Whatever happened to the Curacao wildlife report?

[jd950]

I enjoyed that, but there hasn't been anything since October.

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

Crowley, The Dive Bus wildlifer has left the island...... Pesky little visa rules.
This month most of the wildlife will be walking the streets for carnival.
Last month Stan saw and caught on film, or do you say caught on disk these days? 2 octopi on the reef at Playa Kalki/Alice In Wonderland fighting during the day. Pretty "wild" huh?
I'll keep an ear open and pass along the good sightings.

 

[Kukuisa]

The life wasn't very wild the last months. We did see some free swimming octopus and dito moray eels, but overall it was business as usual for us.
K.

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

K Is there a "season" when octopi are active? I also heard from 2 sets of snorkelers that they saw an octopus swimming during the day. One in Lagun and another at Jeremi.

 

[Kukuisa]

I don't know about 'seasoning' of octopus.
There are differrent types: those that come out only at night time (like the Caribbean Reef Octopus) and those that come out during the day (like the Common Octopus).

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

OK, a quick post then I really gotta work. David is in New Hampshire skiing and ice climbing and as you can tell, I am slaving away in Curacao
But first let me pass along this tidbit I just heard.
Fishermen know things. Yeah right, even I knew about Tropical Storm Omar and not one of them predicted that it would stay off shore for 3 days. Bygones....
The fishermen are now saying that something big is going to happen on the 12th. Disclaimer: this might be island time so we'll just say sometime around the 12th. Maybe a couple of days before hand, maybe a couple of days after... A few of them have already taken their boats to Santa Marta Bay (they remember Omar). I don't know what they expect but gosh darn it, I'll have extra beer on hand in case we get stranded in Westpunt. If we lose power for 2 days (remember Omar?) it'll just be warm beer We had an extremely mild hurricane season with almost no rain at all. These past few months, the rainy season, again almost no rain. It'll be exciting to see a storm. Just my luck with an outdoor restaurant it will hit on the weekend and folks will still show for dinner. No problem, pizza it is!
I'll keep you updated....

 

[jd950]

Well, there have been those complaints about the FOL from Chavez over there to the Southwest............

 

[Kukuisa]

We saw something strange today.
There was a large group of brown chromis. Normally these fish swim above the reef where they feed on the plankton, but this group was lower and in between the coral and made strange moves, like Chubby Checker doing the Twist. Could this be a mating ritual? Who knows?

 

[Diver OnLu]

Hi Kukuisa,

I have witnessed this phenomenon several times over the years, last time a week ago around Elvin's Plane Wreck. It definitely looks to me as if they are laying and fertilizing eggs - you can even see "clouds" in the water close to where the Brown Chromis are active. Actually I even watched the Chromis defending the area against wrasses and parrot fish, just like you usually see Sergeant Majors defend their eggs.

Greetings from Westpoint
Andreas

 

[Crowley]

Crowley, The Dive Bus wildlifer has left the island....

Awfully sorry about that!

How's everybody doing - does a "wildlife" report include the locals!?

I will refrain from giving a wildlife report on the Red Sea, because Mark will be jealous... :mooner:

I'd like to read about the sightings, so keep us posted!

C.