We headed from the north end of Baie aux Prunes around Pointe Prune without high expectations. There were scattered soft corals on a rocky bottom that seemed like it could have hosted more life. Things change, however, when we reached a natural arch just out of view of the beach. After swimming through the arch we found massive schools of a couple different kinds of fish. The smaller ones seemed to be herring, perhaps redear herring (Harengula humerali) and were present in the thousands. There were also schools of what looked like bonefish (Albula vulpes), which were much larger and present in the hundreds. Smaller groups of bar jack were hunting amidst the schools and several brown pelicans were diving down from above to fish in the shallow water.

Overall it turned out to be an amazing snorkel. Further out from the point there were a decent amount of tropical fish and small corals on the underwater rock formations, but the huge schools near the point were definitely the main attraction.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Explorations, Extreme Shallow Snorkeling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.