For most of our 9 trips, to Bonaire.... we have stayed at Buddy Dive.
Our favorite thing about staying there is stepping off the dock.... making a short swim out to a great reef.
And we do that a lot.
It's a popular feature of this resort.... and makes for busy entry/exit point.
I generally use the short swim back in to fold up my camera.... so that when we get to the bottom of the ladder, I can just climb out.
But there is a lot going on underwater, at the bottom of that ladder.
On this day, I didn't pack up but instead spent some time shooting all those small critters,.... between the comings and goings of the divers.
The water was very shallow.... so, the sun from above and the flash from my strobes, made for interesting light in this pixture.
The Pederson Shrimp is small.... with a clear body and blue, violet markings on the body and long white antenna.
This shrimp lives in association with a sea anemone.
The anemone have stinging tentacles, so the shrimp must acclimate itself.... by pressing it's body and appendages against the tentacles for increasing periods of time.
After this it is able to move between the tentacles without getting stung.
But if it is separated from it's host for a few days, it will need to repeat the immunizing procedure.
The shrimp offers cleansing services to passing fish.... attracting them by waving it's antennae.
Fish visiting the cleaning station.... will remain stationary while their external parasites are removed and eaten by the shrimp.
Even allowing the shrimp to clean the inside of their gill covers and the mouth.
Eels, in this case a Spotted Moray.... like to wedge themselves into a crack or hole along the reef.
It gives them secure spot.... to watch the goings on and those that pass by.
Sometimes the whole Eel doesn't fit into the chosen spot.... so a scene like my first pixture here, is not uncommon at all.
In cases like this, Linda likes to glide in and give the tail a gentle touch.... just to see how the Eel will react.
She particularly likes to do this when I am on the other side of the coral head trying to get a pixture of the front end of that same Eel.
Generally the Eel will jump a little.... which causes me to jump a lot.
In this particular case, instead of jumping out the other side of his hole....the Eel whirled around.
Sticking his head out where his tail used to be.... now it was Linda's turn to jump.
Between the two of them and all of their jumping and whirling.... the sandy bottom got pretty stirred up.
If you look closely in the lower left corner of the frame.... you can still see some sand particles floating in the water.
And, if you listen hard enough.... you can still hear me giggling, as I watched the whole thing happen.
My wife is a brilliant woman.... in many, maybe even every way that you want to measure.
But in this case.... I am referring to her ability to find stuff.
Stuff for me to photograph.... especially small stuff.
On this particular day.... we were diving at Windsock on Bonaire.
We had gone there.... because the "board" at the dive shop, talked about some Seahorse sightings at this site.
And Linda will always mount a search for seahorses.
We were on our surface interval after the 1st dive.... and Linda was talking about something really small that she caught a glimpse of.
It was in the center of small of a large soft coral.... and she never got a clear look at it.
So, we decided to make a 2nd dive at the same site.... going again in search of Seahorses and now the elusive "little guy".
My amazing spotter led us back to that very same Soft Coral.... where we were able to find a take a pixture of this little guy.
A Sharpnose Pufferfish.... maybe 1/2 the size of your thumb.
He was in the middle of a very large and full soft coral.... which made for a splendid game of hide and seek.
