There were plenty of underwater curiosities at Turtle Reef yesterday. A lined seahorse was hiding in the seaweed near the reef, an urchin seemed to be eating a lobster and blueheads were gorging on unattended sergeant major eggs. I also saw some baby urchins with shells less than an inch in diameter and, of course, turtles.

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.

Blennies can be difficult to identify: they are small, often their bodies are hidden, their colors and patterns may be highly variable, the sexes often look different. They are also very cute. I photographed these at the Grand Case pier in a few feet of water.

After seeing so many incredible creatures while snorkeling the Grand Case pier, I had to go back on scuba so I could take photos more easily. I ended up doing a 95 minute dive with a maximum depth of 3 meters yesterday morning. Compared to my evening snorkel (approx. 5pm), there were far fewer decorator crabs out and about, but there were still plenty of creatures to photograph.

One highlight was a mantis shrimp. These amazing creatures have perhaps the most complicated eyes of any organism, and the fastest movement: their unique forearms feature a saddle that acts as a spring to strike out at up to 23 meters/second, allowing them to crush shells and then eat the mollusks inside. There were also various decorator crabs that were out and about, and very camouflaged. Unfortunately, decorator crabs are very hard to identify, largely because they are covered in living organisms.

Below are some macro photos from a recent dive at a new site near Marigot that we’re calling Little Canyons. It’s a shallow site that features a row of little rock canyons covered in corals and sponges. I got a bunch of photos of blennies, and a triton’s trumpet eating a sea star. I also spent quite a bit of time trying to photo the little crabs that hide in anemones, with mixed results. All things considered, it’s a great new site with lots of life and, because it’s shallow, great colors underwater.

We took our first night dive in a long while out at Turtle Reef, and it was quite lovely. For starters, I got my wish when we saw a spanish lobster Scyllarides aequinoctialis just after descending. We also encountered velvet shrimp jumping around on the sand and a cute decorator crab covered in bits of sponge. Corals were feeding and tube-dwelling anemones had emerged from the sand for the night. Seeing the web burrfish was also a special treat. We also saw a couple turtles trying to get some sleep and a few moray eels on the prowl.

Jenn and I hopped on the boat to Creole Rock and Roche Marcel to do some super slow diving. At Creole Rock, we did a 65-minute dive where we only went about 100 meters away from the boat and had a maximum depth of 6 meters. For photography, this is probably the ideal type of dive, especially with the 85mm macro lens. As we crept along the sea grass, sandy areas and shallow reef, we found loads of interesting fish, crustaceans and other creatures.

Next, we headed around Bell Point to Roche Marcel where we did a shorter dive at a slightly quicker pace and more tiny creatures. Thanks to Stuart’s directions, we also found the almost-cave that is a large hole in the rock covered with colorful encrusting sponges.

One of the great things about Octopus Diving is that, when they have the chance, they go out in search of new reefs and other potential dive spots. That’s how they found Chris’s Reef and Kusasa Reef and what led them to start diving Roche Marcel and Molly Beday. Even better, if you are friends with them, you might get to go out looking for new dive sites with them. This is how we ended up at a couple new spots in the general vicinity of Tintamarre.

The first spot looked like a 15 meter deep reef in the channel between Anguilla and Tintamarre. We motored out, dropped in and found it to be 35 meters deep, 98% sand and 2% sea urchin. I guess you win some and you lose some. It was still quite fun, though. The red heart urchins looked like underwater coconuts and long-spined sea biscuit was motoring around the bottom pretty quickly for an urchin.

Heading closer to Tintamarre, we dropped in between Japanese Reef and Circus. The reef was generally pretty similar to the nearby official dive sites, but once we drifted down towards Circus, we did get to have fun in a large cave system with a number of openings and passages. After spending a while down there, we popped up above the cave, surrounded by our own bubbles gradually percolating through the holes in the reef.

Also, as you may have noticed from the photos, the dome scratch repair was pretty successful. I think there may be some optical distortion in spots from uneven sanding, but it’s a lot less noticeable than giant scratches!

Formerly called Sec de Grand Case, Turtle Reef is a nice reef in Grand Case Bay that reaches up to 4 feet below the surface of the water. True to its name, I was able to photograph a couple turtles on the dive. The hawksbill is more common and more tolerant of divers, while the green turtle is more wary. Often, as you can see on this specimen, the green turtles have tumor-like growths that I believe are caused by some sort of infectious disease. As they get larger, they can completely cover one or both of the turtle’s eyes, which is presumably fatal as the turtle could no longer find food or escape predators.