I am falling behind my trip reports (do snorkling/fish watching trips fall under the category of sampling trip reports when it comes to posting here?) so you will not hear of me being chased by a snapping turtle in here. Instead I will talk about my big vacation. I will be trying something new here, linking the slightly off topic but still fish/location/wildlife pics from my facebook while doing the more on topic ones from my albums here.

This vacation was paid for by my parents as a birthday trip and they did all expenses from luggage fees to travel so sadly I could not bring a net with me or visit the Fishing Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale.

Our first stop was Fort Lauderdale and though I could not go to the fishing hall of fame (which I hope has famous fish, you know the ones which even non fish people would know by name) I did take picture of the fish art and it was everywhere. I mean everywhere. No city more than Ft. Lauderdale loves its fish.

Fish art was on the walls of the airport





Both pics are part of one giant mural

Pillars in the airport





the sides of buses



hotel benches





I also seen a variety of snails, ducks, and lizards. I am not sure how on topic they are or fish art is so will not post them here, instead saving tetrapods for the posts with actual fish.

Next up my after going on the ship (which was very fun but not fish based) we went to nassau for our first fish excursion.

On Nassau we waited for our excursion group to head to Atlantis resort. I went and looked off the dock and saw numerous tiny Bar Jacks swimming under the surface feeding on who knows what. However whatever they were eating was on the surface.





this is the dock i seen them from in case you wonder



Closer to shore on the dock were some sergeant majors




My next animal encounter was of a four legged sort as the crowd parted and screamed when a mouse ran through it. I always thought screaming at mice was just an aspect of old movies. Why it ran TOWARDS people not away I will never know.



Our next stop was Atlantis resort itself. Central to the resrto was a large set of aquariums of a unique sort. While they had a few traditional tanks (for lobsters, morals, groupers, gar and piranhas, lookdowns, jellyfish, and cichlids) most of their tanks consisted of large salt ponds with windows into them in the deepest parts. though the viewing area was very big it made up only a small part of the ponds.



this pic here is amazing as it shows lots of fry among the rocks, something in the tanks has bred. Hmmm, a place that displays wild animals and they breed, I hope they plan on that so it doesn't end up a case of "Jurassic Porkfish".

Perhaps the most numerous fish in their tank was the porkfish. This picture of a porkfish is my favorite as the fishes angle makes it look curious. I recently saw a Fish Tank Kings episode that said very few places captive raise pork fish as they are tough to breed, so only one or two places sell domesticly raised ones. (I also wonder if the meat of a pigfish would be porkfish).



Also very common their were giant sailors choice a foot and a half to two feet long and looking very bass like. (In general grunts and snappers remind me of centrarchids and only my knowledge that the oceans has no centrarchids keeps me from labeling them as such).



Perhaps the biggest surprise their was a giant manta ray (which was very popular and everyone stayed to photograph it). I always assumed mantas fell in the category of "big pelagics who cannot be kept in captivity" like billfish, tuna, great white sharks, and mako sharks.



their were also freshwater tanks, one had piranhas (whose photos never came out) and a long nosed gar.



Another had the evolutionary step between wrasse and parrotfish (if the article I read was right) the cichlids, which I assume are not native to the region. Tank will not be shown as this board doesn't take well to cichlids.

They had a couple tanks which served a purpose. The lionfish tank was thweir to educate people on a dangerous invasive.




While the green turtle pool served to raise turtles for wild release to replenish their numbers.



I have many more pictures in my folder (if you really want to see the cichlids tank i can link the image on my facebook).

(I cannot post my St Thompas report as it keeps telling me I cannot use that image extension here whatever that means)

My last stop was St Maartin *the dutch half uses two a's) when I went deep sea fishing. This is perhaps my most disappointing trip.

