My wife and I just returned from a wonderful week in Dominica. For those of you who don’t know, Dominica (not the Dominican Republic) is 310 miles southeast of Puerto Rico in the Eastern Caribbean. It’s south of the Virgin Islands and north of Trinidad/Tobago. Its origins are volcanic and this topography continues into the sea. Due to the local’s use of fish traps, there aren’t a lot of large fish and macro photography is the norm. During the week, I only saw one turtle and a single nurse shark. That having been said, the “critter diving” was great. There were tons of secretary blennies, anemone shrimp, Petersen shrimp, seahorses, and juvenile tropicals. The water temp was 80 degrees with dead flat seas and 100 foot viz the whole week. The reefs were pristine and healthy. One site not to miss is Champagne reef where hot gases rise from volcanic fissures on the sea floor, creating columns of bubbles that never lose their fizz! If you go to Dominica, be sure to take an afternoon or two off for topside sightseeing. They filmed Pirates of the Caribbean #2 and #3 there. We took one day off while we were there and went to the rainforest and Ti Tou Gorge. There are tons of waterfalls and, for the advernturesome, there's a six hour roundtrip hike to the boiling lake.

Here are a few of the images from the week:



















The rest of the gallery is here: http://debersole.com/layout/0001/gallery_view.cfm?g=100

Nice stuff. Great selection of Caribbean critters there.

Alex