We've Got Crabs!
and other creature drawings
Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras


This beauty was hanging out in a hole behid the classroom with his little crab buddies. As soon as they hear aproaching footsteps, they scoot into their hideaways. After crouching in anticipation over the hole for longer than I'd care to admit, this handsome fella locked himself in the closet and crawled into a swim fin. He was in my hands at last. I had to draw quickly, because he soon figured out to create leverage against my fingers and pinch me repeatedly. The encounter ended suddenly and painfully (at least on my part) followed by a mad, seaward scramble (on his part), leaving me humbled and alone...

The fiddlers are easier to catch, and far more numerous. They skitter across the mangroves and mudflats in vacant lots.

This Macaw was confiscated by the Honduran government after it had been illegally captured for sale and it now belongs to a resident of Utila who is in the process of creating a bird sanctuary. His home in the mangrove swamp is surrounded by dozens of spanish-speaking parrots. In the mornings, he works at the cinema/coffee shop, and his birds ride in with him on his bike. They like peanuts.

These are the French boys we ferried over with. They know lots of good Django Jazz tunes. They were all in my open water SCUBA certification class.

I've been diving eight times so far, and each time I see things I've never seen before. Yesterday, one of the dive instructors took me down with a slate so I could draw fish underwater. I used my sketches to do more finished drawings above the surface. Below is a Hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus) and his companion is a Bar Jack (Caranx ruber). I saw them foraging in the sand together at 22 meters near a shipwreck at the edge of the coral reef.

There is lots to see without ever leaving the dock. Last week, during the weekly dive-shop party, two moray eels could be seen mating, illuminated, next to the dock in 3 feet of water as booty music blasted from the speakers, while relaxing divers sipped on Nicaraguan rum... We are sticking around longer than originally planned. I'll be working on some murals (in exchange for diving and cash) while I'm here, and am hoping to do some volunteering for the Iguana Research and Breeding Station, sampling for the island's endemic endangered Swamper, or Wishiwilly, as the locals call it (Ctenosaura bakeri).