Crashboat

Wow, have we been busy. Seems like I had more time to write before. Now I'm way behind.

Some of you have already seen the new snorkeling pictures on Flickr. Thanks for looking and sharing your comments.

A couple of times lately we've ventured off the "friendly confines" of "our"reef off Shacks Beach down to Playa Crashboat, about 15 minutes down the coast from here.

It's a whole different world! First, Crashboat has a sandy bottom for a long way out into the ocean. Except for the coral and the life it supports on the pier and the off-shore platforms (more about that in a moment), there's a lot of open, relatively uninteresting sand.

But just a couple minutes swim north of the beach, the sandy bottom gives way to a amazingly fascinating reef, an are called Natura or Natural. It's not at all like "our" reef here; there are none of the caves and deep holes. Instead it's a much flatter, shallower reef, but with new fascinations.

We saw more sergeant major fish than we've ever seen before - hundreds of them! And little baby ones! The babies look just like adult sergeant majors but they are tiny, less than an inch long. And blue parrotfish. And bright red cardinalfish and reef squirrelfish. And a huge porcupinefish hiding in a hole in the reef.

We saw several pairs of Puerto Rican (aka banded) butterflyfish. And a little tiny baby angelfish, its black body and yellow stripes brilliant against the coral.

On Wednesday we went back to Crashboat but this time we snorkeled out by the pier and the fueling platforms. That was yet another new world. The water is so blue and clear you can see all the way to the sandy bottom, 40 or 50 feet down at the platforms.

We were in swarms (that's really the only way to describe it) of sergeant majors (check out the picture above and others on Flickr). But that doesn't do it justice. They were everywhere! And just below the surface were schools of mackerel scad - those little silver guys catching the sun. We saw a trumpetfish, hanging head down next to a coral-covered piling. There is a lot more to write about but it's been a long time since we posted so I'm gonna end this one now and put it up.

Hope you enjoy the pics.