I have had a chance to swim through quite a few swim throughs that ranged from feeling pretty wide open to feeling really claustrophobic. For me the one thing they all have in common is I have to think and look pretty hard at them to see if there is a chance that I can get the camera and housing through the available space. Sometimes I have to bring the strobes in pretty close to be able to get through the available space. Now that also means that at best I have to video that part of the dive because trying to shoot stills in such close quarters rarely works. I need about 5 feet wide to be able to get the strobes through without bringing them in close to the camera housing. I need about two feet vertically to be able to get the tank strobes and me through the available space. I can do about 2 feet by 3 feet but that feels really tight.
I’ve seen some pretty interesting responses by divers. Some are quite at ease and just seem to go with the flow of the swim through. Others, well they can get pretty spooked and bolt through the swim through. That happened in a swim through in Cozumel and as it looked as if two divers were swimming on top of one another. Now the good thing was that there was enough space for two divers so it wasn’t too bad, but it did make for an interesting image.
Now off the coast of Kona, Hawaii are a number of lava tubes that create some interesting swim throughs. The lava tubes ranged from very wide to very small. Each was different. Below is a link to a small sampling of the tubes into the blue that we saw.
Alright I know, mud bugs are technically crayfish, but to me lobsters are just a bigger version. And, fortunately, more meat to eat. I was thinking after a week of diving off the Kona coast that in 24 dives I had seen two lobsters. Now, granted the two lobsters I did see were quite large, probably 5 pounds or more a piece, but that was far fewer than what I usually see when we are diving in the Caribbean.
A Kona Lobster on the coral head
Maybe I was diving in the wrong place to see them. But it reminded me that what is plentiful in one part of the sea is often times quite rare in another part of the sea. So I guess I should look forward to the next trip to the Caribbean and seeing lots of lobsters.
In this little hole there were well over a dozen little Caribbean lobsters off the coast of St. Vincent.
Not long ago, I had a chance to do two night dives with the potential of seeking manta rays off the Kona coast. The first night I was all geared up and we were swimming to the site. Just before we reached the site I looked up and a manta buzzed right over my head. My initial thought was: wow, this could be good. The manta made two passes and I took a couple of shots that were ok, but I was hoping there would be a few more passes so I could hone my timing in on the manta’s pace. I was actually quite surprised at how fast he blew by me. Yeah, I know I am slower that a turtle, but that manta was fast. Well, as happens with many opportunities to watch for animals, you can wait and you can wait. The manta made one more pass about 35 minutes later and that was the end of it.
Well I could not complain. I had seen a manta. I had gotten off a few snaps and I wasn’t even that cold in my 2mm shorty. But my hopes were that on Thursday night we would see more than one manta and they would make more than a few cursory passes.
Well we were lucky. We saw at least 10 mantas and they were pretty active for our 70 minute dive. Now the environment at the second site was totally different. Night one was just a few divers and one manta. Night two there were 20 dive boats, at least 60 divers a lot of snorkelers and 10 mantas making a variety of passes. There did come a break in the action early on where the mantas seemed to stop making passes through the site. It’s about that time I got into it with a photographer who decided she was better than the rest of us. All of the divers but one were circled around the lights that were on the bottom of the ocean and they were facing inward. Not her, she put herself inside the circle and faced outward shining her lights in any diver’s eyes that were close to her. I was within three feet of her and I was not happy. After one of the local instructors chewed on her she still wasn’t moving. It is rather hard to cuss some one out through a regulator, but it is a helpful talent I have developed. I’m guessing she got my message because after I finished telling her what I thought of her behaviour, she flipped me off, and she moved away from me. Now, it might have had something to do with my shining my 4000 lumen video light in her face, but she moved off not long after I was done “talking to her”. Nevertheless, inspite of the challenges, I shot over 200 images and a little bit of video during the dive. Some of the images were very good, and some were interesting. The whole scene had a rock concert feel to it. At about 50 minutes most of the divers had cleared out. The last 20 minutes were awesome. So here is the link to the video from the show.
