Snorkeling in Macqueripe Bay

Among the things that I have been doing to fill my time during the last couple of weeks before summer break is over is that I have been swimming and snorkeling in a small bay about 20 minutes from my house called Macqueripe Bay. Sometimes Aaron, Katie and I go here after a hike to cool off and do a few laps and sometimes we just go to see if we can see any marine life.

From what I have been told by some locals and people who have lived here for a few years, Macqueripe used to be one of the nicest beaches in northern Trinidad. It's a very small beach & bay, but as they say, size isn't everything. But then some brilliant politicians decided that it would be good to develop some of the area around Macqueripe, as long as there wasn't a lot of clear cutting of the trees around the bay. Contracts were handed out to a company and the first thing they did was clear cut a bunch of trees, which then caused a considerable amount of run off from the land into the bay, thus dirtying up the water and reducing the visibility considerably. But sometimes you get some good currents and you'll get a day with somewhat decent visibility.

Anyway, the first time that we all went to Macqueripe after we got back from our trips to the states, Aaron, Katie and I went out to snorkel and see if we could spot anything cool. Unfortunately the visibility was quite poor and my mask kept fogging up. So as it got harder and harder to see, I would have to pop my head out of the water, wash out my mask and then go back in.

One particular time, I couldn't tell if it was the visibility or my mask starting to fog up, but I came up on this really big rock that was a little fuzzy. I was about to pull my head out of the water to clear my mask, when I noticed this huge (about 5 feet wide) white thing slowly rising up from behind the rock. I stopped kicking and just froze. My heart started racing because I had no idea what it was. Then it leveled out and swam down below and in front of me and I realized that it was a spotted eagle ray. In my snorkel, I said out loud "uhlh grnnp". It's hard to talk with the snorkel in. What I actually said was "holy crap" and the noise of my grumbling voice must have startled the eagle ray and it shot off.

This is a picture of what I saw. Not a picture that I took, but one that I found on the internet. As you can see, the bottom of manta and eagle rays is all white. This is because if predators are below them, as they look up, they will blend in with the light that the sun reflects off the surface of the water. And if predators are above them, then the spots (or other patterns on the different types of rays) will blend in with the surface of the ocean floor or coral or whatever.

I can't even begin to tell you how cool it is to see this stuff in person.