Tag Archives: water

Bioflourescence, Kona, Uncategorized, wide angle

What are the odds?

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arch-with-diver-1-of-1On the trip to Kona I did 22 dives during a week spread out over 20 dive sites.  The dive sites were sprinkled along the Kona coast over about  60 miles of coastline.  Each site had its own unique characteristics, but there were many similarities.  The hard coral for the most part looked pretty much the same.

Before each dive we would get a dive briefing and I would alway being listening to get a sense of the types of animals that we might see during the dive as well as about the reef structure and other features of the particular site. Of course, I was always trying to get a sense of whether I should rig the camera for wide-angle shooting or macro.  Many times I would ask the crew the night before whether I should rig the camera for wide-angle or macro because it takes quite a bit of time to get the camera set up if I have to change from one setting to another.

For the most part the crew was pretty good at estimating whether the next day would be good for wide-angle or macro photography.  Nevertheless, as Murphy’s law would suggest there were times where I guessed wrong.  Now shooting a small animal with a wide-angle set up is not the end of the world, it’s just frustrating.  (Kind of like being asked to hit off the golf tee with a putter or sink a put with a driver.  Yes, it can be done, because I’ve tried it, but I don’t recommend it.  For me and golf it just adds another layer of frustration to an already frustrating game.)

halgerda-terramtuentis
Halgerda-terramtuentis, –yes that little blob on the left hand corner with the iridescent skin is a nudibranch

Shooting a macro subject with a wide-angle lens is similarly frustrating.  If you get the critter in the image you end up cropping to the point that the image ends up pretty small.  And, you rarely get the detail that I would want to see with a macro lens.  In this instance, you could count the spots on the little guy’s back.  Now he was less than an inch in length so trying to find him was just dumb luck.  Nevertheless, there he was on dive 20 and I doubt that anyone else saw him. Now of course, one of my recurring dreams is to be able to swim with and shoot whales, but with my luck it will probably be a day when I’m rigged for macro.  I will probably get a good shot of the eye and then be relegated to shooting barnacles on the whale’s back.  Oh well it would still be a good story.

Belize, Cayman Islands, Kona, Mexico, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you seen undersea animals hunting in pairs?

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Sometimes when we are underwater, we see cooperation between fish from the same species hunting for food.  When I see that kind of behaviour, I think, now that is an interesting cooperative skill. Nevertheless, when we see fish or other animals from different families cooperating to hunt for food together, that is unusual and is well worth watching.

When we were in Hawaii I was somewhat surprised to see a white mouthed moray eel team up with a tivoli to hunt for food.
hunting-pair-2-1-of-1
Now in the middle of the day to see a free-swimming moray eel is fairly uncommon.  But to see a free-swimming moral eel hunting with another species of fish is even more unlikely, and certainly is interesting — at least to me.  I watched this pair swim together and chase several smaller fish into holes in the reef.  I did not see them have any success in hunting.  But I could imagine that a ray which could easily get into relatively small holes in the reef could be a very helpful hunting buddy.  I could easily imagine the ray either catching and eating a small fish in the hole, or chasing out the small fish into the awaiting jaws of the tivoli.  Of course the opposite could be true.  the tivoli could chase a smaller fish back to the reef and into the awaiting jaws of the moray eel.

Similarly, on several occasions I have seen snappers hunt with southern rays.   The first time I saw  that behaviour was on a shark dive in Playa del Carmen.  We were waiting for the sharks to come in when the first pair through the dive site was a southern ray and snapper apparently hunting for scraps.  I was just hoping that I was not part of the scraps.   Now I have seen the benefit of these partnerships between rays and snappers on several occassions.  The ray stirs up the bottom looking for food and the snapper gets the left-overs that squirt out the gills of the ray.  I have seen southern rays feeding with a snapper in Cayman Brac, Belize, and Mexico.  I suspect this kind of cooperative hunting goes on all over.  Regardless of how often it may occur, I still never get tired of observing it.

a-hunting-pair-1-of-1

Cayman Islands, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you seen a new coral garden?

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When I first started diving finding healthy stag horn and elk horn coral was easy.  Unfortunately, finding healthy stag horn and elk horn coral has become more more difficult more recently.   You don’t have to look very far in the headlines to see various headlines about coral bleaching.   Unfortunately there have been size-able beaching incidents on the Great Barrier reef and around the world.   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2014 through the end of 2016 will likely be the longest coral bleaching event ever recorded.  The current bleaching event is largely blamed on global warming.  There can be a number of causes of coral bleaching causes, which among others include:

  1. oxygen starvation caused by an increase in zooplankton levels as a result of over fishing;
  2.  increased solar irradiance (photo-synthetically active radiation and ultraviolet light);
  3.  changes in water chemistry (in particular acidification caused by CO2 pollution;
  4. increased sedimentation (due to silt runoff);
  5.  bacterial infections,; 
  6. changes in salinity herbicides;
  7.  cyanide fishing;
  8.  mineral dust from African dust storms caused by drought;  and 
  9. four common sunscreen ingredients, that are non-biodegradable that  can wash off of skin and on to coral.

