Part III "Colors Of The Reef"

[Jim Kelly-Evans]

My underwater adventure today in St. Barth was in the Marine Park at Les Gros Ilets, nearby Gustavia harbor. The relatively shallow depths of the reef allow for nice, long dives. The variety of sea life is really amazing.

 

[amyb]

This was one photo dive to remember. Thanks, Jim

 

[KevinS]

Nice to see one of the coral “farms” where they attempt to grow new coral.

 

[cec1]

Yes . . . truly amazing! Thanks for posting these beautiful scenes.

 

[Jim Kelly-Evans]

Look closely at the second photo of the sea anemone and see if you can spot the three tiny 1" cleaner shrimp!

From Wiki "The spotted cleaner shrimp lives in close association with a sea anemone, either Condylactis gigantea, Lebrunia danae, Bartholomea lucida or Bartholomea annulata.[5] It lives among the tentacles and up to six individual shrimps have been seen on one sea anemone. It swishes its antennae around in the water to attract the attention of passing reef fish. When they pose motionless beside the anemone, it emerges from the tentacles and removes and feeds on external parasites and flakes of loose skin from the fish.[1][2] It even enters the mouths of fishes and cleans behind their gill covers apparently with no likelihood that it will get eaten."