All posts by b.campbell65@yahoo.com

About b.campbell65@yahoo.com

Bruce is a NAUI dive instructor and an avid underwater photographer who began diving 10 years ago. He has been fortunate enough to travel throughout most of the Caribbean where he has photographed sea creatures ranging from nudibranchs to whale sharks. He hopes to begin doing more diving in Southeast Asia in the coming years. Bruce's photos have graced the covers of several magazines and can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/bcampbell65/ or bcampbell65 on the photo stock agency shutterstock and on adobe stock.

Is there a current in your future?

Uncategorized
Out of step with the school
Out of step with the school

From the title, my philosopher friends are probably thinking I am going to write about the connection between present time and future time; but they would be wrong. My diver friends know that I’m thinking more about will there be a strong current underwater on my next dive? Underwater currents are like the wind. You really can’t see them except in relationship to other things. So for instance we can drop a few blades of grass on the water and assuming we are still,if there is a current, the blades of grass will move one direction or another. If the current is too quick we may decide to go to another site where there is either less current or possibly none at all. Of course, we may elect to do a drift dive and just go with the flow.

When there is a modest current we usually want to swim into the current on the way out and have the current push us back to the boat on the way back. By doing this we have an added measure of safety because, all other things being equal swimming back to the boat with a current to our backs should help push us back to the boat so we do not exert ourselves as much and therefore use less air.

Currents are not inherently bad for diving. if they were there would be no dive industry in Cozumel Mexico. Cozumel is famous for its drift dives. The basic concept is you drop in at point “A” and you let the current take you along the reef for a distance until you get to a certain point “B”in your air supply and then you ascend. Hopefully, the boat captain has followed your bubbles well enough to at least be in the same zip code and can bring the boat close to the divers for an easy exit.

So the question remains will there be a current on your future dives?

Have you ever explored underneath a pier, jetty or bridge?

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Photographer under the pier
There are a lot of dives that I have done where the boat ride to the dive site can be quite long. Have long boat rides guaranteed a great dive experience, unfortunately no. Curiously, sometimes the shortest boat rides have yielded some great dives, particularly if there if there is some man-made structure in the area. Curiously, sometimes the local pier, jetty or bridge provide opportunities for divers to explore the underwater world and find some interesting sea creatures. Arrow crab

Not long ago we did a dive near a pier in Dominica. It started out late in the afternoon so the light was very low. When I reached the bottom at about 35 feet the first thing I found was an old paint bucket with sponges growing out of it. It was a little surreal, but it is not the first time I have seen what might seem like trash being re-purposed. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for trash in the oceans. Nevertheless, I am less surprised now than in the past that sometimes sea creatures are able to re-purpose what someone intended to throw away. Similarly, the posts that were set into the sea floor also create structure in which sea creatures may make a home. Upside down shrimp
Even larger animals seem to find hiding holes for themselves. dominica blog-1
cataloguing the creature we saw in a one hour dive was hard. In part because I kept switching back and forth between still shots and video, but in part because the sheer number of creatures and their variety. We saw a variety of shrimp and crabs. We saw several species of puffer fish. We saw a slipper lobster. And we saw several seahorses.
dominica blog 3-1

So the next time you are driving by a pier, jetty or bridge, maybe you should ask yourself: “I wonder if I ought to go explore it and see if there are any interesting sea creatures?”

Here is a short video from the dive.

Is Stingray City the best 12 foot dive?

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Coming at you
Coming at you

Often times I hear divers talking about the deepest dive they have done or the fastest current or describing some other feature that made a dive unusual. Sometimes divers look down their noses at dives that are less than 60 feet. After all any certified diver can go to 60 feet, you are supposed to be an advanced certified diver to go deeper.

Nevertheless, stingray city in Grand Cayman which is 12 foot in-depth to the sand is pretty spectacular. Feeding a southern ray
The fishermen used to clean their catchs just outside the mouth of the harbor and throw the remains overboard. Rays oftentimes would feed on the remains and would gather for a meal when they heard the fisherman’s boats heading back to the harbor. Bottle baby

I dove Stingray City with Divetech, which is an excellent shop in Grand Cayman. Before the dive the briefing advised that we would want to be over-weighted by 4 to 5 pounds. (I added 4 pounts to my usual 12 pounds). We would drop to the sand and stay in one place while the ray wrangler would feed the rays. The rays would be southern rays which would range in size from about a foot across the widest part of their body to well over three feet across their body. We would all dive air as opposed to nitrox (oxygen enriched air) because nitrox would not change our bottom times because the dive was so shallow. Once we were down we would get into more or less a circle around the ray wrangler.
Diving with rays