Corals beginning to feed as the sun goes down for a night dive
For a person who is largely visually oriented, night dives can be a little bit disconcerting, particularly the first several times. The first night dive I did was in an advanced scuba class in a Texas lake. The visibility might have been 15 feet and at night I was lucky to be able to see the fins of the diver in front of me. I probably stayed pretty close because even with a bright underwater torch there was not much to see and even then I didn’t want to get left behind. At one point we turned out all the lights and the dive instructor cracked open a chemical light to simulate bio-florescence. It was interesting but it would be years that passed before I had a chance to see bio-florescence in the ocean.
Roll forward several years and I had a chance to do a night dive in Playa Del Carmen. I had just started shooting a digital camera underwater and was still at the stage of chasing sea creatures in hopes of capturing an interesting image. Well I learned on a drift dive at night that was not a good strategy because we ran out of reef pretty quickly.
Roll forward a few more years and I was introduced to “glow diving” in the Cayman islands. The concept was shine a blue light on corals and other creatures and see whether they had any luminescence. This time I was moving pretty slowing and acquired a few interesting captures.
Brain coral luminescence
Well after that trip I started studying bio-luminescence and found that there is actually quite a lot written about the subject. I also made a few contacts such as Fire dive who pointed me in the right direction for further inquiry.
Anemone with blue light
Assuming I can keep TSA from breaking my filters I think there is quite a bit more to see in my night dives than I would have ever guessed.
The Grenadines are known for having nearly countless small underwater creatures to see under the sea. Arrow crabs, banded shrimp and other small creatures are plentiful to see if you are scuba diving.
A banded shrimp hanging upside down waiting for fish to be cleaned
We had seen a number of small hermit crabs during our trip to the Grenadines. There were quite a few to be seen, but for the most part they were in shells that were not much bigger than a silver dollar. Most species of hermit crab have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab. The shell is ususally large enough so the crabs entire body can retract inside the shell. Hermit crabs often use the shells of sea snails (although the shells of bivalves and scaphopods and even hollow pieces of wood and stone are used by some species). The tip of the hermit crab’s abdomen is adapted to clasp strongly onto the columella of the snail shell. Most hermit crabs are nocturnal.
So I was not expecting to swim around a part of the reef only to come face to face with a hermit crab whose home shell was as big as my head.
The biggest hermit crab I’ve ever seen
Even assuming the crab did not fill the shell entirely, he was enormous, and obviously quite strong because he did not seem to have any problem trying to carry about such a large shell.
I have been diving for quite some time and have done hundreds of dives in blue water. And yet, it was only recently that I came across an electric ray. Not an electric eel, but an electric ray. According to my fish book they are uncommon to rare in the northern part of Caribbean such as in the Bahamas and Florida. They are more common in the southern Caribbean. They tend to be unconcerned and won’t move when approached by divers, but if touched can produce a mild electric shock of between 14 and 37 volts.
From doing a little research it appears there are over 60 species of rays world wide, but far fewer are electric. The electric ray I found was what is known as a lesser electric ray. I looked, but the could not find a “greater electric ray”; who says naming protocols are logical?
The better known electric ray is the Torpedo fish. The really odd part is that the ancient Greeks used electric rays to numb the pain of childbirth and operations. In his dialogue Meno, Plato has the character Meno accuse Socrates of “stunning” people with his puzzling questions, in a manner similar to the way the torpedo fish stuns with electricity. Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician, recorded the use of torpedo fish for treatment of headaches and gout in his Compositiones Medicae of 46 AD.
I think I’m glad I can quite happily stop by the local pharmacy and find my choice of aspirin or other pain relievers. Which brings me to my next rumination? Is there such a thing as finding too many interesting creatures under the sea? That is, is there a point where there is too much of a good thing? I think it is kind of like asking can you take too many vacations? Not a chance….
In the Grenadines, the government has created a marine park in and around Tobago Cayes. Although the park is not particularly large, it is well placed. The marine park is bounded by several small islands and the depth of the water in much of the park is relatively shallow. With shallow water and a white sand bottom, this creates some amazingly pretty turquoises water.
Sailing in to Tobago Cayes with just a hint of the turquoises water that we will see
We had barely had time to anchor and we spotted several green sea turtles surfacing for air, only to return to the bottom to feed on turtle grass. We arrived in the afternoon and after lunch we were picked up by a local dive shot to go diving.
I did two dives with a macro set up. The first dive was horseshoe reef. With alot of newby divers we had some challenges, particularly since the current changed twice in about a half an hour. I did manage to get a few interesting critter shots.
