In the last few years, images of mating Hamlets have turned up in several publications. Julie and I love watching natural behavior, but we’ve never really taken the time to go out and photograph Hamlets. St Croix is actually a very good place to do this, as there are different species of Hamlets here, and lots of them. So we finally went out last night to see what all the hubhub is about.

We didn’t really know what to expect. We’ve photographed mating behavior of other species before, and some species, like for instances Dragonets can be really difficult to approach. So we were ready to stalk our prey and stop breathing. None of this turned out to be necessary. The Hamlets were completely oblivious to our presence and at times would actually swim within two feet of us by themselves. Their mating session lasted for about 30 minutes, during which they went up into the water column about a dozen times to mate. It was quite interesting to watch.

So here it is, my very first image, shot when they went up the first time.

We had a great day on the beach today taking some horses into the ocean. The horses seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. Click on “More” for some more pictures.

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 In the winter Julie and I head to the US Virgin Islands to visit Julie’s mother. In the past we did a lot of diving during those weeks, but in the last two years we’ve started horse riding. It’s a nice change from riding at home in an arena. Here we can ride freely, on the beach and through the hills. Today we went to the top of a small hill to watch the sunset over the North Shore of St Croix. It doesn’t get much better.

This is Julie’s favorite horse named Pirate. It’s a stallion, that most people that ride here can’t handle, but somehow Julie manages with her soft touch.

Every year Julie and I go to the Virgin Islands for about three months to visit Julie’s mother. Unfortunately it’s really warm there as well, while here in Amsterdam it’s cold, rainy and gloomy. But we’ll just have to sacrifice ourselves. We’ll be on the island of St Croix, which is by far the nicest of the US Virgin Islands. Ok, maybe St John is nicer, but just too small for us.

We normally do some diving there, but last year we actually got into horse riding as well. We know a local cowboy there who we helped out taking care of about 15 horses. We had a blast, so hopefully we can do that again this year. We started to take more advanced riding lessons here in Amsterdam just for that occasion.

VI, see you in January!