Pinel Islet and Little Key are two small islands in the marine reserve. Pinel is a popular snorkeling destination, while Little Key is seldom visited. Strong winds and surf over the past week left the conditions less than optimal, with relatively poor visibility on both sides of Pinel. We snorkeled in three locations: the backside (sea side) of Pinel, the front side (St. Martin-facing) side of Pinel, and a circumnavigation of Little Key.

I took my new 85mm macro lens underwater for the first time, and it wasn’t the most practical choice for the situation. As you can see from the photos, it has the potential to be great to shoot small, flighty fishes. At the same time, it is difficult to use (as any lens would be) for snorkeling as it is hard to maintain a fixed position. Debris in the water also made it difficult to focus at times, when the camera focused on the debris rather than the subject.

Still, we had an excellent exploration, particularly when we swam out to Little Key for the first time. The coral there is generally healthier than that in the designated snorkeling area of Pinel. We found a scorpionfish, schools of young grunts with a few yellowtail snappers mixing in, trumpetfish and many other creatures. The general topography is shallow corals mixed with sea plants on the side facing Pinel, which shifts to sandy and grassy shallows facing St. Martin. Wrapping around the island, facing St. Barths, there is deeper water, maybe 20-25 feet with various soft corals and sponges, often growing on the dead skeletons of large elkhorn corals.

Last night I made a brief excursion to photograph some nocturnal animals and found a fair number of them on a short walk. I encountered several beetles, the large black one with the iridescence gave off a very strong minty, but musky smell when touched. There were also a couple species of moths, which hopefully I can identify later, a hemipteran and a wasp. The best insect was a mantis fly, which is a name given to many insects from a family related to lacewings that have front legs that resemble those of the praying mantis – which is a great example of convergent evolution, and looks cool.

The most interesting sighting was an anole in the process of eating a beetle. I was also struck by the shyness of geckos. For an animal that can speed across any surface with velcro toes, it seems like they should be less afraid of a passing photographer. They are, however, the only lizard that seems unafraid to sit on a wall where they are entirely uncamouflaged.

The ghost condos of Happy Bay are inhabited primarily by wasps, builders of nests in both paper and mud. One notable exception was a large pile of millipede bodies on the porch of one unit. The condos themselves were abandoned near-completion with a just a bit of wiring and finishing left to do. New bathtubs sit in bathrooms waiting to be installed. Was it just an inconvenient hurricane that stopped development, or were there other forces at play?

After visiting La Savane, I walked the Rue de Friars’ Bay and some side roads in that area. On the hills above Happy Bay, I tried to photograph the large sulfurs that live on the island, but found it difficult as they would only alight for a moment at a time. The wind made it difficult to capture the small, odd-shaped spiders on the hill as well. In the end, my easiest subject was the largest and most succulent one I encountered.

La Savanne is, I suppose, a suburb of Grand Case. I’m not sure if there is an actual town there or just a sign. At any rate, today I spent some hours in a field there and saw many interesting creatures.

My favorites were:

• A fuzzy, yellow-green beetle.
• A colorful caterpillar that I had not seen before.
• A couple different small, green Orthopterans.
• An impressively regal white moth with black and red markings.
• Several interesting spiders, including one living in a pocket of web and another that seemed to be guarding an egg case shaped like a spiky ball.

Additionally, there were many familiar butterflies, some other small beetles, some very small freshwater fish and a horse skull guarding a garden.

This morning I headed up Goat Mountain (its vastly inferior actual name being First Stick Hill) and walked along the ridge to Bell Hill, continuing out to Bell Point. I returned on the hillside near the sea then climbed what I now call The Valley of Stones to return to Grand Case.

For much of my walk it was cloudy and rainy, so the going was rather difficult. I was also forced to hop several fences en route and traverse a considerable amount of steep, densely forested land. The area seemed very much like jungle, but probably this was mostly because of the rain. Near Bell Point I finally reached an area of grassy scrubland which was much easier to travel and the sun came out. Towards the end of my walk, there was an odd area with many hanging vines at the foot of the Valley of Stones. The Valley was quite odd as well, being comprised of many large boulders on a steep slope.

During the course of my walk I saw many things, some of which I will now list:

• A colorful fly on a piece of lizard poop.
• Many white larvae of some sort that seemed to be tended by ants.
• A mating pair of Great Southern Whites (Ascia monuste). Incidentally, I have found online a great resource for the Lepidoptera of the French Antilles by which I can identify most of the species I have seen.
• A strange plant with bright orange thorns.
• A wide variety of spiders of many shapes and colors.
• Two goats with their heads stuck in the fence. Their horns seem to make it difficult for them to pull their head back between the wire grid. The first was terrified by my approach, but I was able to grab its horns and guide its head back through the fence, at which point it bounded away as fast as it could. The second I had planned to free on my return, but I did not end up returning by in the same direction. Shortly past the second, I found a pile of goat bones right at the fence. I would guess that in most cases the goats are eventually able to free themselves, otherwise there would be very few living goats. Perhaps I can go back tomorrow and see if he is still stuck. I feel some remorse over leaving him.
• An arboreal plant that was quite common in the forested ridge, living on many different species of tree.
• A Mimic (Hypolimnas misippus), of which I did not get particularly good photographs. According to the French Antilles Lepidoptera site, “This species comes from the Old World, where females are mimics of the African Monarch, Danaus chrysippus (Linnaeus). It may have been introduced via the slave trade, H. misippus is probably not a permanent resident in all islands where it has been observed.”
• What seemed to be a very small, blue dragonfly about 1/2″ long. I was not able to get a good photo.
• A very cute pair of goat kids sheltering in some rocks at the top of Bell Hill.
• A great number of a caterpillar that I had not previously seen, and a pupa that had been parasitized by wasps.
• A brown cricket hiding in a dried leaf that may have been used to conceal a chrysalis.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable excursion, although I returned home exceedingly thirsty, having drained my water bottle some time earlier. Photos below.

