Glad I never stepped on it especially without a pain meter. Thanks,

Thanks

What your calling a Grouper is actually a Giant Hawkfish.

Ok if you say so.

great pics Greg, thanks for sharing....

Thanks for looking :biggrin:

A Fish tale
 

We also went fishing while in PV and we caught 6 small (Dorados') Mahi Mahi - threw one back, gave the captain 4 to feed his family & kept one to have for lunch. I can't believe we ate the whole thing! :mrgreen: It was incredible!

Here my wife's first catch of the day.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ix/Dorado1.jpg

Fix Box by 9:00 AM
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2.../mahimahi1.jpg

Fix Box by 11:00 AM
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2.../mahimahi2.jpg

The one we kept - (before)
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ix/dorado2.jpg

After the boat Capt filletted it for us. (after surgery)
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ix/dorado3.jpg

Plate of fish after the restaurant got them ready to cook. They prepared & cooked the fish with all the "fixens" for only 70 pesos per person (less than $5 Can)
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ix/dorado4.jpg

Ready to start the lunch feast. :mrgreen:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ix/dorado5.jpg

more dive pix
 

Unknown Gorgonian laced with cyanobacteria
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...cyanogorg2.jpg

Same Gorg zoomed in.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...cyanogorg1.jpg

Unknown "Creep-Show" in it's burrow.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ncreepshow.jpg
More Christmas Tree Worms
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...rms4closer.jpg
Stone Fish Profile shot
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...tonefish20.jpg

more fish
 

I thought I heard these damsels yelling to these tangs - "ok we've got you surrounded" :wink:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...surrounded.jpg

More King Angel pix
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...pix/kings3.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...pix/Kings2.jpg

Snowflake Moray
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2.../snowflake.jpg

Juvenile Drum Fish and a few scooter blenny sort of things
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...x/babydrum.jpg

I suspect these are some sort of cardinal or something
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...cardinals1.jpg



More pix to follow soon. :smile:

Beautiful pics! Not going to lie, that picture of your $5 lunch made me very hungry :)

My wife and I go to PV on a regular basis and would love to know where you were diving. We would love to go there.

Huh....suddenly my King angel doesn't seem so fat :lol:

Thanks. I just did some calculating on an actual calculator and 70 pesos is actually closer to $5.55 so it was still under 12 bucks for the two of us. :biggrin:
It was delicious! Grilled, soaked in garlic butter with a nice squeeze of lime - MMMMM Yum!

These particular dives were at Mariatas (northern bay) & Las Caletas/Mahawitas area (mid/southern bay). In the winter those spots are often a lower visibility. As I mentioned previously the best diving is from June through the end of Sept. You would think it would be murky in the summer from the rain washing so much mud down from the mountains but it is the opposite. My favorite dive spots are El Moro (north) & Chimo (south) but it is often hard to get enough advanced divers together for a trip out to those sites because they are further out and not for novice divers. When I go back in Aug with dive buddies we will be going to those spots for sure. :mrgreen: There is some awesome diving further north out of the bay as well but I forget the name of the place. Also further north up by San Blas there are whale sharks which would be a very cool dive. If/when I buy this dive shop in PV I would get a live aboard boat for those kind of trips.

If you have any questions just shoot me a PM.

There are some very large Kings out there & they really seem to like eating banana. That said, I have never been able to get the angels I've had to eat more than a tiny nibble of it though. :lol:

My local dive buddy Lorenzo caught himself dinner. He has quick hands & grabbed this trigger by the tail and carried it around for the approximately 20 minutes we had remaining on that dive. He says they're good eating.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...orenzofish.jpg

Pocillopora colony
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...cillopora2.jpg

Encrusting coral
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ustingsps1.jpg

another Nudibranch - looks like it likes to eat fans
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2.../Nudifull1.jpg

reef point jutting out for a cool silhouette shot
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...x/corals20.jpg

Gorg & Sponge
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...x/corals21.jpg

I thought the way the light was shining rather ghostly made for a cool shot.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...x/corals22.jpg

A splash of color that I think looks cool even though much of it's a little out of focus
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...lorsplash1.jpg

Stubby red & purple NPS gorgs - not sure what they orange spotted thing is.
I only noticed it in the picture but missed it while actually diving. (I wasn't wearing my bifocal mask)
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...pix/gorgs1.jpg

Arrow crab (if you look close you see a lot of these in this area)
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...arrowcrab3.jpg

:thumb::thumb::thumb: Awesome Pics! Thanks Greg.

Greg,

Thanks for sharing your updates... :biggrin:

Thanks for posting these pics, especially the Drum fish, fell in love with them when we dove Roatan.

Unfortuanately my picture of the adult drum fish was too blurry to post but they look cooler as juveniles.
Thnaks.

These may be very very juvenile porkfish

Also, he was right about the giant hawkfish a couple pages back, cool to have seen as they are fairly rare

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trks...using&_sacat=0
..

What you guys are calling a giant hawkfish is actually a pretty common sight while diving in the PV area. In fact I can't remember not seeing them in all the dives I've done in that area. A few years ago we were spear fishing and I think we ate one. The locals always just call them small groupers however they have some interesting titles for a lot of things. :lol:

They could be porkfish I don't know, when it comes to fish names I'm no expert. There were baby fish everywhere so I'm sure I saw just about every kind of fish they have in the bay and didn't know it. :lol:

You need to be very careful and make sure the model numbers match exactly. I bought the case that said it would fit my camera online but received a different model as what I ordered was discontinued and as luck would have it my camera didn't fit. They would not refund my $ or accept a return so my nice wife found a slightly used camera on Kijiji to fit the case. It all worked out in the long run so I was lucky.

Thanks Lance & Wayne.

I didn't even know that side of Mexico had such nice sea life. Wow!

Sweet pictures Dude!

Cool thread.

Thanks for sharing your photos. :cool:

Here's a few pictures that were taken by a fellow diver (Valerie Rommes) last July. She obviously has a better camera than me. :wink:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...20pix/goby.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...flabellina.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...chimonudie.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...tMariettas.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...epaardjePV.jpg

Awesome pictures and very inspirational! Keep posting them!

Just fyi: Giant hawkfish: Cirrhitus rivulatus
http://www.reel1in.com/Giant-Hawkfish.html

google images

Thanks very much. I apologize to the person who originally corrected me for sounding sarcastic. Great info thanks for the link.

Beautiful photos! Thanks for sharing! They are fantastic!

Wow
If you're still in touch with Valerie, I'd like to know what camera she used
And tell her for us ... holee nice pics :smile:

Yes she took some great pix. my fave is the seahorse with the gorgonian. I have tried to get pictures of that type of gorg for a long time but can never seem to capture the colors - she managed to get a shot that shows what they really look like, pink base with orange polyps.

Thanks.