Blog 5 - Horse Shoe Bay

Today was my second day off and I wanted to explore the island. I am currently living in a hotel called the Almond Beach Village which is on the West coast of Barbados, the majority of the hotels that the company I work for do weddings at are along the West coast and there is a couple on the South. This means I spend most of my time either driving up and down the coast road on the west coast or on the highway down to the south. These are both very beautiful places to be driving to and from so I am far from complaining but I thought I would take this opportunity to check out the north coast of the Island. 

I set of in my little hire car to a place called Horse Shoe Bay, which at one end of the bay is the furthest point north in Barbados and only a 15-minuet drive from where I live. Once I arrived at the drive up to the car park I was greeted by a guy trying to sell me some paintings of people playing cricket. They were very good but not my kind of think so I parked up and took a walk.

My second greeting to Horse Shoe Bay was allot more impressive, a fantastic U shaped bay (Bajan’s are quite literal when it comes to naming places, roads and towns) all made out of compacted coral with a near vertical drop down to the sea. Under where I was standing the sea had been eating away at the bay walls to make a series of caves.

Locals often come here to fish down in the waters below, on my way back i spoke to this guy and he said he had caught 4 quite big Garfish (or needle fish as they have long thin points) in the morning but was having no luck this afternoon. He was using sardines as bait but the bait was just disappearing. I guess the smaller fish were nicking it before the Garfish could get to it. 

While walking over the coral to get these shots I suddenly sore something move on the floor in the corner of my eye, I bent down to have a closer look and there was a little Hermit Crab crawling over the coral beneath my feet. Once I had seen it and got my eye in I realized that this whole section were covered in they’re little shells clinging tightly to the floor.

Their camouflage was working so well you could barely see them; with this photograph I wanted to play with the cropping. When it comes to framing a subject the rule of thirds is always a winner as that is how the mind is comfortable working out what is going on in an image. With this I have placed the Hermit Crabs shell on the vertical first third but the main subject is more in the centre of the horizontal so with the Crabs natural camouflage and the subject not quite being were it is suppose to be I am hopping it becomes hard to find but more rewarding when you do. 

So then naturally all this walking around in the sun made me thirsty so I head to the bar to get a drink, while I was sat there I met this fellow. 

Again trying to play with the position on the subject to bring to light the Geckos natural ability to blend into his surroundings then he moved and ruined it so I went home!