Grey reef shark at shark junctionDrafting a whale sharkYes he is in the scrum somewhere!
I will admit that I have been a fan of shark week for as long as it has been on the Discovery channel. Sharks are smart. They have an incredible array of tools for finding prey. They have been on the planet for hundreds of millions of years and they have evolved to fit into many different sub-environments. For many years when I was asked what my favorite animal in the sea was, I typically would respond sharks.
This is why you wear the steel suit
Of course when I was growing up, sharks didn’t always have the best reputation. Flipper, who I watched a lot as a kid, always prevailed over any sharks that strayed into the story line of the show. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Flipper and have always been fascinated by dolphins who also seem to have awesome skills as predators. I have always found big undersea creatures to be interesting. They are necessary to ensure the health of a reef. They typically go very fast through the water.
But, sharks and dolphins share at least one trait, their relative amount of color is pretty limited. Grey and white and tan are excellent colors if you want to blend into the reef. But there are so many other colors that exist on coral reefs that I may have to change my thinking about what my favorite undersea animal is.
Diving in St. Lucia turned out to be full of surprises. We went in December, 2018 and there were no crowds. We had the reef pretty much to ourselves. We dove with a shop called Scuba Steve’s because we were staying on the north end of the island. I don’t think I have been to any Caribbean island where I have seen as many octopi. On just about every dive I saw at least one octopus and on several dives I saw more than one.
An Octopus lounging on the colorful reef
The reef was healthy and exceptionally colorful. You would think that an octopus would be able to do a better job of camouflage than this fellow did, white and brown stands out on these sponges, but it made for a nice contrast for the picture.
Another aspect of the diving in St. Lucia that struck me was the variety of sponges and their incredible colors. There were tons of barrel sponges, vase sponges and tube sponges that added enormous color to the dives.
Tube sponges with diver
There is only one wreck dive that was available when we were there. Of course we got our wires crossed and we dove it the day I was shooting with a macro lens. I didn’t get any pictures per se of the wreck, but the wreck did provide a healthy environment for a variety of fish and sea critters, (including frog fish) and of course there was the nearly obligatory octopus.
Queen angel fish on the wreck
In the middle of the week we were there we did a tour of the island. We hired a guide who drove us around much of the island, which has a pretty laid back Caribbean vibe. Would I like to go back, yup, it was a very relaxed trip and they do know how to cook.
After a 14 hour plane ride from Dallas to Seoul Korea with a few hour lay over, I was finally getting on the plane to fly to Manila. I had looked at multiple sites to tell me as much as I could digest about what to expect in Anilao in the Philippines. I was hoping I would be ready to shoot as many images as I could in 30 or so dives in 8 days. I’d watched video on youtube and vimeo. I had looked at images on several photo stock agency sites and I had read quite a few articles on diving in Anilao. I have looked at water temperature charts. I had gotten all the scuba gear serviced and had taken out and put together several times the underwater housing for my camera and strobes and lights. And, yet I was still not prepared for the substantial bio-diversity that I would find in diving in Anilao.
Sure I had read that Anilao was within the few hundred miles of where biologists had determined was the highest amount of biodiversity in the world. Of course it is one thing to read it; its another thing to see it.
Fortunately we had a guide Edgar who found the vast majority of critters that we saw. Edgar is outstanding at his job. After getting all set up and riding the boat a relatively short distance from the resort, we dropped in the water. My first thought: well now I see why we are shooting macro instead of wide angle; visibility was maybe 15 feet and where we dropped in was a sandy bottom. After making sure all of our gear was functioning we started to swim away from shore to deeper water — about 70 feet. The bottom was still sandy and yet Edgar was finding odd looking creatures and nudibranchs (Shell-less mollusks) quickly enough to keep four photographers busy shooting images. On the first day or so I was shooting a 60mm lens and going back and forth to a subsee diopter. I had only shot a diopter for less than 20 shots so I was really guessing about technique and how far or close I had to be to the subject. After a while it got easier to guess. And, with the 60mm my working distance to some of the creatures was really close 4-5 inches. Good thing most of the creatures are camouflage experts and don’t rely on speed to survive. They survive because unless you know what to look for they are so well disguised they are hard to see.
