Barracuda - Trunk Bay, St. John

For our recent trip to the Caribbean I got an underwater camera and it has opened a new world to be explored photographically. I had little time to learn about the camera and our snorkel at Trunk Bay on St. John Island, part of Virgin Islands National Park, was my first time to use it. I found that I could not really see through the view finder and I was shooting blind. It was not until I got back to the ship that afternoon and looked through my pictures that I discovered how wide the view I was shooting was and that I was aiming high (many of the fish I was photographing were at the bottom of the picture frame or completely out of it). 

Trunk Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Our cruise ship, the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas, landed in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, one of three islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We signed up for a shore excursion over to Trunk Bay, part of Virgin Islands National Park on St. John Island, the second of the three islands. Virgin Islands NP covers 60% of St. John, a gift from Laurance Rockefeller in 1956 to the NPS. 

Barracuda

The star of my first underwater photos was a barracuda. While I was snorkeling a woman waved me over and told me if I looked down I would see a barracuda. Otherwise, I probably would not have seen it, and if I had, probably would not have known what it was. The barracuda was quite unafraid of me as I circled around and even made some poor attempts to swim below the surface and get closer pictures. 

There are 28 species of barracuda and I don't have the time or resources to try and figure out what species this is. But it was a thrill to see it and I hope there may be more fish to photograph in the future.