Many, perhaps even most, fish will turn if they feel that you are invading their space.
This, as you can imagine, makes for a lot of side (or even butt) shots of the intended subject.
So, the idea of getting a full frontal face shot becomes a goal for me.
I pretty much got there with this pixture of a Scrawled Filefish.
If you allow for the fact.... that he was only willing to do it if he could keep the stock of a soft coral between us.
This beast is a Clinging Crab.... a Hairy Clinging Crab, I believe.
They are most often a reddish brown.... although this particular guy looks to be more grey/brown to me.
They have numerous spines on their walking legs and claw arms.... and sharp spines lining the front edge of their wrist section just before the claws.
They inhabit caves and recesses in 15 to 45ft if water.... and like their name would imply, they like to cling to the sides and roofs of those caves and recesses.
Looking up and finding one of these guys looking down at you, makes them all the more creepy to me.
One of the well known dive sites on Bonaire is the Hilma Hooker.... a wreck located in about 90ft of water.
On this day, during our dive there, Lydia found the handiwork of some previous diver.
A pretty darn good use of an old piece of rope don't you think?
As you might imagine eels are pretty flexible.... and very much like to wind themselves in amongst the coral heads.
I would imagine because it provides them protection from predators.... and serves to camouflage them from their prey.
Most of the time, if we look and maybe wait a little, we can find the head.... and that is what I prefer to shoot.
But sometimes, our search and patience turns up nothing but the tail.... although, I am sure that they are somehow watching our every move.
This is a rare shot of the man behind the camera.... me.
I don't know if you can take selfies underwater.... but if you can I don't know how. So, me on the front side of the camera is a rare thing.
Lydia took this pixture of me one one of our dives at Karpata.
I am happy to say that I have lost weight since then.... as the neck roll in this pixture looks pretty significant.
We have a granddaughter who spent many years competing as a gymnast.
Our family album has lots of pixtures of her hanging, often upside down, from playground equipment.
The eels that we see while diving, in this case a Goldentail Moray, often remind me of her.
As we often see them hanging out of crevices in the coral at odd angles.
This nearly transparent guy, going about his business inside of a vase sponge is a Shrimp.
I am not sure exactly which one.... but I am going to guess a Peppermint Shrimp.
It is not one that we see often and even with the ability to blow up the pixture.... I can't find anything in my reference books that exactly matches his markings.
So, from now on I can call the many repeats (different pixtures of regular offenders).... "aquarium shots".
A reference to the point I was making in my last post.... that if these critters were in your aquarium you would study them and their behaviors at length many from different angles.
So here is a Lionfish for your "aquarium shot" collection.
Look how hard it is to pick out his eye amongst all of those stripes. Then, think back to my post about the role that hiding the eye plays in fish camouflage.
A Spotted Scorpionfish doing that thing that they do.... camouflage, in the interest of being one with their environment.
But as I look at this particular pixture I am thinking.... underwater gargoyle.
A pixture, yet again, of a Spotted Cleaner Shrimp on an Anemone.... a couple of my favorite subjects.
As I get ready to post it, I find myself wondering if you find the repeats boring.
But then I am struck by two thoughts....
I don't find it boring to take pixtures of the same subjects over and over again.
If you had a salt water aquarium.... you would likely spend hours watching the inhabitants of that space doing their thing.
Sometimes the names for the various creatures we find under the sea are just right.... perhaps even obvious.
This is a Batwing Crab.
Can you see it why he has that name?
Here again is a pixture of an Eagle Ray.
And again, I apologize for the quality as he is kind of off in the distance and moving even further away.
We often see rays of other smaller species bury themselves in the sand to lay in wait for prey.
I didn't realize that the big guys like the Eagle Ray did that same thing.... but here he is swimming away with the sand from a being buried, still on his back.
Here comes an Arrowcrab.... tiptoeing through the anemone.
Really more like using his very long and gangly legs to step over the branches of the purple tipped anemone.
If you have the ability to zoom in, you can make out his two beedy eyes.... they are mounted on either side, at the base of the what can only be described has his pointy head.
