Who says there are no alien-looking animals on topside when you go on diving trips? Galapagos is in many ways a Wonderland or Disneyland for us nature lovers, and new animals kept popping up, down under the water, or topside when doing land visits. Due to this, we did a few small topside photo excursions next to diving, some from RIB only and some were actual land visits.

For more reefs and marine life photos, take a look at my Marine Life gallery.

Encounter

We found this great-looking Crab in between dives on a short RIB ride around our liveaboard in one of the bays of Isabela Island. I had Nikkor 80-200m f/2.8 (old school, pre-VR lens) with Kenko 1.4 TC which got me effective 260mm at f/4.0 which gives really tight Depth Of Field so you have to be super careful with focusing. I am not really happy with sharpness here, but it works for me as an image, maybe in a smaller format to control this blur.

Red Rock Crab

A proper name for this great-looking crab is Grapsus Grapsus or just Red Rock Crab. Such great colors, amazing shapes, like a true alien from another world!!! This photo shows the crab in its natural habitat since it lives amongst the rocks at the often turbulent, windy shore, just above the limit of the sea spray.

Take away

This crab is a reminder that sometimes we don’t have to go far away, or to another world to find something new and interesting since it might happen just around the corner.