The underwater world of Marie - Galante/ Plongez a Marie-Galante!

The island with three rum distilleries, the island of the 100 windmills, the island of sugar cane...there are a few different names for Marie-Galante, the round island south-east of Guadeloupe! I will also call it the place for zen-diving:-) It is absolutely wild underwater, there are no crowds of divers, but schools of fishes, huge sponges and curious sea inhabitants looking at you with a question mark in their eyes! Enjoy the encounters I have captured for you and if you ever make it there, do go diving with the best diving school of the island "ManBalaou"!

 

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Turtle-Christmas-day in les Saintes, Guadeloupe

Underwater on the 25th of December one big and friendly hawksbill turtle decided to spend some 20 minutes with us. What a pleasure!!!!! After the turtle took some air from the surface she followed us and we could observe her closely while Claire, our amazing dive instructor and close turtle-friend, was giving her instructions on how to avoid the fishermen nets and to take care of her. A lot of turtles in the Caribbean sea find their death because of increased fishing activities. More than 60% of the turtles in les Saintes disappeared/ died in the last 3-4 years.

 

Underwater movies from les Saintes, Guadeloupe

Today I would love to show you the underwater life, beauty and colours in movies...Enjoy the abundance of fish, sponges&corals and the cute little turtle in the last movie:-))



In the next video you will meet the cute porcupine fish (in French "diodon"), who can inflate like a ball, when it gets scared.



And as promised a turtle swimming against the current...

About the turtles in les Saintes/ Les tortues des Saintes, Guadeloupe

 

This entry is dedicated to these amazing, friendly and soooo loveable creatures, the turtles! One may meet them often (sometimes ago even several per every single dive) in les Saintes. Unfortunately lately this is not so sure anymore. The fishing kills yearly almost 100 of them, as they get stuck in the net and die...They die because the people are putting traps in their element trying to get more and more fish from the over fished sea. Another problem in les Saintes is the local speciality called "lambi". Five months every year the fisherman here are allowed to fish this shell . Unfortunately for the turtles, these are the nets they get stuck in...Thanks to Claire, my diving master&friend and very good ami with the local turtles, I know what I am aware of now. And I know we can take care of them, because noone wants an ocean without turtles!

 

So this blog is trying to raise awareness: please don't order "lambi"-dish if you want to see/keep the turtles in our oceans! Look at the pictures, smile with them and next time protect them!

Underwater colours in les Saintes

 

While waiting for the spring colours (+ all flowers in the Netherlands) I would love to take you on a dive today with me in underwater colours of the island group les Saintes...I have written earlier about this paradise place (part of the French Caribbean, under Guadeloupe), but now I would like to elaborate on all the hidden beauties: the ones under the water surface...

 

Before one goes underwater one may not imagine all the huge diversity of colours, shapes and inhabitants. Next to colourful rocks and caves (see first picture), one should also watch out for the tiny and shiny locals. The famous "crabe tour Eiffel" (second picture) and the cleaning shrimps (last picture) need a closer look before one may enjoy them...

Caribbean sea movies...

Today I would like to share some underwater movies with you...One of a pretty hungry turtle...



Next one is a photo of a shy long nose seahorse and one showing how big aquarium Reserve Cousteau in Guadeloupe is....





Enjoy!

Reserve Cousteau, des merveilles sous-marines/ The underwater paradise called Reserve Cousteau, Guadeloupe

One year after I have discovered the underwater paradise called Reserve Cousteau in Guadeloupe, I had the pleasure to dive back in the colourful gardens and meet the enormous amount of local inhabitants and beauties....

On the picture of the brain coral below look for the tiny blue-grey fish with the yellow eyes....

 

Sponges in different colours decorate the underwater world at different depths.

Underwater gardens....

Once you have put your head under the water surface you arrive in another, very colourful world....sponges in various shapes, colours and textures are all over and take your breath away...

Yellow, pink, purple, green, red or blue - an impressive mix is there on display...a great ambiance for a zen-diving:-) One can encounter the tube sponges (in yellow), the barrel ones (in red), the vase sponges are purple...the rest i am not gonna tell...

Meeting with seahorses...

Today I would like to present you to a cute little underwater creature. The seahorses are mostly known because of the fact that the male one is swimming around with a huge belly, as he is the one getting pregnant. They swim upright unlikely to other fishes (of their class: "pipefishes") by using smal fins (dorsal and pectoral).

Nowadays the population of seahorses is extremely endangered due to their usage in Chinese medicine. Around 20 million have been captured and dried every year. Indonesians and Central Filipinos use them also for medicinal purposes. The international seahorse export and import convention (signed in 2004) does not help to protect them fully as Japan, Indonesia, Norway and South Korea have chosen to opt out from it.

The two seahorses you see here I have encountered in the marine Park Iles de Pigeon in Guadeloupe...

Explore the Caribbean underwater life...with me:-)

Finally (and with the Blogger-blessing) i have the honour to invite you to go underwater, in the Caribbean sea. The next three videos will help you discover the amazing world in the Reserve Coustea, Ilets Pigeon, in Guadeloupe.




In the first movie one may admire two calamars. The second one displays an octopus, who made a real show in front of me:



And for an end a close swim with an turtle, we have had the luck and pleasure to see them in almost every one of our dives.

About "la plage, la mer, les rochers" of Guadeloupe....

Beaches with high palm trees and green-blue sea water are lining up the southeast coast of Guadeloupe: from Sainte Anne via Saint-Francois and up to la Pointe des Chateaux (the most east point). Pointe des Chateaux put on show an impressive nature play of huge waves and majestic rock formations in the sea (second picture).

The beach is of course also the places where the fishermen not only leave and return to/from work, but also the repair work of nets is done, as on the shot below.

And last but not least, "la plage" is as always a great place for a siesta (never under a coconut tree with brown coconuts!), reading a book or just hanging out with friends-like on the beach of Sainte-Anne with our Italian friends from Roma:)

Marine reserve Cousteau, les Ilets de Pigeon

Another great dive today: in the marine reserve Cousteau, where we have been diving once a day for the last 7 days....below i would have loved to share with you some videos this time. Unfortunately Blogger does not (want to) upload my videos for the last 2 weeks, so again just some pictures.Some more underwater shots can be found here.

The French Caribbean: this time from under the water surface...

The program for this week has been one dive a day in the amazing underwater world of the Caribbean sea. Till now we were lucky to meet daily one turtle and plenty of colourful fishes!

The underwater world here is famous with sponges, some of them are almost as big as me:-)One can spot them in yellow, purple, red or green. Yesterday we were literally blown away when we saw a group of 20 almost transparent calamars, lined up one after the other but still swimming!

The weather has been extremely wet, 2 days ago it rained almost the whole day. The dive on that day was very relaxed, as underwater we enjoyed even warmer temperatures that above the water surface: some 28 degrees!