Underwater creatures

Me and Amy playing underwater--this was on a boat dive near the tiny island of Klein Bonaire...an uninhabited island a half mile from Bonaire.
This is a long-spined squirrel fish. They hide under overhangs, usually a few of them together.
Big ol honking parrotfish--probably close to two feet long, which is huge for this variety of parrotfish.
This is a midnight parrotfish. I had never seen such a thing, and you cannot tell it by this photo, but he was a big ol boy. At least three or four feet long, and thick---and somehow, he looked intelligent. The light blue on him was actually more turqouise than it looks here. He was remarkable. I think we saw him around 50 feet or so.
This is a stoplight parrotfish but you cannot tell from this pic how gorgeous they are. The trick to parrotfish is that they can change sexes! Have you ever heard such an insane thing?
This is the Queen Angelfish. She is my new favorite. She is called a queen based on that marking on her forehead that looks like a crown. This one does not show her color nearly as vibrantly as it is in real life.
This shows her color a little better, but it is still muted too much. They are almost neon looking.
This is a Black Bar Soldier Fish. Or a red Squirrel Fish--it is hard for me to tell the difference
Same deal--one or the other.
I thought these were Rock Beauty juveniles--but now I think it is a Foureye Butterfly fish. It is hard to tell if you cannot see the shape of her face.
This is a Rock Hind. They kind of creep me out. They can get up to two feet long--but mostly we saw them at a foot or so. They are kind of grouper like.
Sergeant Major--these seem to travel in a pack, and are only about four inches long.
This is a spotted drum. They are really gorgeous--with long fins. We saw a baby one and he looked like a bouncy ball out of the quarter machine, if it was wearing a dice costumeall out of the quarter machine, if it was wearing a dice costume.
This is a female parrotfish in the initial stage.
This is one of my favorite fish--the supermale parrotfish. I wish you could see his mouth--his teeth are really white, and he has white lips, so it looks like he is smiling at you.
Trumpet fish hiding in the plant.
Trunk fish. I LOVE these guys. They are flat on the bottom, and if you look at them from the front, they are bell-shaped. They are not really big--maybe six inches long.
These are pretty small skinny fish--yellowhead wrasse. Their colors are really vibrant, and they go really fast.
Amy loves these fish, I have no idea. We called them hidey fish, as it seemed like they would wait til we were past before they would move....very shy fellers. I think they are gross, but that is probably because they are speckled like eels so they startle me if you only see part of them.
This is a French Angelfish. If I ever get a saltwater aquarium, I will have to have one of these.


This is a flounder--you mostly see them hiding in the sand, but I got to see one on the move out in the open water. It was wild. I also saw one turn a corner and settle in--as he moved, his outside edges were turquoise, until he hit the sand---then he turned white and disappeared. It is pretty cool. They look like mops to me.
This is a filefish. I love the yellow fins. We almost always saw them in pairs, and one would look like this

and one would look like this one. These are pretty.
That is the tail of a spotted moray eel. That I did not hyperventilate at this stage was impressive, but I was bound and determined to get a picture of him. I re-thought it when he turned around in his cave and stuck his head out. And so did his wife. I was out of there.
This is a doctorfish. He has a little kissy mouth
That is a crab. Obviously
Now these kill me---these are called cowfish. If you look close, you will see little tiny horn looking things sticking off his forehead.
Isn't the pattern incredible? It is a honeycomb cowfish
This is a cocoa damselfish. They are pretty small, and a little agressive. Good thing they are not big, or it would be dangerous to be in the water with him.
Just a couple of inches long. There are dozens of kinds of damselfish, and I hope I got a pic of the really pretty ones that are black with turquoise spots on the top that look like sapphires.
I could not believe he stopped and looked directly at me. They dart around really quickly so that was a rare sighting.
This is a school of blue tang. They tend to travel in loose packs as well. They are really pretty--kind of the same shape as the doctorfish but a much darker almost black body with royal blue fins.
I cannot figure out what these are--they are weird blue and black and sometimes have yellow on them. They are kind of long and slender.
This is another trumpetfish. This is how they hide--in sponge or greenery or something--they wait until you go by, standing real still--they wait until everyone passes by then move on about their business. They also change colors, I saw yellow, turqoise, blackish, almost clear, purple--you name it.
Barracuda. Not terribly big, maybe two feet long. They are just ugly, but you should see them with their mouths open--all kinds of tiny sharp teeth in there. They don't bother people though.
This pic is cool because it has a shrimp hiding in it. See the purple sticking out at the top of the anenome? That is shrimp parts.

Well that is a start---I know I am missing s.ome good ones like the spotted eagle ray, some other eels, etc....but its a start! I have not even started editing the coral and sponge stuff. There were some beautiful colors to be seen---with 100 foot visibility, the colors are so much more vibrant than anywhere I have been