Continue reading Have you seen a new coral garden? →

Uncategorized, wide angle

Stoney Mesa II, or how much current would you like?

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The Stoney Mesa II dive site was as tough as Stoney Messa I was easy.
Raccoon butterfly fish under a coral head
Raccoon butterfly fish under a coral head
The surge picked up and then the current picked up and kicked my butt.  About 20 minutes into the dive Nancy was ready to come up because we were fighting the the surge and then the current kicked in big time.
We came up to the hang bar and I grabbed a hold of it and looked like a flag blowing in the breeze. The current was so strong the hang bar slowly went up to the surface, which kind of defeated the purpose of doing a safety stop on the hang bar.  So I let go of the hang bar figuring that I would just drop back and grab the trail line.  I did drop back from the boat, but at an incredible rate of speed.   I had to kick for all I was worth not to get blown off the site.
 fish on mesa 2-1
By the time I had kicked back to the end of the trail line for my safety stop I was at the end of the trail line.  I kicked to keep the line in sight and slowing went up and grabbed the trail line with my left hand.
Now the dilemma:  I had to either rely on my Cetacea cord to hold the camera or I was just going to end up hanging on the line until they pulled it in.  The current was rippin’.   I opted for trusting the cetecea keeper and it held, but it was tough for me to let go not knowing if the camera would stay attached to my bc or what it would do without me using one hand to control the camera.  It’s at times like these when I wish I didn’t have quite as much invested in the camera rig.
 A steep cliff to swim down
What a beating. It took just about all the strength I had to pull my self back to the boat on the line. I am guessing but I suspect that the current was an easy 4 knots at that point.  It was basically kick as hard as I could, pull the rope with both hands just to get to the boat. Once I made it to the boat I had to use one hand to release the cetecea cord and hand the camera up.  That was a challenge.  Thirty five pounds of camera gear to hand up one handed, while holding on to the boat with my left hand.  I got it done; handed the camera up, and then got on board. I was beat. I’m not a young man, but I still work out 5-6 times a week just to stay in shape so I can dive.  That was a hard dive. We had lunch and I took off the next dive so that I could take a nap and rest for the remaining two dives of the day.
Sharks, wide angle

How many varieties of shark have you seen?

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As shark week approaches it occurred to me that I have had a chance to dive with quite a few varieties of sharks, and I am not talking about the two legged variety.  I hope that I will never forget the first time I saw bull sharks.  They are incredibly beautiful animals that move through the water column easier than most people breath.  They are so efficient under water a very small flick of the tail will carry them forward with incredible speed. 

Bull sharks in Playa del Carmen Mexico

From fast to enormous size was the next set of sharks with which I had a chance to interact. The first time I jumped out of the boat with my camera in hand I had not even had a chance to turn around entirely when I saw this incredible mouth, almost 6 feet across, coming directly at me. I kicked for all I was worth trying to get out of the way only to realize later that with a small flick of the whale shark’s tail he could easily avoid me. So much for my swimming skills.

Drafting a whale shark
Drafting a whale shark

It was not until I traveled to Ambergris Caye in Belize that I really had a chance to watch a number of active nurse sharks. Sure I had seen nure sharks laying on the bottom napping while I was diving, but I had not really seen them actively moving around a reef until I was in Belize. Although many people think of nurse sharks as fairly “tame” you still need to be careful because they are big animals and can create some problems if their space is not respected.

The Bahamas gave me an opportunity to interact with grey reef sharks. They are very fast predators and they have a mouth full of teeth, but unless they are being fed they tend be to fairly shy about divers.

This is why you wear the steel suit
This is why you wear the steel suit

Grey reef sharks I think are very photogenic sharks. They are innately curious and will often give divers at least a quick look before they go back to looking for more interesting food.

The most recent type of shark I came across off of the Kona coast. A white tip reef shark. At least the one I found was about 5 feet in length, a juvenile and he was not interesting in hanging out with divers. I barely got a couple of shots off before he was long gone. And, even then he was pretty well hidden in the shadows.

One of the many sharks at Shark Junction

Maybe on my next set of dives I will get a chance to see a tiger shark. I guess we will see if we are so fortunate.

Kona, Uncategorized, wide angle

Do you like mud bugs?

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close up lobster-1

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
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.  lobster insanity-1

 

Kona, wide angle

Have you been diving at Stoney Mesa off the southern tip of Kona?