This banded shrimp almost reminded me of an old west gun fighter with her guns drawn; I guess you could call her “Two guns”. I say her, because I think if you look closely you can see eggs.
After the second dive I switched the camera to a wide angle set up for the next morning when we would go to the marine park looking for green sea turtles.
If you have to anchor somewhere, Tobago Cayes is pretty spectacular
Unfortunately, no diving was allowed near the island where the turtles were, but on snorkel we were successful in finding sea turtles with which to swim. Below is a video from our swimming with green sea turtles at Tobago Cayes.
A relatively small percentage of my time is spent underwater shooting macro subjects. Why? In large part it is much harder for me to spot the small critters that are on a dive and most of the time we do not go to the same dive sites more than once. That means that if I am trying to keep up with the rest of the group of divers, I either shoot wide angle close focus and get quite a few shots, or I shoot macro and get very few shots many of which don’t turn out for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is I often rush the shot.
A peppermint gobey resting on star coral. Take a look at this at 100% and see the incredible detain in his pectoral fin and in the star coral polyps
Nevertheless, I found when I was down in the Grenadines that the amount of small critters to shoot was quite substantial and I didn’t have to wait too long to find shots. Chrismas tree worms have fascinated me for years, so I do take quite a few shots of them. Their structure when spread out in the water allows them to gather the plankton on which they feed very efficiently. The extraordinary detail in each little branch is just amazing.
Fire worms also have amazing detail in tuffs which carry their venon which when you look, closely resemble small whiskers.
If you want to get a real sense of what a fire worm looks like, look that this version of the image which is just a 60 percent crop; got to 100 percent crop and in addition to the fire worm you will see a couple legs of an arrow crab. Each little fiber can pack a punch with its venom — look but don’t touch
Of course, the dimensions of the creature can get very small. I found a secretary blenny who was not much wider than 1mm who made a christmas tree worm look large. The christmas tree worm is on the top right and the blenny is on the bottom left of the image.
A secretary blenny hiding out in his hiding hold in star coral
But as I mentioned in an earlier post on the blog, sometimes you see something that just isn’t a macro subject ordinarily, but because I can’t change lens underwater, I shoot it with the macro lens and see what we get. Hence, the next image is LOBZILLA, who deserved wide angle treatment because he was huge, think two dinner plates, but he was relegated to macro lens shooting. At this range, LOBZILLA looks like something from outer space
Thus, there is quite a variety of small creatures to shoot in the Grenadines. But, you should be prepared to shoot the big critters with a macro lens when the opportunity presents itself.
Anyone who has been around animals for long probably realizes that it is just when we think that we can predict what any particular animal will do that they surprise us. Not long ago when I was in the Bahamas, I was watching a large group of grey sharks swimming in amongst our dive group. After watching the sharks circle and swim through our group for about 10 minutes, I had one shark zig towards me rather unexpectedly. I managed to get the camera in position and shoot but also managed to get my fin in the picture. Now the shark was maybe only a foot a way from my fin, but because he had changed course rather suddenly to get to where I saw him, it was unexpected, unsettling and had me thinking: Did I leave bait in my pocket? Well I hadn’t, but it was the thought that ran through my mind.
Most of the time the surprise adds an element of freshness to the encounter. Sometimes the event makes us laugh or at least smile. Sometimes things get a little to close for comfort. And, yet it is in those moments of the unexpected that we see the one thing that we often are looking for — it is the untamed aspect of how animals behave. For me it’s those moments that I realize I may never see that particular behaviour replicated in my lifetime. But, at least for me it is the adventure and the hope that one of these great moments will re-appear that keeps me coming back.
Coming at you
I hope 2016 brings you many moments of spectacular animal behaviour.
Sponges come in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Generally, they can be classified as by shape as: tubes, vases, barrels, balls, ropes, encrusting, and boring sponges among others. They are multicellular animals whose design usually allows the sponge to draw water into the sponge, which provides the sponge food and oxygen, and then filters out the water. The water exits out of the sponge’s interior through excurrent openings or oscula.
Sponges can provide habitat for a variety of sea creatures. For instance, it is not uncommon for seahorses to hide among rope sponges.
Other animals, like lobsters, may hide under ball sponges.