Once we were all on the bottom, and even before the wrangle arrived, the rays started to approach our group. The rays seemed a bit shy at first but slowly became more willing to swim near our group. When the wrangler decended with the chopped-up squid in a water bottle more rays came to see us. For about forty minutes the wrangler would move around and the rays would follow her in hopes that a small bit of squid would be squirted out of the feed bottle and they would get a snack. Along with the rays we also were jointed by yellow tail snappers and other fish. During the dive we saw at least a dozen rays who would swim around and put on a show for us. After the wrangler went back up to the boat we were allowed to swim around several large coral heads to see the local fish life. Within a few moments I had found lobsters and other creatures to observe and film. In order to get close to the lobster I dropped to the sand and crawled up close to the coral head to film the lobster. When I backed out from the coral head a weight pocket fell out of my bcd. I was so enthralled with looking for creatures, I didn’t miss it and only knew it was missing when one of the divers handed it back to me when we were on the boat. I guess I didnt’ need that extra four pounds after all.

Most of the tourists head to the sand bars with chest-high water to interact with the stingrays. The boats’ proprietors bring along with them pails of chunked-up squid meat, which they dispense by hand to the animals, thus attracting dozens of the creatures to the feeding spot. But for me the more interesting opportunity is to dive to 12 feet and hang out until the southern rays arrive and watch the action. To me what really makes the dive unique is the interaction with so many southern rays. On most dives, if I find one ray during the dive that usually means it has been a good dive; To see dozens of rays during a single dive is a special treat.

The grace and ease with which rays move through the water is best seen in video. It reminds me that they live there, and we are just guests.

Diving in Antigua, what is it like?

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Picturesque Deep Bay is actually very shallow
Picturesque Deep Bay is actually very shallow

Antigua is a very beautiful island. It is a volcanic island. There are mountains and there are many awesome places to hike and look out over the surrounding Caribbean water. As a pure diving trip Antigua is not in the same league as the Cayman islands or Cozumel. However, as an island to sail around and explore both land and sea it has may endearing features.

As a volcanic island the sand is very heavy and when it is stirred up it is like concrete. When the sand is stirred up, it is slow to settle and visibility can be quite challenging. Goatfish hiding under an overhang

We traveled around the island on a live aboard for a week and dove at various spots along the way. We saw a variety of animals including an octopus feeding on a conch. Octopus feeding on Conch We also saw a variety of land features such as the “Devil”s Bridge” and the Pillars of Hercules.

Some of the dive sites are quite shallow. For less experienced divers there are quite a few shallow water sites to explore.
Exploring the Pillars of Hercules

Antigua is a beautiful island and one worth exploring, particularly from a live aboard.

Have you gotten lost in the underwater small small world of Curacao?

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Fire worm detail
Fire worm on star coral

Typically, when I get to a dive site that I have not been to before, my initial thought is to use my wide angle lens so I can try to take pictures of the large reef structures and any fish aggregations so that I will have a general sense of what a particular dive site is like. Most of the time I dive with groups, so if I am shooting wide angle the challenge is to only have one or perhaps two divers in the image. I usually do alright at keeping up with the group, although by buddy says I am pretty slow and tend to be at the back of the group.

Nevertheless, there are times when I pull out the macro lens to take underwater pictures. A trip we took to Curacao not to long ago was one trip were I was glad I had packed the macro lens. We dove with Ocean Encounters, which is an excellent shop. Good safety briefings, skilled and well trained staff and solid equipment. One of the dive leaders we dove with on several dives was Pol Bosh. Pol is extraordinary at finding the small critters that live on the reef system in Curacao. Curacao has quite a few sea hares which are shell-less mollusks. One such sea hare he found was a Petalifera Romosa.

From the gastropod family
A sea hare my friend Pol pointed out in Curacao
This Petalifera Romosa was perhaps at most an inch in length, yet with a macro lens it looks fairly large. This sea hare dwarfed some of the other sea hares that Pol found and were at most only about a quarter of an inch or a centimeter in length. (I wish my eyes were that sharp and could readily spot creatures that small).

Pol was also quite skilled at finding arrow crabs.

Arrow crab and sea anemone
Arrow crab and sea anemone

Curacao does have a multitude of macro subjects. So typically I was way at the back of the group with my buddy trying to hurry me along.

