PHOTO ALBUM 1 - JULY 1997

All images on this website are the property of Simon Walsh. These images are not in the public domain and therefore may not be reproduced, copied or changed in any way without the written authorization of Simon Walsh. ANY use of these images is in direct violation of International Copyright Law. Please contact me at walshs@cwdom.dm for more information or for the fee stucture for the use of these photos.

Seahorses are quite common in Dominica but the trick is actually finding them. They are extremely shy and will turn their heads away from the diver and duck behind any obstacle they can find. This makes the photographer's job very challenging! Seahorses are faithful to one partner throughout their lives and they entwine tails and "dance" together every morning. However, they are under threat from the aquarium trade and Chinese medicine which believes that they have benefits when ground up into a powder. Anyone lucky enough to have seen one free on a living reef knows that their beauty and elegance are therapy enough. Dr. Amanda Vincent is one of the few scientists studying seahorses and their behaviour. For more information visit the website http://www.anyware.co.uk/seahorses/index.html

This photograph is a typical scene for Dominica. In many other dive destinations, blackbar soldierfish tend to hide in crevices and under ledges, waiting for nightfall before they come out to feed. But here in Dominica we have small schools of soldierfish stationed all over the reef. We also seem to have a greater quantity than is found in other destinations. It's almost as if they are gathering here and awaiting their next deployment! While they are very abundant, they do present one challenge to the photographer: it is nearly impossible to photograph a school without getting one rebel swimming against the tide!

This spotted snake-eel is exactly that, an eel. They are often erroneously referred to as sea snakes, which do not exist in the Caribbean Sea. Sea snakes must return to the surface to breath air, while eels have gills and breath underwater like fish. Sea snakes are extremely poisonous, although fairly docile, while snake-eels are not poisonous. Unlike moray eels, the snake-eels do not have very sharp teeth, although ever since I saw a 3-foot snake-eel shaking and twisting off pieces of a wounded fish I have had a great respect for them!

I made a classic mistake in this photo. I did not give the viewer any perspective to appreciate the size of this lobster. However if you look carefully you can just see a diver pinned down under the rear foot. But seriously...from tip of tail to the front, not including attenae, he was over 3 feet long! He was so big he was unafraid to be out in broad daylight walking around his kingdom. Lucky for him he lives in a Marine Reserve and we are not allowed to take anything from the sea!!

FlamingoTongue snails are also quite hard to find, but once you recognize the classic destructive signs on sea whips it becomes easier to locate them. They eat the polyps on the sea whips and leave the branches cleaned down to the white skeleton.. Their shells are plain-coloured and the design you see here comes from the mantle which emerges from their body.

I found this hermit crab scuttling along the bottom on a night dive at Champagne. Critters like these are not very easy to photograph as they are always much too busy to sit still for a photographer. However once illuminated in my torch, he froze momentarily to ponder this new threat -- and was forever frozen in time and accorded his fifteen minutes of fame

This photograph was taken from a depth of 95 feet near Scotts Head Pinnacle. The school of small barracudas (Sennet) formed an almost perfect circle around me. I had to get right down to the sandy bottom and lie on my back to get the wide angle shot. I only had time for two shots before the formation broke up and moved away. Like all things in underwater photography, the moment was fleeting and the window of opportunity small.

Created by Simon Walsh, Nature Island Dive, Soufriere, Dominica