Thurs, 18 Jan

Thurs, 18 Feb another miserable morning, same ole, same ole ... windy, cloudy, and cool ... nothing scheduled for this morning either. after breakfast i took a few more bags and collected more garbage, and took a few photos ... trying to keep my reputation up :) some of the shells that the Sea Urchins leave after they die .... you can see their 10 fused plates easily when they are dead .... a background of purple Sea Fan coral some little crabs ... Romeo and Juliet ? ....Running Bear and Little Whitedove? ... colorful snails, tightly attached to rocks, feeding on algae ... on the way back through the trees ... more hermit crabs ... having a party, feeding on an Indian Almond ... at lunch it was decided we would go out to White Sands to do more stingray behavior observations. mind you ... it is still a nasty day ... but i am anxious to get in the water as much as i can since my days here are numbered. this is the first place i did observations ... the white sandy bottom, on the outside of the reef, ....that gives away to a dark scary abyss ... my first time i was a total 'newbee' and didn't really know what i was looking for as far as observations go. i've watched a lot of videos and talked with Marie alot since then; although have not really been able to put it into practice, coz the other times i've gone out, i've not seen a stingray long enough to really observe it. today was different. there were a lot of stingrays in the sandy bottom so they were really easy to spot and easy to observe. the idea is to find one, and follow it ... for 2 hours .... and record whatever it does. i found one, then it swam away after a few minutes. i easily spotted another, and followed it for the duration. it was a cool thing to do, when you really understand what it is doing. ...actually spending all of it's time going about trying to find food and then eat it. they are in about 40 feet of water, and you are above them. so if you don't make a lot of movements, and act like a log or a piece of floating algae, they don't know you are there ... or don't care. most of the time there were 3 stingrays within sight ... and at one point there were 5 ... all going about their business of finding food. towards the end, i was getting cold (there was NO sun at all), and you aren't moving around much, so there isn't much chance to warm yourself up; but i was determined to stick it out. so i was kind of swimming around in circles to try to generate some body heat; still keeping an eye on "my" stingray. i looked up, saw the boat, and saw that someone was already in ... ok, ... i can quit now. yeahhhhh ....so i'm swimming toward the boat ... looking at all the fishes in the sea .... when all of a sudden ... OMG OMG OMG ... my TURTLE!!!!!!!!!!! finally !!!!!!!!!!!! it was a HawksBill swimming right towards me. i was so excited ... no longer cold! i turned my camera on and followed it. AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME ! i SWEAR ... before i take another trip like this one ... i WILL invest in an underwater housing for my 'regular' camera!!!!!!!!!!!! ....this little underwater camera i bought, is digital, and is better than the throw-aways ... but, nothing compared to what i'd be getting if i had a 'proper' camera ... so ...here are some photos ... the best i can do. i'm not sure why, but the video seems to turn out better than the still shots ... maybe because we are both moving .... it's about 3min long. check it out at www.youtube.com, search "Glovers - HawksBill Turtle" Marie and i on the way back ... i was SO EXCITED !!!!!!!!!! who cares that the weather isn't very nice ??????????? i'm in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, on an Atoll, .... and saw a TURTLE !!!!!!!!!