Monthly Archives: November 2016

So what is it like to dive in Anguilla?

Black Margots hugging the hull of the MV Commerce
Black Margots hugging the hull of the MV Commerce

Imagine this: clear blue warm water.  Loads of fish, and a wreck or two to explore.  Sounds great, it is.  

We sailed a catamaran into Anguilla and tied off in a small bay waiting to go diving the next day.  Where we moored was near a small mini wall so we got out of the boat with our snorkels and explored the mini-wall.  There were a lot of fish, mostly sergeant majors, but some puffer fish and few grunts.   I was feeling lazy so I didn’t take the camera.  I figured I would wait until the next day to rig it and used it for the dives we would do the next day. 

In Anguilla they require that you use a local dive shop to lead the dives.  They say that it is required in order to make sure the divers don’t abuse the reef.  I suspect it is really more about keeping the local economy working.  

Sponge and coral growth on the hull of the MV Commerce

Nevertheless, we the following morning our dive guide arrived and we then went diving on the MV Commerce.   The Commerce had been sunk about 20 years before as a purposefully sunk ship.  It was a cargo ship before its sinking.  It was in relatively good shape for having been down as long as it had, but there were places where the hull had rusted away and there were many places where sponges and coral had grown over the hull.  As we were diving I noticed a turtle swimming over head and he appeared to be swimming to the bow of the wreck.  

MV Commerce with turtle

I wasn’t quite sure where he went after he crested the top of the ship so I keep exploring the wreck slowly making my way towards the bow of the ship.  

The bow of the MV Commerce Anguilla

After rounding the bow, I began swimming down the port side of the hull.  It was there I found the same turtle.  He looked like he was about the take a nap.  So as not to disturb him, I made sure that my approach was down below the top of the hull.  I estimated about how far down the hull I would have to swim and then I popped over the hull with my camera and took his picture.  

Turtle on DeckI got off only one picture before he swam away.  Sometimes it pays to be stealthy. 

Have you ever been diving in St. Martin?

Exploring turtle reef

Its been a while since I was last in St. Martin, or  St. Marteen if you prefer.  It is not a place that many divers go, but it is a place that attracts a lot of yachts and super-yachts.  We were there sailing on a catamaran that was part of the Trade winds fleet.  One of my favorite dive sites on St. Martin was a place called turtle reef.  Now if you look on most maps of the island you will not find a dive site called turtle reef.  We dove with a shop called Octopus diving.  They picked us up at our boat which was anchored in Grand Cass.  They were well prepared and whisked us off to the diver sites for the days diving.  

1t-dive-29-of-40

We did not have far to go. I had not even finished kitting up before we were there. The buoy marking the dive site was not much bigger than a plastic coke bottle. You would probably only find the site if you knew the gps coordinates.  After our briefing, Keith and I were ready to get in and see what the site had to offer.  

Our expectations were high that we would see a turtle.  Viz was pretty good and the site was basically a small pinnacle that rose from the surrounding depths to within 15 feet of the surface.  It was a sunny day with lots of light.  The site was full of fish life.  There were grunts galore, but for much of the dive, no turtles.  

An amazing amount of fish life

 

But towards the end of the dive the dive master spotted a turtle heading to the pinnacle from much deeper blue water.  It was a rather large hawksbill turtle and he was not at all concerned about the presence of a couple of divers. 

Hawks bill turtle grazing on sponges
Hawks bill turtle grazing on sponges

Would I go back to turtle reef?  Of course, any day you get to dive with turtles is a good day.  

Have you ever noticed how loud scuba diving can be?

A lobster unafraid of scuba diviersHave you ever noticed that we become accustomed to the sounds around us?  Many times we get to the point that we stop hearing those sounds.  I was thinking about how I had almost completely blocked out the sounds of the birds on my way to work the other day.   Now that might not have been a bad thing particularly since they were a bunch of grackles who don’t have a song, and sound more obnoxious than a gaggle of crows.    Nevertheless, it occurred to me that in addition to grackles that there are a lot of other sounds that I have either learned to tune out, or just do so out of self preservation.  I take the 5th as to whether I tune out family members.  

But I digress.  Now when all I took were still images underwater it did not occur to me that noise might make a difference in the quality of the images that I was able to capture.  In retrospect, there are probably quite a few images I missed being able to capture because either I or those who were diving with me were too noisy.   Yes, I have shot more than my share of fish butts, and I suspect that many fish butt images were a direct result of the enormous amount of noise that open circuit scuba diving makes.  

Nevertheless, when I started shooting video it became painfully obvious just how noisy open circuit scuba diving is.  I am reminded of that line from Star Wars where Darth Vader says to Skywalker: “Luke I’m your father”…. To me that’s kind of like the sound that scuba divers make breathing on open circuit.  In the track below I did not strip off the audio track so in case you have not noticed how loud scuba is, you can hear for yourself. 

Now even breathing as slowly and quietly as I could, the grunts and school masters were plenty happy to swim away from me.  I’m going to chalk it up to noise, because that beats the alternatives.  So historically my process with video is to strip off the audio sound from the video clips and either submit it without sound to my stock agency or if I am going to use the clip for personal use, add a soundtrack.  Sometimes my choice of music is a bit questionable, but sometimes it captures the mood I feel when I look at the clip.   

So next time you are diving, there probably is a reason the fish seem to be swimming away from you… you are just too noisy.