As someone who takes a lot of pictures underwater, it is not unusual for me to look inside as many sponges as I see, just to try to find the various creatures that are often hiding, in, around or just near sponges.
So next time you are out diving, be sure to look in and around the sponges you see. You never know what you might find.
[Note: It’s Thanksgiving, and I almost did not run this piece today because it is pretty dark, but then it occurred to me that it does fit Thanksgiving; see if you agree…
One of the downsides of advanced scuba certification is that you become aware, and sometimes its painful awareness, of how many people struggle with scuba diving. You also tend to become more sensitive to watching and listening to other divers to find out if they are likely to have problems with the dive. Typically I am watching to see how divers put their gear together to see whether they know how it should be assembled and to see how confident they are in their topside skills. If they don’t know how their gear goes together, that is usually a pretty good sign someone on the dive needs to keep an eye on them underwater because chances are pretty good if something goes sideways they could easily panic and hurt themselves. Sometimes I hear divers say things that just don’t make any sense to me; like an average sized diver asking for about twice as much weight as I would expect he would need. I’m learning that when I hear things like that I really need to watch those divers.
One of the really bad sounds to hear when you are underwater is the captain of the boat pounding a weight on the hull of the boat as a recall signal. A repeated Bang bang bang sound usually means that something has gone very wrong for someone on the dive.
Not long ago I was diving in the Bahamas. We had quite a few dive professionals on the boat; and we had one rookie blue water diver and an older diver among others. The rookie was buddied up with a dive master and the older diver was buddied up with another dive master. My buddy and I were near the other dive leader and were following him into the current to get to some swim throughs. I noticed that the older diver seemed to have some problems with buoyancy, and he was way too involved in looking at his go pro. The rookie diver looked like he would huff through his air pretty fast. I figured he would be on the surface inside of 20 minutes on what otherwise would have been at least a 45 minute dive. Once I saw Harry, the older diver in the water, it was pretty obvious he would be all over the place, would have bouyancy problems and I figures he might be down 25 minutes.
At about the 20 minute mark my buddy and I had entered a swim through and were quite a ways into the swim through when I heard the dreaded bang bang bang of the recall signal. We came out of the swim through and headed to the boat with the current at our backs. We were going relatively quickly, in part because the current was at our backs. Not long after I heard the recall signal, I shut down the camera and started kicking towards the boat. We rose in the water column and did most of our safety stop on the way back to the boat. When we got on board, the rookie was sitting on the floor of the boat, but otherwise appeared to be alright. I looked around for Harry and he was no where in sight. I hadn’t seen Harry on the way back to the boat so I assumed something was wrong. Actually, after I looked around the boat and realized Harry wasn’t there, the first thought that came to mind was “oh boy” Harry’s dead.
The captain looked a little nervous, but did not seem to be completely upset. I kept looking in the vicinity of the boat expecting to see other divers. Finally, when my gaze shifted out to about 200 meters away from the boat I could see someone holding on to another mooring line. As the boat made its way over to the other mooring line I could see Harry holding on to the mooring bouy and one of the dive staff was with him. Harry had blown thorough his air and had not been able to swim back to the boat because of the current. Fortunately, the dive leader assigned to him had helped him drop weights after he surfaced and had manually inflated his BC. Harry was ok, but needed help getting back on the boat. Had Harry not been with a professional, Harry could have gotten himself into some real trouble. Harry by his own admission was overweighted, underinflated and unable to do anything except hold on to the mooring bouy. And, until his weights were dropped by the diver professional, Harry was “drinking” a lot of sea water. Harry’s situation could have gotten really bad if he had not had immediate help.
The dive staff earned their pay that day. And just in case you are curious what it sounds like to hear a weight banging on the hull of a boat, here is the last bit of the dive with the banging at the end.
In reflection, the dives for 2015 for me, are pretty much done for the year. Everyone came back more or less in one piece. No one got bent. No one suffered a serious injury. So I do have a lot to be thankful for; I just wish the Harry’s of the diving world would be a little more careful, and maybe take a refresher course so they wouldn’t take such big risks.
A peppermint gobey resting on star coral. Take a look at this at 100% and see the incredible detain in his pectoral fin and in the star coral polyps
Each little fiber can pack a punch with its venom — look but don’t touch
At this range, LOBZILLA looks like something from outer space
