Curacao (picture intense)

[Reefd Up]

Muahahaha...now there's someone else with natural reef pictures other than Tim on here!

Will and I went to Curacao for our honeymoon.  We did our confined scuba training at Aquatic Realm in Centerville, then finished our open-water certification at Lion's Dive in Curacao.  We went to Mushroom Forest, which is the dive you see for most of the scuba magazines on Curacao.

While we were there, we saw 6 cuttlefish (most amazing experience ever!), an octopus, 2 eels out hunting, flying gunnards, trumpet-fish, flounder, fireworms, stonefish, corals taller than Will, and the usual assortment of tangs, angels, triggers, etc.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.  They were all taken with an underwater disposable camera, so excuse the poor quality.  Also, some of the pictures were taken at 40+ feet below the surface.

Tugboat


Pretty scene


Big school of fish


Coral with large feather duster

[Reefd Up]

Most gorgonians there were taller than Will


Place was called Mushroom Forest because the coral formations looked like giant mushrooms

[Reefd Up]

Eel hunting


Eel hunting part 2


Coral with Christmas tree worms


Stonefish


Parrotfish


Flounder (we actually watched this guy change his camouflage colors...cool!)


More to come later!

[jungliztkruger]

<--- jealous

[jd]

Very cool Nikki! Got any more?

[Reefd Up]

Yeah, but those are the coolest ones.  I have two photos of the octopus, but you can barely see him.  I'm just happy he was out during the daytime.

[lazylivin]

Sara says, it is always about the corals. Where are the wedding pics!

[Joel]

In the pics with the stone fish and the parrot - are those reef balls? Looks like it.

I like the mangrove snapper in the eel pictures, looking for a easy free meal to steal away from the eel.

Neat pics - looks like fun.

Joel

[Reefd Up]

Hey Joel!

Yes, in one area they had reef balls set everywhere.  Curacao really seems to care about their reefs (yay tourism)...so they're trying to improve many of their dive sites.  I'll have to look on the map and see which dives we did.  I remember we went to Tugboat, Mushroom Forest, Lion's Dive, and a few others.

Thanks for the ID on the snapper.  I didn't have a clue what that was...but thought it was really neat!

Oh, forgot to mention.  On the Mushroom Forest dive, there were hydroids in the water EVERYWHERE!  They were really long and stringy...so they kept getting wrapped around my arms and legs.  I came home looking like I had chicken pox from the stings.  Uggggh, stung up on the honeymoon.  Soo fun. 

[aquavista99]

Muahahaha...now there's someone else with natural reef pictures other than Tim on here!

Thanks for sharing your Curacao dive adventures with the club, Nikki!  What did you think of the star coral Mushroom Forest?   Did you take any photographs of your dive trips from above the water as well?