It’s been a while since I posted anything so it’s time to catch up. We finally made the trip to Australia, and I made the dives on the Great Barrier Reef. We weren’t in the normal one-day tourist locations but were WAY OUT in the Coral Sea… normally eight hours from the mainland and were out there for five days. In addition to the reef, we toured the rain forest. The country is way too big to see in one adventure, so we stayed in Cairns, Queensland. The Great Barrier Reef was all I expected it to be. I’ve attached a few shark photos and reef pictures.
Continue reading Hello to all the fans of this website!Tag Archives: Scuba Diving
Wreck of the Hilma Hooker
The wreck of the Hilma Hooker is one of the best wreck dive sites in the Caribbean. The story of how the 235 foot long by 36 foot beam Colombian cargo ship was sunk is a good story and a nice piece of history.
Underwater Photography
Back when I started diving… 50+ years ago, my primary interest other than exploring the undersea world was hunting. Spearfishing, lobster, abalone and scallop hunting were my main focus. As years went by I had visions of becoming a great underwater photographer. I’ve won a few awards for underwater photography over the years but back then it was a very difficult skill to master, which I never really did. I started with a Kodak Instamatic camera in a plastic box before moving up to a Nikonos camera and then 35 mm SLR cameras with large bulky housings. Strobe lights attached to the cameras made using them difficult to do sometimes and a complete underwater camera setup was an expensive investment.
Continue reading Underwater Photography
Catalina Goby
As the name suggests, the Catalina Goby (Lythrypnus dalli) lives around Santa Catalina Island. It’s about 1/2 – 3/4-inch-long and can be found among the crevasses of rocks down to about 75 meters. It’s considered a nano fish and lives in the west coast waters from California to Peru. They remain gender neutral until they establish dominance within the harem. The most dominant will then become male and grow a longer dorsal fin.
How to wrangle a Horn Shark
These sharks lay on the bottom and mind their own business… until someone like me comes along. They have two very sharp needle-like spines at the dorsal fins and they will hurt! Trust me, I know. They also have several rows of teeth and a crushing bite.
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
Continue reading How to wrangle a Horn Shark
Lobster Man
We were diving off a small, remote island called Mayaguana, the easternmost island in the district of the Bahamas. The diving there wasn’t that good. There’s about 30 local residents and not much in the way of services. They have medical folks who show up about once a month. I’m swimming along and there’s a good size Caribbean Spiny Lobster (Panulirus argus) walking across the sand so I grabbed him. He didn’t make it to the dinner table, I let him go.
Diving the Hermes
The wreck of the ‘Hermes‘ is also a popular Bermuda wreck site. There was a large Lion Fish waiting for me when I arrived. Shortly after that he was speared and later met me for lunch. Lion fish are delicious! The ‘Hermes’ was a U.S. Coast Guard WWII buoy tender that was sunk as an artificial reef in 1985.
Fore more information about Lion Fish in Bermuda, check out the Lion Fish Task Force.
Diving Mary Celestia
The island of Bermuda is a wreck dive paradise. The island is surrounded by ship wrecks of all types. The ‘Mary Celestia’ is one of the more famous wrecks. The ship was a steam powered side paddle boat and was sunk in 1864. This is a photo of Pam next to what’s left of one of the paddle wheels. The ship was running guns for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Confederates would trade cotton with the English for guns and then run the blockade back to the south. She was a victim of the many reefs around the island.
You can interact with a 360º 3D model at Bermuda100.
Diving in Roatán
On a shark dive in Roatan I was in the water with about thirty sharks… mostly small in the 4-5 ft. range but there were a few like this one in the 6-8 ft. range. Lots of close up shots!
We encountered this large grouper near the ship wreck of El Aguila (The Eagle) in Roatán, at a depth of 100 ft. The ship is 210′ long but in 1998 when hurricane Mitch came through it broke into three pieces… even down 100 feet!
Sea Creatures
Just a few photos of the creatures we share the sea with. Future web posts will have some of our smaller creatures.
A close encounter of the octopus kind! This is one of my favorite creatures. They are incredibly smart and very adaptive. They change colors depending on their mood or environment.
Large barracuda like this guy usually swim around alone. When they are small you will see them in large schools. They have large sharp teeth and the unwarranted reputation as being dangerous. I have been in the water with them hundreds of times and have found them to just be curious. If you catch one on a fishing line… getting him off the hook could be dangerous. This was taken in Belize.
Caribbean reek shark. I love diving with sharks. They are fun to photograph and add an element of excitement to any dive. This guy and his pals were keeping us company on a dive. There are really only a few species that are of much concern to divers.
Lemon shark in Bora Bora. This was a large pregnant shark about ten feet long. She was a little far away for the photo and kept her distance. The photo shows how well they blend into the surroundings. You look into the distance and see nothing and then suddenly they are there. We saw several sharks of the same size on this dive but only a few came close to us.
This is my wife, Pamela, diving in Bora Bora at about 70 feet down. The water is warm enough that you do not have to use a wet suit but keep in mind that in the ocean there are lots of little stingy things that can get you. I learned that lesson with fire coral many years ago. Clear warm water with lots of fish… just like an aquarium.
