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Have you been to the “bad lands” in Belize?

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Those dark spots are the reef reaching up to grab the boat

Belize is about the size of Massachusetts, so we are not talking about a large land mass, at least for someone from Texas. Belize is lucky because off it’s coast is the second largest reef system in the world. The Meso American reef stretches the entire length of the coast of Belize and carries over to the Riviera Maya in Mexico to the north, and down to Honduras to the south.

There are quite a few islands off the coast of the mainland. Perhaps the most famous islands include San Pedro, and Caye Cauker. What becomes obvious if you fly into Placencia, is that there are quite a few islands not far from the mainland. Many of the islands and islets have interesting names such as Ray Caye, South Caye, Silk Caye ect. Some are have houses or other buildings on them. Some are not much more than a palm tree or two and maybe a mangrove tree or two. But sandwiched among a number of the islands is an area that from a sailing perspective is a fairly difficult area to navigate. In the “bad lands” the water tends to be shallow, and the reef is not particularly well charted.

Ten years ago when we first sailed into the bad lands with a very capable South African captain, he told me that he really watched his gps chart constantly because he did not want to run aground. He explained and it became pretty obvious fairly quickly that the reef was very shallow and rose and fell without a lot of warning. Our captain 10 years ago followed exactly the same track on each trip, just so he would not run aground. Ten years later we sailed with a Belizean captain. Captain David knew the bad lands like the back of his hand, but still he was careful to watch the shadows in the water to make sure the reef did not reach up and grab our boat.

But because the bad lands are pretty shallow they make an excellent place to go snorkeling.

Are the bad lands deep enough to dive, perhaps, but they are probably better just to snorkel and save our gas for a part of the reef that is not so shallow.

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Have you been to St. Lucia?

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  • green moray in your face
    green moray in your face

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 Octopu Lounging on the colorful reef
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
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
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.

Delicate vase sponges
St. Martin, Tobago, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you seen the array of colors underwater?

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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? →

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? →

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.

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The Sea of Abaco

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Preserving the creatures of the Sea
Preserving the creatures of the Sea

In the Bahamas is the sea of Abaco. It is surrounded by Little Abaco in part, Great Abaco and several small Cayes. The sea of Abaco is very protected from storms and even when a substantial storm arrived on the last day of our sailing trip, it did not make the water very rough for sailing. Marsh harbor is the largest town in the area and has an airport and a nice harbor. The sea of Abaco is roughly 30 feet deep at its deepest and it appears that most of the diving is done in the “cuts” where water flows in and out of the sea. In the “cuts” the fish life is impressive. One of the fish that we found quite frequently were Nassau groupers.

Although groupers may make great tasting dinners, their stocks are under significant pressure from over fishing. Hopefully, groupers will not go the way of the dinasauers. They are the puppies of the sea, and can be remarkably friendly. Gary, as I referred to this fellow liked my camera and spent several minutes posing.