At one point Edgar turned over a star fish. It was a pretty blue star fish but on the surface pretty ordinary. But, on the underside of the star fish was a shrimp which might have been about half an inch in length.
Later in the dive Edgar found a blue ringed octopus hiding in an abandoned sea shell. Now I had read that they carry enough bio toxin to immobilized a small army. I took my chances and got in close with the diopter and snapped off a couple of quick shots and decided I needed to move away and not test my luck any further. (As I would see over the week, blue ring octopi are fairly docile, but are deserving of respect. No one had any problems with them but they still deserve a fair amount of respect and I would be the last one to hassle them). I do kinda like to develop the pictures I take and not just take them.
Towards the end of the dive we came across a lemon goby who was going in and out of what looked like an old piece of a log. The log was also adorned with other sea life, but the goby was the star with his bright yellow color.
We saw dozens of other critters during the first set of dives, most all of which I have never seen before. It was a pattern that continued the entire trip.
The Exhumas are a group of islands that are part of the Bahamas that begin about 30 miles of the southeaster tip of New Providence island where Nassau is located. The Exhumas are a beautiful chain of coral islands. On one side is the Atlantic Ocean, on the other side is the Gulf. On the Gulf side it is easy to sail in 20+knot winds and the water is still relatively calm. On the Atlantic side, with the same winds whip up the seas and it is easy to have 5-6 foot swells.
By staying on the gulf side of the islands, we managed to move relatively effortlessly without getting beat to a pulp by the seas. The diving on the gulf side, well it was relatively shallow, but the sea life was relatively diverse.
Red tipped sea goddess nudibranch, of course shows up while I have a wide angle set up on the camera.
The creatures also included a rather large slipper lobster, who I thought was as large as I had ever seen.
slipper lobster
For diving, it was important to be at the dive site ready to dive either on slack high or slack low tide. Most sites are near the channels between the islands. if you try to dive the sites without being on slack tide you are going to be doing a serious drift dive with currents ranging from 2-5 knots. Given that we were not particularly well set up for drift dives it meant that we had to time our dives well to be on slack water. Of course in between we were able snorkel and saw eagle rays, green sea turtles and even swimming pigs and native iguanas.
Most days early morning and sunsets were spectacular.
The only wreck dive in the Phukett area of Thailand, is near the Phi Phi islands. The MS King Cruiser was a car ferry. On May 4, 1997 it sank off the West Coast of Southern Thailand. The ferry was operating between Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands in southern Thailand when she hit a submerged collection of rocky pinnacles at Anemone Reef, 10 miles off Phi Phi Island. The impact tore a large hole in the hull, and the vessel sank within two and a half hours. Nevertheless all of the passengers were rescued.
The ferry was on a regular crossing in normal conditions, and the Anemone Reef was charted and well known by captains in the area. This has led to various unproven theories as to why the accident occurred. Theories include insurance fraud due to the owners experiencing financial difficulties on the unprofitable route, and also that local dive companies paid the captain to sink the vessel as, up until that time, there were no wreck dives around Phuket. The captain was found to be negligent.
The vessel sits upright on a sandy bottom in around 30 meters of water. Originally the shallowest part of the wreck rose to ~10 meters, but today most of the superstructure is collapsed making the shallowest part of the wreck currently deeper than 18 meters. The wreck remains largely in one piece, although all of the upper deck has collapsed.
When we dove the King Cruiser we had a calm day, with very small surface waves. Although we were diving the wreck at slack high tide, the current around the wreck was moving. Getting to the mooring ball with my camera was a chore. We all descended on the mooring line which ties to the wheelhouse. Once we got to the wreck, the wreck for the most part blocked the current. The thing that struck me was that the first school of fish we was a school of giant porcupine fish. Now in the past I have seen a couple of porcupine fish swimming together but I’ve never seen a school of several hundred swimming together. Now here was the disappointing problem, besides the current moving pretty quickly where the porcupine fish were swimming, viz was maybe 20 feet. Instead of burning my air to try to get a picture that would at best have been difficult to see the school, I opted to follow individuals around as they swam around the boat.
