One of the cannons at Plaza Las Glorias.
Tiny Banded Coral Shrimps Stenopus Hispidus inside the cannon. Fire or Red Boring Sponge below. John & student diver Conducting an Open-Water class Spotted Butterflyfish Chaetodon ocellatus. Not a great shot - only included here because these guys are pretty common in NJ in late summer/fall. But not this big.
A Whitespotted Filefish Cantherhines macrocerus, with no white spots. Gray Cornucopia Sponge Niphates digitalis at right. Nurse Shark Ginglymostoma cirratum
A shy Coney Epinefelus fulvus - a sort of small sea bass.
Another Coney, and another peering out from behind the rock.
Bluestripe Lizardfish Synodus saurus. A similar type is found in our own waters. Caribbean Spiny Lobster Panulirus argus. I tried to pick one up in a restaurant holding tank. Not as easy as it looks.
Colors get lost in long shots. Columbia Reef
A school of fast-swimming Horse-eye Jacks Caranx latus.
Yellowtail Snapper Ocyurus chrysurus
Gray Angelfish Pomacanthus arcuatus. These guys are placid and relatively easy to photograph.
Yet another Coney, hovering above a dreaded Black Sea Urchin Diadema anellarum. ( Touch one, and you'll see why. ) Also, Lettuce Coral Agaricia above the urchin. A large Black Grouper Mycteroperca bonaci. It's not very black, but like many fishes, they are very good at changing color.
Longspine Squirrelfish Holocentrus rufus
A long shot over Yucab Reef (?)
Queen Angelfish Holacanthus ciliaris
These are the most skittish of the three common types of Angelfish, and the hardest to get on film. Red Finger Sponge Haliclona Rubens and green Boulder Coral Montastrea annularis in the background.
The same guy, still cooperating. The Green Algae in the background is some species of Halimeda
( sometimes called "disk algae." )
A beached schooner barge. Compare the hull form with a square barge.
The schooner barge was the final development of the working sailing ship. The design originally evolved in the 1870s on the Great Lakes, where it was found that sailing ships could be more profitably towed from place to place than sailed. No longer subject to the vagaries of the wind, such trips could be made on a scheduled basis, and with reduced labor costs. The idea spread into general use, resulting in the conversion of many sailing ships into barges. Ironically, most of the vessels that were converted to schooner barges were not actually schooners, but square-rigged ships. Square-riggers, with their large and expensive crews of skilled sailors, became uneconomical to operate in the face of ever-improving steam power, while more efficient schooners managed to compete for a few years longer.