Frozen in time
Four-eyed butterfly fish and gobey

I hope we get to go back to Curacao to get lost in the small small world of creatures that live off of its shores.

A hungry blue tang
Blue tang grazing on algae

Is diving at the underwater museum near Isla Mujeres worth the effort? — Yes!

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The Librarian
The Librarian

In the abstract, a 30 foot dive with artificial concrete reef structure does not sound like a very interesting dive, at least to me. Yet, when you have artists who are willing to spend countless hours forming the concrete into hundreds of different statues that resemble people engaged in a variety of activities, all of a sudden the dive does become interesting. The underwater museum in Isla Mujeres has 500 sculptures with three different galleries submerged between three and six meters of water. The museum began in 2009 and was completed at the end of 2013. The series of sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor and five other Mexican sculptors are located in the Cancún National Marine Park. The museum was thought up by Marine Park Director Jaime Gonzalez Canto with the help off sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor.

Variety of Statues
guadeloupe underwater

When we dove the museum, one of the divers on the boat was a doctor from north Texas. He was making his second trip to the museum and said he wanted to see how many statues had been added. We also met a new diver from the San Fransisco area diving the museum. She was newly certified and seemed to enjoy the dive all the while taking pictures of the experience.

Of all the statues that we saw the one that spoke to me was one I refer to as the barrister.

The Barrister
The Barrister

To me it looked like an English Barrister pleading his case underwater. He is surrounded by statues who may or may not be particularly interested in what he has to say. Oh, that is the life of a trial lawyer, something I have been doing for over 30 years.

Do you look up when diving?

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Goliath Grouper silhouette
Goliath Grouper silhouette

Not long ago I read an article that talked about how divers often became mesmorized by looking where the fish are, mostly near the bottom and often under ledges and over hangs. The problem the author said was that sometimes the most interesting things were swimming over the heads of the divers who missed them because they did not look up.

With that thought in mind I recently dove the Odyssey in Roatan Honduras. As briefed the dive was to have a maximum depth of 100 feet. We would not stay there very long and then we would gradually make our way up a wall near the wreck. As we got down to the wreck I shot some video of the wreck which is quite large. Here is my dive buddy Tony checking out part of the wreck. https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcampbell65/20074724821/

Midway through the dive I turend off the video and switched to stills. I looked up and overhead there was an enormous grouper that was swimming. He was easily 5 feet in length. I thouht about leaving the strobes on, but thought a silhouette of the fish might be interesting. During the rest of the dive we saw some black groupers as well and they were also in the 4 to 5 foot in length range.

Glad I looked up to see such incredible animals. Here is some of the video from the wreck dive:

Barbados and anticipating marine life

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Looking in looking out; its all a matter of perspective

It was during the second week of a two week trip that we flew into Barbados, with the expectation of finding time for a few dives. We had done a few dives in Guadeloupe the preceeding week, and the diving had been less than stellar, in part because of the lack of visibility. In part because of odd things that occurred during the trip. So it was with some hope that we landed in Barbados and then drove to the Crane to stay for the week.

Barbados, unlike many of the Caribbean islands, is a coral island and is very flat. Many of the islands in the Caribbean owe their existence to volcanos which rose up from the sea floor to create the island. Oh, and Barbados was my fist experience of driving on the left (wrong) side of the road. Before we got to the dive shop my brain was already on overload. Bajian drivers are freindly, but they don’t drive slow. If you are already having to rethink right and left, it can be a bit of a challenge to do it, and go fast. (For me it was kind of like pat your head and rub your tummy). Thankfully we did make it through the week without any driving mishaps.

We dove with Ecco dive, an excellent dive shop that keeps its dive groups to a small number of divers. Andrew, the owner is exceptionally knowledgeable of the marine environment and gladly shares his wealth of knowledge with his guests. He is also a very talented underwater photographer. One of the ideas that Andrew passed on to me was that marine life do follow certain patterns of conduct; and if you see certain things happening, you can make educated guesses about what the marine life will do next. Now that is a very powerful observation for an underwater photographer because if we have an understanding of how certain activity is likely to unfold, we can position ourselves to try to capture it. Since I dive open circuit, which is very noisey, positioning myself to capture interesting marine activity is quite a challenge. That is, the fish can hear you coming and often times will scatter if you fin in to try to get close to them. On the other hand, if you are patient and wait for the fish, and can anticipate what they might do.

barbados3-1

One other thing I learned in Barbados that I had never thought about before was that the water in some parts of the Caribbean is saltier than in other places. Barbados is one of the places where the water is saltier that other places, so plan on adding another 2 pounds of weight.

barbados-1
Below is a link to an article I wrote about the last dive we did in Barbados.

http://oneworldmanylifes.blogspot.com/2012/09/extending-air.html

What does blue light tell us?