As we dropped down over the leeward side of the wreck it was pretty obvious that the hull was covered in oyster shells and other mollusks. I could see an enormous number of sea urchins. That was reason enough to be careful not to touch anything. But there were also other reasons like lion fish and stone fish on the hull. If you look closely beneath the lionfish in the middle of the screen you can see the tail of a stone fish who is right next to a sea urchin.
Soon we were in the mist of an enormous school of big eyed snappers. The schools of fish were crazy and the were everywhere.
As we made our way around the wreck we found the ship’s propeller which is at about 93 feet.
The current near the bottom was not nearly as strong as it was towards the top of the wreck so I stayed near the bottom, but had to watch my deco time. I stayed over 20 minutes at 90+ feet and then had to move up once I got back to the leeward side of the ship.
stern railing
Where there were once windows in the ship there were large cutout where you could look in and see some of the schools of fish.
When I reached the stern of the wreck again it was time to start the ascent. No I didn’t go into deco, but I did have to do three stops to avoid doing so. This was a very good dive to be diving a shearwater dive computer since it made determining the end and stops on the way back up very easy.
All in all the King Cruiser was an interesting dive. I was really wanting the rebreather so I could have extended my bottom time and not had to rush through certain parts of the dive.
For the most part, when I travel, I usually have a pretty good idea of what I expect to see when I arrive at my destination. Typically before I leave to go to a destination, I have looked at one or more photo sites to give me a sense of what I may be able to see, and shoot, when I get to the destination. Many times I have done some research on the accommodations that we will be staying at to make sure we don’t get an ugly surprise. It is rare that I am surprised, and even more rare that I am pleasantly surprised. I suppose based on all of the traveling I have done, I am spoiled and have very high expectations. And yet, a pleasant surprise is what we found in Taveuni at Paradise resort.
In five days of diving, I did 15 dives, 3 dives a day, and each of the sites we saw were different and I did not grow bored with the sites becoming too similar. Fiji is famous for being the soft coral capital of the world. Paradise Resort which has relatively quick access to rainbow reef is in my mind the epicenter of soft coral diving. Keep in mind, to be interesting there must be a pretty good current that runs through a dive site with soft coral to adequately feed the soft coral and keep them open and beautiful.
Most of our dives we did on slack high or slack low tide, so the current was not completely rippin’. After one of our dives one of our guides pointed out a place where the current was racing through near where we had been diving. The current looked to be well over 5 knots and if we had been there we would not have been there long!
Soft corals and a blizzard of fish
If you want to be able to push a big camera through the current, be prepared to bring your big blade fins. I wore my dive rite fins and left most of the people on our trip behind. Split fins may be comfortable, but leave them for water that doesn’t move as much. And be prepared to be well fed at the resort. Big engines need lots of fuel!
Back at the resort there are opportunities to shoot macro shots, with nudibranchs and the house reef has resident blue ribbon eels and other macro subjects.
A juvenile anemone fish trying to hide in an anemone
During the week, we saw sharks, but because there is no feeding of sharks in the area. The white tip sharks did not approach our group and were content to sleep just off the wall in water too deep to dive. We also saw two enormous Napoleon wrasses that each would have weighed well over 300 pounds. We saw several dozen pilot whales on our way to several of the dive sites and a pod of dolphins as well. Sure it would have been interesting to get closer to them than 20 meters while on the surface, but I was quite content to be able to observe them from afar. So when will I go back to Paradise Resort, as soon as I can find space in my schedule. I will plan on spending at least two weeks there next time.
One of the interesting thing about doing a fair amount of traveling is that you get to meet a lot of different people. Now during my travels I can say that I have never met two people who are exactly alike. And, to my way of thinking that is a good thing. Too many similarities and I think life could become way too boring.
