St. Martin

[DWhatley]

We spent the week with my sister in St. Maarten (Dutch side) and snorkeled at Baie Rouge in St. Martin (French side). I had heard that there were Octos to be found but I didn't really expect to see one . I missed most of the stuff to explore because one of our party found this little fellow and I spent the rest of the time trying to photograph him . He would not have been spotted but Don noticed a very persistent fish (likely collecting remains of a crab) and discovered the octo to be the point of interest.

 

[tonmo]

Very neat!

 

[Animal Mother]

That 4th pic is gorgeous!!!! So jealous! How big was the little fella?

 

[DWhatley]

That How big was the little fella?

Neal and I disagree on the size. Neal thinks he was smaller than Octane and I think he was about the same size.
The mask and water magnify everything so, without a reference, it is hard to tell. I usually try to take a picture with my hand next to an object to get a reality check but I was free diving without any kind of weights in very salty water and had to make verticle passes starting about 15' away with little lung air just to get down the 10'-15' and attempt a shot. The sun made the screen impossible to see so I was shooting blind and managed 48 passes with these being the best shots (and I am very happy I got them!). The actual color of the photos was shades of green like the unretouched Find the Ceph game shot but Photoshop does a great job with recalculating colors when the green is uniform (not so with red) so the photos came out better than the actual view. My single tank dive was a bust this trip but finding and photographing the octo more than made up for it.