Mexico, wide angle

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.

Roatan, wide angle

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:

Barbardos, wide angle

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

Bioflourescence, Macro

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.

Uncategorized

Wide angle or macro? Decisions decisions, decisions…

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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

Bahamas, Uncategorized, wide angle

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….

wide angle

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.

Mexico, Sharks, wide angle

Bull shark stories

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Bull sharks in Playa del Carmen Mexico

Several years ago I was in Playa del Carmen Mexico doing some diving. We had done a few dives when the owner of the dive shop told us that if we wanted to we could do a dive where the bull sharks often were. My dive buddy decided that she did not want to go. My kids were glad. One of them said before the dive, at least we will go home with one parent. As it was there was one other diver who signed up for the dive. I had not seen him dive before, so I did not know what to expect.

Before we got in the water Massimo, the dive leader, suggested that we clear our ears before we rolled into the water because we would want to make a negative descent or at least get to the bottom as fast as we could. Of course the challenge was I would have to go back to the boat to get my camera before I started my descent. Nevertheless, the drop down to the sand 93 feet below was uneventful. We were maybe a mile off shore and the bottom was all white sand and it looked like we were going to the beach. At first I was concerned that we might get to the bottom and see very little but white sand. I was wrong. No sooner had we had hit the bottom, but a ray with a jack fish swam by hunting for food. Moments later the bull sharks began to come in to check us out. My dive buddy and I were kneeling back to back watching for sharks and Mossimo was a few feet away watching us and looking for sharks.

At first, juvenile male bull sharks came in to look us over. They were a little bit skittish but they would swim by us turn and then swim off. After a few moments the large pregnant female bull sharks came in to see what we were up to. They would swim in and get fairly close and briefly circle to see if we had food. We didn’t.

After a few more moments Mossimo motioned for us to follow him so we would swim up the “sandy beach” and so we could do a multi-level dive. After a few moments he had put a little more distance between him and us. He did that to see if the sharks would swim between us. They did. Meanwhile, a shark that swam by us, crapped on my buddy. Immediately, a remora from the shark buzzed my buddy and put a fin in is hair. My buddy thought he had been bitten and was completly “wigged out”. Fortunately, I had shot a picture of the romora as it came off the shark so I turned my camera around and showed him the romora that had buzzed him. He calmed down a bit and we continued the dive.

By now, I had counted over 20 bull sharks. Mossimo was signaling us that it was time to head up to the boat. We slowly ascended, all the while watching to see if the sharks rose in the water column to follow us. Things seemed pretty much under control when we got to the boat. I helped my buddy get out of his gear and handled it up to the captain. I had just handed my camera up to the captain when Mossimo said we needed to get in the boat. I looked down and the sharks were starting to swim up the water column. I kicked up, grabbed the boat’s gunnel and pulled myself into the boat, with my kit still on. Mossimo got in seconds later. I looked down and the sharks were heading back down towards the bottom. The ride back to the shop was uneventful and gave me a chance to think about how cool it had been to see such big animals and think, I’ve got to do some more shark dives.

Sharks, Uncategorized

Shark week continues

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Shark week

You might think that trying to keep up with a whale shark while wearing fins and a wetsuit should be an easy task. Maybe it was the camera I was dragging around; maybe I was having a bad day, but I quickly found out that if I didn’t get in close to the head of the whale shark, there was no way I was going to stay with, let along move up on a whale shark. Whale sharks move at maybe 3-5 knots an hour. Who would think that an animal that is 20 feet or more in length and who grazes on planton could move so quickly and gracefully through the water. Nevertheless, even a modest sized whale shark is much faster in the water than I am, even with fins.

I had a chance to swim with whale sharks near Isle Mujeres Mexico, which is relatively close to Cancun. We were on a boat with about a dozen other people. They would let two peole go in the water at a time. We would go in the water, swim around the whale sharks for a while, and then get back in the boat and wait for our next turn. Any time any of the other people on the boat decided they did not want to take a turn swimming with the sharks, I was glad to get back in and try to shoot still images of the sharks. If I go back, I will probably shoot stills and video. Whale sharks are amazing animals and remarkably maneuverable.

Now in contrast I wouldn’t even think about trying to keep up with a reef shark. They are just too fast. I shudder to think what it might be like to swim with a mako shark such as the one that was clocked at 42 mph. I’d have a better chance of keeping up with a cheetah. Nope ain’t going to happen. And, the frustrating part is that I can’t even use a “long lens” to try to bring the image in closer. They just don’t make an underwater port that will house a 400mm or larger lens.

Belize, Sharks, wide angle

Did I miss shark week?