The thought occurred to me recently that some people I have met are very committed to making sure that certain animals are not wiped from the face of the Earth. It’s my understanding that we are in the mist of a significant extinction period of time. To my way of thinking the ocean would not be the same without turtles, manta rays or even sharks. Now I don’t get particularly excited about reptiles, but turtles are just fun. Their expressions always remind of grumpy old men. Were sharks to go away after hundreds of millions of years of survival it would mean that an apex predator would be gone from the ecosystem. Removal of the apex predator would mean that there would be far less balance in the marine ecosystem than there is now. Mantas, until recently I had never had the chance to see them up close in the ocean. They are graceful and are able to glide through the ocean like no other animal I have seen.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I have always enjoyed eating seafood. The problem is that the nets that have been used over the years often are damaged or lost and can create a hazard to marine life in the form of ghost nets.
Ghost net
Often marine life cannot see the lines that make up a net. When a net is cut lose in the ocean, it is not uncommon for it to catch creatures that it was not intended to catch. Not long ago I was sailing with a young boat captain who had come across a net that had captured a giant manta ray. Now manta rays are endangered and quite often they are enormous. Cutting one loose while you are on scuba gear takes quite a bit of courage. If you get caught in the net with the animal and it can still swim, it can drag you down to depths that you cannot survive. Now, think about jumping in the water with no scuba gear on and cutting an animal loose from a net when the animal is only slightly wider than an SUV. Now that takes courage. So my caps off to you Captain Jordan.
Orange Elephant ear sponges off the coast of little Tobago
I admit it, as a photographer the first thing I see in an image is color. Some people see texture, some see composition, but I see color. Growing up, most of the time I spent in the water was either in a pool or in a fresh water lake. Ok if you are lucky a pool is a nice color blue and a lake is some what clear and you can see fish. Imagine my surprise the first time I went snorkeling in the Caribbean. Lots of colors in sponges and fish and coral. Continue reading Have you seen the array of colors underwater?→
I had a chance to dive the Simi wreck off the coast of Grand Bahama near Port Lacaya in March 2017. Before we dove I had paired up with a new buddy who happens to be a very talented wild life artist. Richard Bramble from the UK was on the boat and we talked a bit and since neither of us had a buddy we paired up for the dive.
Richard Bramble hovering over the cargo hold
As quite often happens because it is hard to be inconspicuous when you are lugging 35 pounds of camera gear around, I received several requests for pictures. My rule is if you are on the dive boat with me, I am happy to share pictures with you. If you ask I will try to make sure I include you in an image or two. I do ask that everyone who makes a request provide me a the end of the dives for the day their email address so it makes it easy for me to share images with them.
The Simi was purposefully sunk just after a hurricane that blew through the Bahamas in December 2016. So when we dove it in March 2017, it has not been down long. Nevertheless you can see where sea life is beginning to grow on it and there are quite a few fish who seem to already call it home. I thought the bow of the ship was pretty interesting because of its shape and the fact that it still had its anchor in place looking as if it had just sailed into port.
Bow with anchor
The Simi sits in about 85 feet of water. In the image at the top and just above, you can see part of cables that attached the mast to the top of the ship. The mast had to be cut off once she was sunk, otherwise the mast could have created a hazard because it came within 15 feet of the surface. Okay you do the math, (85 feet -15 feet) = 70 feet of boat and mast which should give you a sense of how tall the ship was before it was sunk.
Now the wheelhouse is still intact and the wheel is still in place so anyone who wants to try to “drive the boat” can still give it a whirl.
You do have to be a little bit careful of the wires which were not all removed before sinking. Nonetheless, the Simi is a very interesting wreck to dive, and will probably become more interesting over time as more sea creatures decide to make it their new home.
Some days I think about all the types of certain critters I have seen and then think that I will probably not see something new on the next trip. It sure is nice to be wrong. During the last trip to Grand Bahama it was awesome to see a loggerhead turtle up close.