I have gone deep sea fishing before and even went out during a storm with giant hill sized waves. but before this all the trips were in large boats. This small boat, even on calm seas, got tossed in multiple directions at once. Though I didn't get sick, I did have to lie down to rest my stomach so I didn't. Even though we followed a group of sea birds (a mixed flock of frigate birds, gulls, and boobies, maybe the image extension name error had to do with the site objecting to me posting a wrasse pic whose name was corrected to slippery dick so I won't even try and post a photo of a booby here) the only fish we caught here was a barracuda (it wasn't me who caught it). It wasn't the billfish, tuna, mahi mahi, or whaoo we were after and no one was that impressed. I guess it wasn't a great barracuda then,

B

Back on the dock the water was alive wish fish. I found a new form of fish keeping. The people regularly chum the water to bring fish around including big tarpon



needle fish



and various smaller species.




On the shore was this fat lizard



and a bananaquit, which is a set up for a lame joke if I ever seen one



All and all it was a fun trip

Sadly i never got my scuba lessons on the boat as the sign up list was full.

Hopefully I can add the St Thomas info when I find what the problem with it was.

Perhaps the biggest surprise their was a giant manta ray (which was very popular and everyone stayed to photograph it). I always assumed mantas fell in the category of "big pelagics who cannot be kept in captivity" like billfish, tuna, great white sharks, and mako sharks.

I saw a manta ray complete with remora at the Osaka aquarium. It was in the tank with the whale sharks.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is famous for having great white sharks, here: http://www.montereyb...shark_ours.aspx

Edited by EricaWieser, 24 June 2012 - 11:21 PM.

Wow, they HAVE kept great whites in captivity? Last I heard they beat themselves to death on the tank walls. Nice to know we are making strides in fish keeping.

Odd great white shark face, great white sharks tagged off of the coast of California, when attacked by killer whales, fled the North American coast and were found as far away as Hawaii.

I guess I should try to repost part two now since I am posting here.

Ok, now for trying part two again. I am posting this in pieces and changing a fishes name to try and get this to work of find where it doesn't. It feels a little odd sending part two after part three but here I go.

On St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin islands (and also St. Maarten) I reach the no mans land. An area the NANFA info page calls part of South America, Wikipedia calls part of North America, and plate tectonics calls neither. I go with the earth myself, she has a mean way of arguing when you defy her. Here is a picture of the harbor in St Thomas



It was here I saw my first living creatures on the island (other than humans) Iguanas being lounge lizards on the coastal rocks. Now all we need is to have someone convince them to jump in and swim like they do in the Galapagos.



From here I went to Sapphire beach where I was snorkling and taking pictures. My first living things I saw here were also tetrapods. White cheeked pintails and laughing gulls. Laughing gulls seen odd, I am used to the aloof black backs, overly common herring gulls, and ring bills. I wonder why they are not in the south, they seem very adaptable up north.


In the water the first fish I seen were yellow finned Mojarra patrolling the sand flats. Other than ballyhoo and the occasional school of fry they were the fish that tended to be in the sand. I wonder why they never seem to enter the reefs and grass beds where bite sized fish are more common. (the picture giving me troubles saying I cannot post it here is the picture of the Mojara showing stripes on the side).



here is the ballyhoo, I only seen two of them.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 27 June 2012 - 01:01 AM.

From their I went to the weed beds (actually I went back and forth between reef and weeds a few times).

the weed beds had a variety of small yellow fish





and brown ones that reminded me of baby bass who even fought over food like sunfish



The perfect segue between weeds and reef is the one fish species I seen in both locations (the only one I seen in more than one habitat). Ocean Surgeons both patrolled the weed edges and the reef.

Finally their was the reef, a few coral encrusted rocks rich in species. (though on leaving someone mentioned a much larger more impressive reef further out built up on an old engine block).

This picture is my favorite (I split it into several for ID purposes). In it you have a blue tang being clenaed by a cleaner goby, a large grunt, a fish with big scales no one can ID, and a bunch of smaller grunts (possibly tomtates) under the rock. I wish I noticed the cleaner goby when I snapped this pic so I could watch the cleaning.



more surgeons



some kind of young angel or damselfish



and my best underwater photo of this trip was of some kind of wrasse with the unfortunate name of slippery dick. this wrasse is odd to me as its body is pike-like, not perch-like like the cunner I am used to seeing up north.