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Brain coral bio-flourescence
Brain coral bio-flourescence

A couple of years ago while we were diving in the Caymans I was introduced to bio-flourescence. Prior to that trip, I had been on a number of night dives over the years so I was accustomed to the thought of turning off all of the dive lights and moving your hands about to stir the water to see plankton luminesce or glow in the dark. Okay it was interesting but that was about as far as I got.

Bio-luminesce seemed to be different. Instead of turning off all of the lights we added a blue light, not black light as we all saw in our youths. We added some yellow filters and blue light filters for my strobes. Voila certain critters changed colors and glowed in the dark.

Bahamas anenome under blue light
Giant anemone under blue light

So I was no longer looking at pint sized critters who glowed for a moment or two; now I was looking at much larger corals and creatures that glowed green or other colors, as long as I turned the blue light on them. Cool. What appeared to be the difference between bioluminesce and bio-flourescene was the use of blue lights which which would cause a glowing for more than a few seconds.

After thinking about it for a while, I began to wonder if there was any practical applications for being able to see bio-flourescense. Turns out there is. From my readings it appears that the proteins that glow under blue light can be useful in helping to identify cancerous cells. Hmmm that is kind of interesting. It also turns out that when blue light hits juvenile corals it also glows. Now I am not a scientist, but it would seem to me that that type of information would be useful in identifying whether new corals are growing on a reef or not. Turns out there is some research being done along the lines of using blue light to identify new growth coral. Now that seems to me would be useful in helping to identify whether a reef was growing with new corals, was stagnat or dying. I could see if studied under controlled conditions it would be very useful to identify the health of at least the portion of the reef which would bio-flouresce. I suspect there are still more practical appications for blue light underwater than have yet been considered. So maybe blue light will unlock even more secrets of the oceans and nature and is more than just a cool sight.

Wide angle or macro? Decisions decisions, decisions…

Uncategorized
arrow crab

I was thinking back to a dive I did in Anguilla on a wreck known as the MV Commerce. Wreck dives are typically dives where I want to have my underwater camera set up to shoot wide angle. Close focus wide angle is a great way to try to capture the large expanses of a ship for instance, but it really doesn’t do to much for trying to take pictures of small critters. Shooting pictures of small critters with a wide angle lens makes them look insignificant, if they can be found at all.

Alot of times before dives, I try to find out what are we likely to see on the dive. The reason is if it sounds like we will see big objects than I rig the camera for wide angle which works best. If it sounds like we will see small critters, then a macro setting with a 60mm or 105mm lens works best for me. For the most part, I shot wreck dives with a wide angle lens. Of course, some dive masters incorrectly think that if they tell me what we are likely to see that that will either jinx the dive, or will take away from it in some way. Understand, I don’t need detail, what we will see is often quite different from what has been seen at the same dive site on prior dives; but I just would like to know, big or small features so I can rig the camera accordingly.

The MV Commerce was a over 100 feet in length so I figured, good wide angle shooting. Little did I know but our dive master was very good at finding the small inhabitants who had made themselves at home on the wreck. The MV Commerce at that point had been down over 20 years, so there was quite a bit of coral and sponge life on the ship. Great habbitat for small critters. As it turned out, the dive was the first time I had really looked at an arrow crab. Now arrow crabs remind me of daddy long legs spiders, but have an elongated head which comes to a point. One of the crabs we found that day had been hunting. And, it appeared he had been quite successful. He not only had food in one of his claws, but had jammed some of his prey down on the spike at the end of his head. (Bless his pointed little head). Of course rigged for wide angle I could try as many different shots and angle as I liked with little success. At one point I put my dome right in the crabs face, but the image still looked punny. Nevertheless, I did get bailed out at the end of the dive. A green sea turtle swam down from the surface and started napping on the remains of the deck of the wreck. Sometimes it better to be lucky than good.

Turtle on deck of the wreck of the M.V. Commerce

Oh, and in case you were wondering what it looks like when I am rigging my underwater camera, here is a short timelapse movie I shot a while back, where I rigged the camera for wide angle. I just wish I could rig the camera this fast in real time.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BruceCampbell65/posts/PyBnFTnmatG?pid=6004089089182503426&oid=104442422001208185337

a href=”http://vimeo.com/user16230710″>Vimeo

Where does diving take us?