I had only seen a loggerhead turtle one other time and that was from a boat deck. The last time I saw one it was only for a brief second because he popped his head up only a few meters ahead of our catamaran and then ducked down again as he saw we were sailing right towards him. I don’t think I have ever seen a turtle move so fast. Now he was never in danger because he would have passed between the two pontoons of the boat without any problem. Nevertheless, because I was close to the front of the boat I could see just how enormous he was. Most turtles I have seen have been maybe a few feet across the bottom of their shell. The fellow who swam under the boat was easily 2 meets across the bottom of his shell. If I had to guess he must have weighed several hundred pounds.
The loggerhead turtle I saw in the Bahamas raced through the dive site, right past a bunch of divers. He was huge — well over 500 pounds.
At first I did not see any reason for why this turtle seemed quite determined to “motor” through the site. It was only after I took the first shot that I saw why. Maybe having a grey reef shark following you is no big deal for a turtle that weighs several hundred pounds.
But then again, maybe having a large shark following you is just an annoyance. I really don’t know, but even if I had a hard shell, I don’t think I would mess around with those teeth. So maybe swimming through the circle of divers was the idea after all. We were the bait.
Oh yeah, the turtle took a right angle after passing me, and the shark just kept swimming straight. Who says turtles are slow.
Not long ago I had an opportunity to do a shark dive off the coast of Grand Bahama.
Our shark wrangler-shark feeder was Olivier. Olivier explained that on the dive we would drop to the bottom about 45 feet below the boat. We would line up with our backs to the Pretender wreck. Apparently the Pretender wreck got its name because there is so little left of the wreck that is just pretends to be a wreck.
Inasmuch I had the “big camera” they wanted me on the end of the line. Olivier explained that he would work his way across the bottom in front of our line and would start feeding at the other end of the line of eight divers. I thought that would be good since it would give me extra time to make sure I had selected the best combination of depth of field and shutter speed that I could use under the existing conditions. Inasmuch as I figured the Sharks would stir up the sand on the bottom, I decided to shoot natural light, but had my video light to throw a little extra light if I needed it.
We had a partly cloudy day with intermittent times when the sun would be exposed and throw a substantial amount of light on the white sandy bottom of the dive site. We would be kneeling during the shark feed.
Olivier explained that he would feed for a while, but then would try to put a shark to sleep and then would allow us to each feel the skin of the shark. He would then massage the shark some more and if the shark was malleable he would be able to lift the shark into a shark stand and then let the shark go.
After Olivier finished briefing the dive he began to put on the chain mail suit which he would use as protection from any shark that might otherwise try to bit him. The chain mail suit reminded me of something you might see on a knight in medieval times. The suit covered him from head to foot and included gloves and boots. All told the suit weighted 25 pound. Olivier said jumping into the water with the suit on was like jumping into the water with a boat anchor attached.
This is why you wear the suit-
Between the suit and the container of fish, Olivier would make a quick drop through the water column to the white sand bottom below. The regulators that would provide air to Olivier during the dive were wrapped in what looked like electrical conduit so that Olivier’s air supply was somewhat protected from an inadvertent shark bite. The BC he was wearing was similar to most BCs but did carry a number of scars from where it had been bitten. While Olivier was gearing up, Shelly the official video-grapher was putting on her chain mail suit and getting ready for the jump.
The Sharks that were expected to show up for the meal were gray reef Sharks. What we saw were about 20- 25 Grey reef sharks and a couple of nurse sharks that converged on the dive site. Olivier had warned us that if any great hammer head sharks showed up, he would call the dive and the dive would be over and he would not continue to feed the Sharks. He explained that a great hammer head shark could make short work of his suit and would be far more to deal with than we would want to do.
Olivier said normally once the feeding was done, he would walk away from the group and the group could search the sand for any shark teeth that had fallen out during the dive.
Before we started the dive, Olivier asked if I would mind taking a few stills of him for his personal collection. He said that after the feed was over when he walked away from the group, I could follow along behind him at a safe distance to take some shots of him feeding the Sharks away from the site. I said sure that sounds like an interesting challenge. Besides I figured I had the benefit of professional curtsy so why worry.
