Snork Snork!

First thing you do when you reach Cayman…get groceries if it’s Saturday because the grocery store is closed on Sunday. After that, go to the dive shop and purchase one of their fold out, water resistant island dive/snorkel maps. On the map are little snorkel symbols

So, how did we get these wonderful coral reefs we enjoy? A good look at this can be found in BBC’s Atlas of the Natural World: Western Hemisphere and Antarctica. In this set is “Spirits of the Jaguar” which deals with the formation of Central America, specifically Panama, and then some of the Caribbean Islands. [...]

Reef Fish Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas by Paul Humann and Ned DeLoach, New World Publications, 1989, with many updated editions. You can purchase them as a set. Reef Fish, Reef Creatures, and Reef corals. We only have the first two. We opted against the corals, mostly because, as snorkelers, we see relatively few types of [...]

This is the book I dreamed of someone writing. Reef Fish Behavior: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas by Ned DeLoach and Paul Humann. Thank heavens they did the job. This book, finally, dips into the world of symbiotic relationships, mating displays, and all out glorious oddity a snorkeler sees. Buy this book before you go on your [...]

So much of the natural history information on islands is hard to find and categorized narrowly…only accessible if you look up a specific island. That’s why I was glad to find this book. Wild Caribbean: The Hidden Wonders of the World’s Most Famous Islands  by Michael Bright with Karen Bass and Scott Alexander (Yale University Press, [...]