I have a few more photos from yesterday’s dives. The first set is from a wreck near The Proselyte. Little remained of the ship, but nearby there were large mounds of rock covered in sponges and corals that were quite interesting…and divers in Santa hats.

We also made further explorations of the area around Creole Rock. Late in the day, it was a bit dark and spooky underwater. As we were leaving the familiar parts of Creole Rock, Sally found an injured spadefish. As we continued on, the sea floor became like a scrubland with small sponges, corals and sea grasses and a variety of small fish hiding amongst them. Not a place where one would guide divers looking for excitement, it was an interesting chance to see a terrain not frequently explored. In many of these photographs, I had the background underexposed, which makes them look a bit light landscapes taken on a starry night.

Today we went out to dive a number of spots that I have not been to previously, which was quite a treat. The first was a large rock or very small island called Molly Beday. Although it is a known dive site (we found an abandoned mooring when we went down), I don’t think it is in common use these days.

We anchored and dove on the side of the island facing St. Martin, and it was basically a fairly steep slope with large, coral and sponge covered rocks trailing down to the ocean floor. There were quite a few nice elkhorn corals, which we don’t see a lot around here. We also found an old porcupinefish that seemed to be blind in one eye. The reef seemed quite healthy and the slope and large boulders made it easy to take some nice photos. It isn’t a convenient site to reach, but it was rather rewarding.

Today we undertook one of the most exciting explorations I’ve ever done. With a rental car, we headed to the southern end of Baie de l’Embouchure where an inlet connects Étang aux Poissons with the ocean. This is where I noticed yesterday that there are mangroves at the very edge of the sea. You may see the photo and think that a single small clump of trees seems inconsequential, but it is the only mangrove I have found thus far that doesn’t stand in contaminated, unswimmable waters.

We entered the water in the bay and swam to the outermost mangrove. The floor was a mix of shallow sea grasses and deeper (but still only perhaps 5 feet deep) sandy channels. There were scores of small fishes schooling and numerous young barracuda. As we approached the mangrove, we began to see checkered puffers (Spphoeroides testudineus) alone or in small groups.

From the well-lit shallows, it was a sudden transition at the edge of the mangroves. Fishes swam amongst the mangrove roots and young lobsters clustered in great numbers. There were also clusters of anemones, which may prove difficult to identify.

Though it could often be said, the photos truly do no this locale no justice. In the nearby area, we saw several very speedy crabs and a small fish that rests vertically, but turns on its side to swim. Perhaps it likes to keep one eye on the lookout for predators from above.

After exploring the mangroves, we swam through the bay and out to a small island that was separated from the shore by very shallow water. In just a few hundred yards, we had traversed several types of sea grass beds, sandy banks, stony shoals and mangroves. Truly an extraordinary site for Extreme Shallow Snorkeling that deserves more attention!

Yesterday I headed to The Butterfly Farm (which I will post about separately), but my travels actually took me quite a bit beyond there to the town of Oyster Pond at the French/Dutch border. My route was down the airport road, past Cul de Sac and Orient Bay to The Butterfly Farm, then around the seaward side of the Étang aux Poissons and then around the coastline to Oyster Pond. On the way back, I returned along the coastline, then on the inside of Étang aux Poissons to French Quarter, where I took a bus back to Grand Case.

En route I saw many interesting things. Since the morning was cloudy, I was able to get a couple close shots of the local anole lizards, including one that shows the orange neck-flap, although it is not fully extended. I was also able to get my first decent shot of the large sulfur butterfly. In the marsh across from The Butterfly Farm I was lucky enough to witness the large white butterfly laying its yellow eggs. There was also an egret/heron type bird that was at least twice as big as the other ones I’ve seen around here.

After traversing the seaward side of the fish pond, I found a shallow bay where the mangroves extend to the ocean. Perhaps this is the best (or only) place to snorkel the mangroves in uncontaminated water. Not wanting to head back the way I came, I was forced to ford the inlet through chest-high water with my shoes and camera gear hoisted above my head. Perhaps not the smartest thing I have done with my camera, but at least I did have the presence of mind to test my route without my camera first.

The area past this bay was quite lovely, a scrub-land that reminded me a bit of the American southwest. Returning past the mangroves, I found a couple jellyfish that seemed to be trapped and an interesting duck.