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Thoughts about Big Animals

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    A humpback whale in Tonga

    Don’t get me wrong, I can be quite happy looking for subjects to shoot in a tide pool. The little fish, crabs and shrimp can keep me entertained for hours. But there is something about seeing large animals in their natural environment and being in the water with them that just holds my attention. Big animals often are a big gamble. They don’t always show up when and where we are expecting. Take the first day of our trip to Tonga. After getting bounced around in an aluminum hull boat for about 6 hours in six to ten foot swells we found a momma whale and her calf. We tried to get in the water with her quickly only to see her head the other way and make it pretty hard for us to get close. Of course it was interesting to see the animals in the water, it sure would have been nice to see them for a bit longer. Of course, day three was much better, but there were a lot of hours of hurry up and wait. As you might guess patience is not one of my virtues.

    Manta rays off the coast of Kona

    I would say that the Manta’s in Kona were very punctual at least on the day we were there. Thirteen big animals in one place during a dive is pretty special. They were almost like a well choreographed ballet swimming through the dive site. I guess I was pretty wound up at the time because one of the mantas bumped me as I was swimming back to the boat and I did not even realize it. But there was video of it; I guess i should have gotten a copy.

    Tiger sharks in Fiji

    If you feed them they will come. Well, seeing three 13 foot to 16 foot tiger sharks is pretty interesting. Add food into the equation and it does seem to assure that the sharks will show up. The challenge is how do you keep enough control so it is safe. Well, 4 foot aluminum hooks help, but so does a lot of local experience. I still have mixed emotions about feeding sharks. Feed them and you are teaching them to expect food from divers. Don’t feed them and you are unlikely to see them. But I digress. Having a mature tiger shark swim within 6 inches of your underwater camera will get your heart pumping and your breathing rate up a bit. Just glad all went well while we were there.

    Bahamas, Macro, Philippines, Sharks, Uncategorized, wide angle

    Do you have a favorite undersea animal?

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    Grey reef shark at shark junction
    Grey reef shark at shark junction
    Drafting a whale shark
    Drafting a whale shark
    shark anado
    Yes he is in the scrum somewhere!

    I will admit that I have been a fan of shark week for as long as it has been on the Discovery channel. Sharks are smart. They have an incredible array of tools for finding prey. They have been on the planet for hundreds of millions of years and they have evolved to fit into many different sub-environments. For many years when I was asked what my favorite animal in the sea was, I typically would respond sharks.

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

    Of course when I was growing up, sharks didn’t always have the best reputation. Flipper, who I watched a lot as a kid, always prevailed over any sharks that strayed into the story line of the show. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Flipper and have always been fascinated by dolphins who also seem to have awesome skills as predators. I have always found big undersea creatures to be interesting. They are necessary to ensure the health of a reef. They typically go very fast through the water.

    But, sharks and dolphins share at least one trait, their relative amount of color is pretty limited. Grey and white and tan are excellent colors if you want to blend into the reef. But there are so many other colors that exist on coral reefs that I may have to change my thinking about what my favorite undersea animal is.

    Eye of a peacock flounder
    Eye of a peacock flounder
    Nudibranchs
    Never enough time
    Bahamas, Sharks, wide angle

    Have you been to shark Junction?

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    Some dives are just awesome.  The captain had just handed down my camera and I was continuing to clip the camera to my BC when I looked down.  Fifty feet below I could see gray reef sharks swimming over the reef.  Waiting the couple of minutes for my buddy to roll into the water and be ready to drop down to the reef seemed like an eternity.  Since my buddy had had some issues equalizing her ears on the first dive I paused before dropping down, just to make sure I didn’t pass her on the way down.

    On the way down, I was turning on the strobes, the camera and the focus light and my video light.  I was still 25 feet from the bottom when I turned on the video light and started the video running.  For the next 11 minutes all I did was breath, refocus the camera and try to keep up with the action.  I lost count of the number of sharks that swam through the site.  We weren’t feeding the sharks so I didn’t have to huddle up and kneel in the sand, yeh.  Instead I was free to swim slowly and try to keep up with the action.

    There were some small male sharks who swam through at various times.  the big females were amazing, easily 6 to 8 feet in length.  They were such graceful swimmers words do not do them justice.

    One of the many sharks at Shark Junction
    One of the many sharks at Shark Junction

    Mid way through filming, there was a large black grouper who was easily 200 pounds who swam through.  He was quite a contrast to the sharks. Large bodied sharks could turn on a dime and still give you 9 cents back.  The black grouper turned more like an old Cadillac– slow and steady.

    A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction
    A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction

    We also saw a school of horse-eyed jacks.  They are so graceful and their silver bodies glimmer in the water.  Here is a short video with the sharks and the horse-eyed jacks.

    So would I go back to Shark Junction in the Bahamas, absolutely.