Smooth Goose-Neck Barnacles

This is a buoy floating at around 20 feet at Alcyone in the Cocos Island. I was surprised at the number of barnacles growing on it. This shot was taken at the end fo the dive when we were doing our safety stop. I got two shots of this, not easy as there was a bit of a current (everyone was drifting off into the blue about to surface and be picked up by the panga and I needed to stay with them).

These barnacles are free-swimming as larvae and as adults form a hard shell and live attached to submerged surfaces. Obviously these are adults but I saw lots of larvae swimming around at all depths. I tried to take some pictures of larvae but none were any good.

I really like the colors in this shot, the water was also very clear which made for a lot of detail.

Furry sea cucumber & Bumblebee shrimp

This is a furry sea cucumber, shot in the Turks and Caicos. These live on sandy sea floors and feed on whatever they find there. We were diving on a large sandy area with lots of these little guys crawling around. They are about 12 inches long and quite stocky. You can see a side-on photo here.

What is interesting about these guys is that they serve as a host to bumblebee shrimps who spend their lives on it. You can see three in this picture, the most obvious one is right in the middle of the picture. These shrimps are very small, between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch long. They are called ‘bumblebee’ because of the distinctive black and white stripes on their body. There are also some yellow marks on their claws.

You can see another picture here.

Old man of the sea

A white tip shark, about 6 feet long, resting on a ledge at about 80 feet at Alcyone in the Cocos Island. White tips hunt at night, sleep during the day and are one of the few sharks who are able to ‘breathe’ while not moving. By ‘breathing’ I mean that they are able to pump water across their gills.

I was able to get very close to this one, about 18 inches away and took six shots, four of which were at this angle and two were profile shots where I was able to get in closer.

I call this shot the old man of the sea because he was quite big for a white tip and you could see that he had been in a few fights.

Caribbean Reef Octopus

This little guy is a juvenile caribbean reef octopus, smaller than my fist. I took quite a few shots, and I was able to get close enough to switch to macro mode on my camera. I was not more that 6 inches away. It got scared and dug itself into the sand under the rock right next to it.

For some reason the eye looks quite mesmerizing.

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