islet with new team members D Money and Jessmaster J. While they snorkeled with Madam J, I headed across the island to investigate the mini-forest where my dwarf geckos live, as well as exploring a couple new snorkeling areas. As noted yesterday, I found the tiniest lizard I’ve ever seen. I also found and interesting cricket. The woods were drier than in previous visits and perhaps there was less to eat: when turning over rocks or logs to investigate, the usually shy anole Anolis gingivinus often immediately ran down from from a nearby perch to see if I had uncovered anything edible.
Walking around further, I found some large crevices in the rocky hillside, but they seemed uninhabited. I also did reconnaissance of potential snorkeling spots and took a few landscape photos of the island. After lunch, I headed back out with snorkel gear and explored three new areas.
The first was the tide pool area on the North Beach. There are quite a few large tide pools here, but they are very shallow, only a few inches deep, so they mostly hold algae and a few small fishes. Next, I headed out off the northeast beach and found that a small barrier reef creates a relatively sheltered lagoon near the shore that slopes down to about 12 feet deep. Swimming out through a cut, the reef drops down to about 30 feet on the outside and there are many beautiful coral formations. Finally, I did a drift snorkel over a large patch of shallow water between the two beaches. The current is very strong and the entire area, perhaps 100 meters or more in diameter, is less than two feet deep. Much like trees on a windy coastline, the soft corals were stunted and permanently swept to one side. I even saw an elkhorn coral growing in water so shallow the branches were growing downward. A very exciting site!
What’s smaller than a dwarf gecko? A baby dwarf gecko! I found this baby Sphaerodactylus sputator on Pinel today and I think he’s easily the smallest lizard I’ve ever seen. For scale, in the first photo he’s hiding in the folds of a crushed soda can, and in the others he’s climbing out of a regular size spice jar, like one of those McCormick’s ones. I just measured it and the hole he climbs out of is exactly 1/4″ in diameter. If you’ve seen a cuter little lizard, send me a photo.
Here’s another set of photos from the pier in Grand Case, taken while snorkeling with the 60mm macro lens. Taken between 4pm and 5pm or thereabouts, there were plenty of decorator crabs on the pier and lots of blennies. After experimenting with both the 85mm and 60mm macro lenses, I think the 60mm is probably a little easier to use when snorkeling: the focus seems a bit faster and the distance to subject is also reduced, which makes it easier to use smaller apertures for greater depth of field. On scuba it’s easier to remain stationary, so the 85mm can be advantageous for taking photos of skittish blennies without having to get as close.
I also discovered a technique to minimize movement when taking photos while snorkeling: dive down head first and then fin gently to remain stationary while taking photos upside-down. When doing this, adjust the strobes so they are firing down slightly when the camera is upside-down to achieve more natural lighting. If there is a current, try to position yourself so the current isn’t pushing you into the surface you are photographing, because in this head-down position it is easy to move up and down, but harder to move forward, backward, left or right.
The spotted eagle ray (Aetobatus narinari) is one of the most majestic fish we see around here, and one of the largest. On my way back from Baie Maria the other day, I stopped to snorkel off Molly Smith Point and spent a few very enjoyable minutes with this eagle ray as it meandered around the reef. As you can see in the video, this individual had a remora attached to it near its head.
