I just returned from a two week stay on Exuma. It was glorious. Ooooh I love
the Bahamas. Wish I could live there.
Here's a partial list of what I saw;
Strombus gigas (everywhere!), Strombus costatus (took two beauties home with
me), and Strombus raninus. Several people I met in Georgetown said there
were Strombus gallus around, but I wasn't that lucky.
Cyphoma gibbosum (crowds of 'em, must of been having a convention), Cypraea
cinerea, Cypraea um - I forget, the yellow ones...
Trivias, Trivias, Trivias!
Helmets galore! King & flame. I found some dead tuberosa with only mild
encrustations while diving. Now I have to figure out a way of scraping them
clean without scratching them. I saw some glorious live specimens of both
species buried in the sand, but found the thought of cleaning them too
daunting.
Morum onicus. Various bonnets. I still have to look them up.
Big fat apple murex, cute lil' hexagon murex. Charonia variegata, dead and
not in the best of shape. But, as I didn't have one, I brought that home too.
I got a couple especially nice long-spined star shells. Various cones...
Lots of other treasures, too many to remember.
I didn't do much live collecting, but on a cavern dive I did take a couple of
Cymatium pileare. One has a striking fuzzy periostracum. I don't want to soak
it in bleach. How do I clean it? I've kept it in water. It's getting rather
funky...
I saw lots of big tantalizing fragments; tuns, tulips, big speckled cowries,
Cymatium femorale and more.
I didn't see any Xenophora, but I looked everywhere! And as for the
supposedly "common" simnia, pah! I did a dozen dives and spent so much time
snorkling that my girlfriend christened me the Snork Queen. I didn't find a
one!
Loads of fish and sharks and stingrays and eagle rays. I adore eagle rays. On
a night dive I saw a school of tiny translucent squid, each no longer than a
fingernail all signaling some kind of mysterious cephalopod semaphore with
teeny tentacles.
There's no place quite like the Bahamas out islands!
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