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stoney brook 1-1
Stoney Mesa was the first dive we did on our week aboard the Kona Aggressor. The water was a pleasant 79 degrees and we had at least 80 feet of Viz. The structure of the reef is awesome.  Enormous lava flows had flowed into the ocean and created immense cliffs to swim around.  The fish life was abundant.   The small fish were very adept at swimming between the branches of coral only to reappear moments later.

Gearing up was easy and we had plenty of room.  We dove nitrox all week and even though I only did 24 of the 27 possible dives as usual I found nitrox a huge help with recovery.

stoney brook 1 part 2-1

I was eager to duck down and see the fish life. I was not disappointed. Lots of small fish and some very interesting middle-sized fish. I saw one moray eel who was well hidden in the coral.

The surge was quite strong at several points so I  had to wait until the surge passed by and then kick like crazy to get past the choke off points where the passage ways in the reef structure got fairly narrow. The Sun had come out and the light on the reef was awesome. I was amazed at the colors of some of the fish; I am going to have to get a fish book for this area.

sea star with coral heads

Kona, Uncategorized

Have you seen Manta’s at night?

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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.

Bahamas, wide angle

Do divers have an obligation to help conserve the environment?

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A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction
A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction in the Bahamas

I used to think of the ocean as endless and its fish life as unaffected by people.  I was wrong on both counts.  Yes, over 70% of the earth is covered in water.  Yes, if you were to take the average depth of the ocean and take out the lows and the highs the average depth would be over 4,000 feet deep, or at least so I have read.

But, the ocean that can be explored by recreational divers is only 130 feet deep.  And, within that depth in many places, fisherman have and are over fishing many species. Many variety of grouper, such as black grouper are becoming much rarer to see in large part because they do taste good.  For the most part I have stopped eating grouper because of the pressure on them.  Other species of fish are also being fished to extinction.

Isn’t it odd, that lion fish, an invasive species in the Caribbean are thriving and doing so at the expense of native fish such as the parrot fish who is necessary to reefs in order to keep algae at bay.

Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?
Are you the scourge of the Caribbean?

So I will continue to eat lion fish, in hopes that someone will figure out how to eradicate them from the Caribbean, and avoid grouper in hopes that they will make a recovery.  And, I will continue to bring up trash when I see it in the ocean in hopes that by removing it some small part of the wild life that remains in the sea will be there the next time I return.  Its an enormous task in reality.  I hope you will join me in my small little effort to save the sea.

Bahamas, Belize, Mexico, wide angle

Do you ever grow tired of seeing turtles underwater? nah

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I am not sure what it is about turtles that always fascinates me when I am diving. Sometimes it strikes me that turtles remind me of grumpy old men swimming under water. I guess I can relate to that. Other times I am amazed at just how quickly they can swim and leave me in the dust, even when I am wearing fins.

Some dives are just magical

Over the years, I have seen hawksbill turtles, green sea turtles, Ridley’s turtles and even a leather back turtle.  I was amazed when we were sailing to see an enormous leather back turtle surface directly in front of our catamaran.  I had no idea that a turtle that probably weighed half a ton could immediately dive down with seemingly very little effort and at a speed that took it out of the center of our catamaran.

 

I especially like to see sunlight reflected off the shells of green sea turtles because their shells reflect so many colors. So here is to the turtle, I tip my hat so to speak.

Grenadines, Uncategorized, wide angle

The biggest hermit crab I’ve ever seen?

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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
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
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.

Cayman Islands, Grenadines, Roatan, wide angle

So why dive?

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Goliath Grouper silhouette
Goliath Grouper silhouette

For about as long as I can remember I have always liked being in the water. If there was a puddle near where I lived as a kid, I was in it looking to see what might be living in the puddle. I was the swim team kid who was always in the water. I earned some of my early pay checks being a life guard at a local pool. Later I would manage a pool while I was in college.

When I first started diving it was something I hoped I could do with my family.  It took a while and a fair amount of convincing, but to a large extent diving has become an adventure we can do together.  Diving seemed like a great way to turn off the phone, fax, text, and email stream of communications that had invaded my life. Unfortunately, what I have found is that it only delays the delivery for a while, but even that is a help.  To an extent, diving has been a great way to tune out the communication noise that otherwise buries me during the day.

But, diving also allows me to explore parts of the world that I otherwise would not see. Whether it is 12 feet down looking at southern rays at Sting Ray city off the coast of Grand Cayman, or hundred feet down looking at bull sharks off the coast of Playa del Carmen, or some depth in between looking at a hermit crab or other creatures, there is almost always something to see and learn about.

The shell of this fellow was easily a foot across
Channel clinging crab

So for me, what keeps me coming back is not just the opportunity to have some peace and quiet, but also to feed my curiosity about what exists in the other 70% of the world.

A spotted moray eel in the Grenadines