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One of the great things about diving is you never know what you might see in blue water
Nurse shark surprise

Ever have one of those moments where you can anticipate what may happen next? One of the things that I try to do to increase the odds of getting close to wild life in order to take close up pictures is to watch the animals move about and then try to anticipate their next move. We had been diving in Ambergris Caye for about a week and had seen quite a few nurse sharks. Nurse sharks are bottom feeders and are pretty docile creatures. I was hoping that on this dive we would get pretty close to a nurse shark so I could get an image of how they swim.

Our dive master had speared a lion fish earlier in the dive, but otherwise the dive had been pretty uneventful. We swam over a coral finger and I saw a nurse shark swimming some lazy circles around a large coral head. It occurred to me that if my estimate of when and where our dive group would crest the the next coral finger, that we might just get pretty close to the nurse shark. In my mind I figured out the angle I would need to swim to put the rest of the dive group between me and where thought the nurse shark would next finish a circle — at the top of the next coral finger.

The sun was behind some clouds that day so I knew I would have to be pretty close to where the shark would come over the ridge of the coral finger otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a shot. My strobes only have an effective range of about 4-6 feet depending on visibility and other factors. I was shooting close focus wide angle which means that if I am more than a few feet away from my subject I would get tenie tiny images that wouldn’t be well lit.

My dive buddy saw me take off on a right angle away from the group and then turn around. I then just coasted over the the side of the coral finger and waited for the rest of the group to reach of the crest of the ridge. The shark came over the ridge pretty close to where I thought he would and one of the divers reached the crest at about the same time. I would have liked to have been a little closer, but at 100% you can read the dials on the surprised diver’s guages.

Here is a link to video of nurse sharks in Ambergris Caye Belize:

British Virgin Islands, wide angle, wreaks

Do you like to dive wrecks?

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Airplane wreck in BVI
Although no longer aerodynamic, the airplane wreck is still a hit with divers in the BVI
Although no longer aerodynamic, the airplane wreck is still a hit with divers in the BVI

In the British Virgin Islands there are a number of wreck dives that are available. So why do a wreck dive? One of my reasons is that the wreck often serves as an artificial reef which attracts fish. The wreck also provides good structure for corals and sponges to take hold and grow. At the airplane wreck the fish life is fine, but the sponges that have started to grow on the plane are pretty colorful.

On our most recent trip to the BVI we dove the airplane wreck. It is in relatively shallow water, about 35 feet. When we were there the visibility was pretty poor because a storm had just gone through and stirred up all of the sediment. Nevertheless, for close focus wide angle photo’s the visibility was within acceptable limits as long as you were careful to keep the focus of the shot very tight and close.

In a prior trip to BVI, I was fortunate to dive the RMS Rhone. The Rhone was a packet ship that sank during a late season hurricane. She was thought to be unsinkable just like her sister ship the Titanic. You can read more of what I found on the Rhone in my journal which can be found here:

http://campbelljournal.com/rhone.html

Here is a link to video from the Kittiwake wreck dive:

Bahamas, Barbardos, Belize, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Mexico, Roatan, wide angle

Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?

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Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?
Pretty but lethal?

Over the last decade or so we have been making our way around the Caribbean. My first encounter with a Lion fish was about 10 years ago when I heard that this invasive species from the Indo-Pacific region was slowing making its way around the Caribbean. I cannot say that I have been to every island in the region, but I have come close. I have seen them as far south as Tobaggo. I’ve seen them as far north as Florida. I have seen them as far east as Barbados. I have seen them as far west as Roatan, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen. Lion fish are eating and reproducing machines. A marine biologist in Belize told me that the female lion fish produces about 40,000 eggs every 3 days. The reproductive ability of rabbits pale by comparison.

One of my friends in Barbados let me know that last week his shop shot 90 lion fish while my friends in Roatan shot over 130 last week. There are lion fish round ups throughout the Caribbean. I have seen roundups in the Caymans, and Curacao and Belize. Ultimately, the lion fish has no natural predators in the Caribbean. Although there have been efforts to train moray eels, groupers and sharks to feed on them, often it still requires the spearing of the fish in the first instance. I don’t know what the answer is, but I certainly hope we find a better answer than we have now because from what I have seen we appear to be losing the battle.

Some might say so what. The problem is that with depleted native species, like parrot fish and others who eat the algae off the reef the reefs could eventually die out. I think about the great limpet that only resides in Monterrey bay and wonder, can we really afford such a loss. There are proteins that are created by the great limpet that make cancer drugs more effective and which at the present have not yet been synthesized. The proteins from the limpid sell for about $34,000 per gram or more than 600 times the price of gold. I wonder can we afford to lose even one species of flora or fauna in the Caribbean? I keep wondering if there is a better solution to removing this invasive species. Yet at the same time i think about instances in which people have introduced one invasive species to remove another and those efforts have gone terribly wrong,consider africanized bees….