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So peaceful, yet at the surface a storm had gone through and sunk over 20 % of the fishing fleet

Over the years I have asked alot of divers the simple question: “Where does diving take us?” and gotten a wide variety of answers. Sometimes I get a response that is a destination: Bahamas, Belize, Barbados….Sometimes I get a response that says more about an emotion: tranquility, peacefulness, relaxing, awe inspiring…. Sometimes the response is more about avoidance: “Away from the phone, fax, texts, emails….” And, sometimes the response is more about self awareness: “To a new interest; to a recognition of a different environment….”

Whatever the reason for diving, it does surprise me how dropping down a relatively few feet into the water can have such a profound affect on diver’s perceptions. That perception was particularly true when we were in Tobago.

A few years ago we were on a catamaran sailing around Tobago. A storm came in and the captain took us to deep water to anchor overnight. We dropped two anchors to hold us in place. It was a bit rough that night but I didn’t think too much about it until the next morning when I noticed quite a few of the boats that had anchored or tied down near us were gone. A few moments later I saw a 50 foot sailboat break its mooring and drift past us. We pulled up anchor and motored back to a lagoon where we stayed for a couple of days. Twenty percent of the fishing fleet of Tobago was sunk during the storm. I guess it was rougher than I thought. Of course I am a sound sleeper on boats.

Yet, a couple of days later when we sailed over to Spayside, which was on the opposite side of the Tobago, there were some pretty large waves, but nothing too rough. We took a smaller boat out to Little Tobago, which is an even smaller island off the coast of Tobago, and dropped down on a dive site known as Black Jack. We dropped down in the water and the first 15 feet were a bit stirred up, but once we got down below 15 feet the visibility got much better. The water was clear and visibility was good. Usually when storms go through the visibility is so poor I am often tempted to leave the camera at home. But, on this dive I was glad I had dragged it along — all 35 pounds of it. In the better visibility it was easy to see that the sponges were huge and colorful. The fish life varied and active. The thought occurred to me: Isn’t it amazing that while the surface was rough only a few feet below the surface sealife continued on virtually unaffected….

Are you slower than a turtle?

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Avoiding the current in Cozumel by hiding behind a sponge
The current was rippin, as soon as I came up over the top of the coral I had to kick for all I was worth just ot get a picture

Turtles are often a high light of dives. Even though over the years I have seen quite a few turtles, it is always great to see them. Hawksbill turtles always remind me of grumpy old men, the way they look at divers. Its like “oh bother another diver coming over to take a look. Don’t interrupt me, I have my sponges I am eating, you know I have to get my ruffage.” Now usually, I have no problem getting close to a turtle to take a picture, but that is not always true.

Over a decade ago, I was down in Cancun doing my check out dives to get my scuba certification card. I passed so since we were going down to take the ferry over to Cozumel the next day I figured I would go do some dives in Cozumel while the rest of my family was shopping. I rented equipment and got on the dive boat without incident. I even had a small underwater camera that I carried with me in hopes that I might see something interesting. The first dive was the Santa Rosa wall, which at about 100 feet, was only 40 feet deeper than I should have been diving. The dive was a drift dive, which I had never done, so I listened pretty closely to the dive master. I stayed close to my buddy who seemed to know more about diving the wall than I did. At 100 feet the crystal on my watch cracked. I could look over the edge of the wall and all I could see was deep blue water. It scared the heck out of me.

The current was moving but I didn’t notice it was moving very quickly. I was maybe 10 minutes into the dive when I noticed a turtle swimming against the current. He had pulled into what looked like an eddy behind a coral head. I decided I would try to follow him, but quickly discovered that kick as hard as I might I couldn’t get to the coral head. Now I should have realized after a moment or two that there was no way to go back into the current that day, but instead I kept kicking and kicking in hopes of catching the turtle. Well that didn’t work well. So I started to drift again. I checked the air guage and realized, wow, I sure blew through alot of air. I guess I better slow down, which I did and the rest of dive was pretty uneventful.

This year when I was in Roatan I only saw one turtle. And, when I saw him he was swimming fast — like a bat out of Sunday school. I didn’t even have time to bring the camera up to take a shot. I just watched him blast by without ever looking back. Oh well next time…. Sometimes it’s ok to be slower than a turtle.