Susan's Blog - Cozumel Snorkeling Day 2

Okay, so this is the 2nd day of snorkeling and hopefully with the right settings so we got better pictures. Again, I start with just how aqua the water was!

The first place we went was the same Cielo Reef (Cielo means "Sky") that we went to on the first day. However, I think the pictures came out a lot better!!

The floor of the ocean here is almost entirely white sand with just a few grasses here and there, but no major coral formations. I haven't figured out why some of my pictures came out with a bluefish tint and other with the greenish-tint. I don't think it was due to the water color since I think all of where we were at Cielo reef was the very aqua-color.

This is a yellow stingray! The yellow stingray has a round pectoral fin disc and a short tail with a well-developed caudal fin. It has a highly variable but distinctive dorsal color pattern consisting of either light-on-dark or dark-on-light reticulations forming spots and blotches, and can rapidly change the tonality of this coloration to improve its camouflage. I was lucky enough to catch a couple pictures of it as it swam away.

Here I think I did much better at getting some good pictures of some starfish that were on the bottom. Some of them (like the first) was almost entirely brown while the 2nd one has the brown background but much brighter veining.

Tom snorkeling from behind :-)

We next got into an area that had more coral, and different types of fish. My favorite (since you'll see my trying to get pictures of them) are the Black Durgon or Black Triggerfish. They are blimp-shaped fish that look completely black except for bright lines running along the dorsal and anal fins. You'll see multiple pictures of these little black beauties later ...

A view of the bottom with the various corals.

Again, not sure why some of these are more "blue" tinted, but they also show the coral but also more of the Black Durban's.

This one is a turtle! Right in the middle of the picture and moving slightly towards the bottom, you should be able to see the sea turtle with his head pointing up towards the top.

This next batch are miscellaneous pictures, with some being better than others :-)

The next two pictures have a lobster ... although they may be a bit difficult to see!

Again, more of my favorite little Black Durbans.

This is an interesting coral on the bottom ... it looked like a paper sack ...

This one has two schools of fish ... one middle-bottom and one middle-top, and then a close-up in the 2nd picture.

This one is blurry, but you can see the school of fish in the lower-right corner.

Now we're back to the same Bermuda Chub's that we saw before. The Bermuda chub, Kyphosus sectatrix, is found in the Caribbean and off Florida, Bahamas, Bermuda, and in the Gulf of Mexico along coral reefs and walls. Its length is between 1 and 2 feet on average, with a maximum of 2.5 feet.

Then we saw another stingray, this time a Southern Stingray. In the first picture, it is not the easiest thing to see but if you look almost directly in the middle, and look at the whiter sand part in the middle, the look for a very straight black line. That is the tail, and the stingray goes out towards the right ... you can also see the two black eyes. The second picture, I attempted to zoom in and so it isn't focused as well, but you can see the tail along the white sand from the left edge (lower than center) at an up-and-right angle until you get to the body.

This is a different type of fish, perhaps a Midnight Parrotfish.

Another Black Durgon with a nice view of the coral.

These next two, I was attempting to get the yellow-and-black stripped fish, a type of damselfish called the Sergeant Major. It is white with a yellow top and has 5 vertical black stripes. The Bermuda Chub got in the way in the first one although I caught a few of the Sergeant Major's on the lower-right corner.

These are difficult to see, but the top 2 fish are Parrotfish.

Next are the angelfish, which you can see from their specific shape.

No idea what type these are, especially since they are really hard to see. They are mostly silver and may be Grey Snapper's.

A better view of a set of Sergeant Major's along with a couple Black Durban's thrown in for good measure, and a couple Parrotfish (I think).

This may be a French Angelfish (looking at the coloring)

I thought these were kinda nice, although again, not sure exactly the type. They don't have the right shape for an Angelfish, but I don't remember exactly what they mentioned for the type of fish for these. They have really brilliantly blue tails!

This one you can see a few little tiny fish up in the coral (bottom-center there is one that is hard to see but you can tell his little black eye, and then straight up to just above center there is a tiny black fish, and then almost exactly in the middle of the picture just right of the coral, a little tiny blue one).

Here we are getting into the last reef of the day, Paradise reef. You'll see quite a few pictures with what looks like a purple lace fan. These are Gorgonia ventalina, the purple sea fan. The little yellow ones may be baby Yellowtail Snapper.

And LOTS of Sergeant Majors'!

Okay, now you are getting just a little bit TOO close!

As you can tell, I really liked all of the different fan's and corals' at the bottom here, since I took lots of pictures of them.

These guys have a distinctive little tail, which may still be Princess Parrotfish.

This picture, I was really trying to get the coral in the lower-right corner, where you have a fan, but then also tube sponges and Gorgonian coral (the ones that look like trees)

Blurry, but a Princess Parrotfish.

These are a bit weird, but I was trying to get the tube sponges from directly above.

A few more fish ... first I think is an Angelfish, and the last is a Princess Parrotfish.

These next two also have a Yellow Stingray ... and you have to look closely since they really do a great job of camouflage! From directly in the middle, go a smidgen up and a smidgen to the left (first picture), and you can see a bit of white .. that is the stingray .... you can (if you look really close) see the outline of the body and tail, moving from there out to the left. In the 2nd picture, I get him a bit easier to see, almost directly in the middle, slightly below a green coral.

More coral with a few fish thrown in ...

In this one, you can see the little tube-shaped sponges in the middle, there is a fish hiding right below them. Not sure what type, but he's kinda cute.

That is all of the snorkeling! We also did a "Discover Scuba", which is basically Scuba for dummies :-) I have those on another page....