Olivier done feeding-
The guests all geared up and then after the safety divers were in the water we began to drop to the bottom towards the pretender wreck. The Sharks had already begun to congregate in expectation of a meal. They tended to circle in a clockwise circle. As I headed towards the bottom, I started shooting. I figured that I needed to know if the shutter speed and aperture settings I had selected were going to work. I checked the camera display and the settings seemed to be a bit bright when the sun was out, but fine when the sun went behind a cloud. I decided to leave everything as I had set it.
As the divers settled towards the bottom, we lined up in a line on our knees in front of the Pretender Wreck. Not long after the last diver was lined up, Olivier appeared from behind a large coral head. It was no surprise to see him because just before he landed on the bottom the 20+ Sharks whom we had been watching changed their course to get closer to Oliver near the other coral head. I can only imagine that Olivier’s BC was struggling to keep him off the bottom based on the weight of the suit and the feeding container. It was not Olivier’s usual perfect body position in the water, but he made it work to move the 20 or so yards over to the pretender wreck. Shelly was right behind him taking video as Olivier made his way over. While they were trying to get into place, the Sharks continued to circle. Now instead of one or two at a time they were stacked up 3 or 4 abreast swimming through the site. Oliver began feeding the Sharks.
The action was fast and furious. At times Olivier would disappear in what looked like a shark vortex. Among the Sharks, there were horse eyed jacks and some yellow tailed snappers. All were looking for a free meal. Only the Sharks were big enough to muscle their way into the vortex to try to get in line for food.
Yes he is in the scrum somewhere!
After a while Oliver selected a smaller shark, maybe only 5 feet in length to try to put to sleep. He was successful and brought the shark around to the divers so anyone who wanted to feel shark shin could. I kept shooting.
Shark stand-
After the main feed was over, I followed Olivier over towards the other coral head. I thought I was relatively far away, but Shelly made sure I stayed a bit farther back. Probably a good thing, since I was the only one in the frame without a chain mail suit. The action continued to be fast. At one point I had to stop shooting because the memory card had slowed down because there were too many shots stacked on top of one another to load to the card. I paused and let the memory card catch up and then started shooting again. What a blast. For someone who likes fast action, this was definitely fast. I kept watching and seeing different shots to take. In an ordinary dive of an hour or so, I take maybe 60 to 70 shots which usually gives my strobes a huge work out. On this dive without using strobes I shot a total of 320 stills and 10 video clips. Would I do it again – of course. Now I just need to figure out when.
I was thinking about the dives we did in Nassau and it occurred to me that it was some of the most diverse, and productive diving I have had a chance to do. Day 1 we spent a fair amount of time diving with gray reef sharks. Even before the feeding began the sharks were remarkably cooperative in positioning themselves so that they made interesting models.
Grey reef shark swimming overhead
The first day we did two shark divers at shark junction with the Stuart Cove dive shop. Dive one was pretty mellow and while there were quite a few sharks, the 18 divers on the boat never got particularly close to the sharks since they were curious, but at best aloof. The second dive was a shark feed and it was interesting to watch the sharks come in and be fed. There was quite a bit of bumping and jostling for position by the sharks. The divers were all pretty well out of the line of swimming, except for the shark feeder and the photographers who had chain mail suits.
Here is a brief video from the shark feed.
And did I mention the wrecks? There are lots of them and many of them have appeared in one or more movies.
And some of the wrecks are just interesting because their structure has an amazing amount of growth that has accumulated on them.
One of the interesting thing about doing a fair amount of traveling is that you get to meet a lot of different people. Now during my travels I can say that I have never met two people who are exactly alike. And, to my way of thinking that is a good thing. Too many similarities and I think life could become way too boring.
Some days I think about all the types of certain critters I have seen and then think that I will probably not see something new on the next trip. It sure is nice to be wrong. During the last trip to Grand Bahama it was awesome to see a loggerhead turtle up close. 
