My Deep, Blue View

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Bali

After two days of flying, I arrived in Bali, well rested, but without bags. My bags, however were the least of my worries, I was just glad to not have to get onto another damn plane. I went over to the counter and filled in the necessary paperwork to have the missing bags delivered to the hotel, and quickly left the messy arrivals lounge, and walked towards the exit. It was a very chaotic airport, as you walk towards the exit, you are hounded by different little exchange booths, all claiming to have the best rates, but all obviously waiting to rip you off. I quickly walked outside, spotting Leon almost immediately; we greeted each other quickly and headed to the hotel.

We love to complain about the traffic in Nassau, but it is nowhere near that of Bali’s, although I suppose if it doesn’t move its not really traffic, its more a parking lot. After about 35 minutes we arrived to the hotel we would be staying in until flying out to meet the boat. It is a nice enough hotel, big beds, air conditioned, full bathroom, and full bar. Quickly after getting to the hotel, we hopped in a Taxi, went to the beach and had an amazing meal at a little beach shack no bigger than a food cart on the streets in New York. I had tuna steak, veggies, and rice, all very good, but the setting was what made the meal, watching the surf crushing the shoreline of Bali was amazing.

(Potato Head Restaurant)

After dinner, we headed to a surf shop so I could buy some clothes to hold me over until my suitcases came in the next day, I went in quickly grabbed random handfuls of stuff, tried on one pair of shorts and immediately checked out. We got back to the hotel, had a very relaxed night and went to bed fairly early. Wednesday was filled with zipping around Bali on little rental scooters, picking up various items we needed for the boat, seemed easy enough. The streets of Bali are more chaotic than the airport, people weaving in and out of traffic, and coming within inches of you.

(Walls Made Entirely Of Shutters) (Walls Made Entirely Of Shutters)

It was all fairly standard driving, defending yourself from being killed by some other lunatic, but then we realized I needed gas. As we drove along, Leon pulled off to the side, and told me gas was on the other side of the street, I looked and decided he was out of his mind, as all I saw as a little shop with a man working at it, and a shelf full of booze bottles. This shop with booze was in fact the gas station, and when I pulled up, the man started pouring gas from the glass bottle through a funnel, and into my scooter, definitely against western safety regulations. Not much more to report for now, more to come this week, keep an eye out.

(Balinese Petrol Station) (Balinese Petrol Station)

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Shark Fining

Recently I have been looking at more online shark fining oppositions, mainly due to posts on face book, and I have found some very interesing. First off Chef Gordon Ramsay who in his video tried shark fin soup, and proceeded to say the only thing wrong with it was the presence of the shark fin, he then continued to research the fishing methods, and look at the numbers of fins caught a month. At the end of all of this, he made a presentation to the china town resturants of London, and for the most part, he got them to agree to stop serving it. Check it out below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r65FgUYdBOc&sns=fb
Secondly I didn't know that it was possible to sell shark fin online, but low and behold it is. Please sign this petition to stop it.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/22/stop-selling-shark-products/
Thanks Guys

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Last Day On Pef

(Map For Today: Resort=Red, Dives=Yellow)

So I sit here writing to you from the imaging studio, having packed up all of my camera gear in preparation for my departure tomorrow. We leave the resort, and head to Sorong, where I spend one night before heading to the Philippines. It was not the clearest of weather today, a bit cloudy, but none the less amazing diving. We went back to Markus reef and Nikson's Garden. We had a late start today, because we have to plan by the tides. We arrived at Markus reef at about 9:30 and hopped in the water. The visibility was amazing, crystal clear, and the fish were everywhere. As I reached the bottom, I came to a bommie filled with spiny lobster, and unlike ours in the Bahamas, here they are incredibly colourful.

(Spiny Lobsters)

After the bommie, we headed out into the sand flats, and past us glided a Mobula Ray, essentially a mini manta. While down there Nikson called me over, and showed me a type of anemone fish that we had never seen before, not even Leon and Claudia had seen this type here, it is called a Panda Anemone fish, and as anemone fish go, the panda is very cute, and aggressive. The aggressiveness makes them ideal for shooting, as they don't try to hide from you, but rather they rush at you. I snapped away at these guys for a while, and in one shot I got a total of 8 fish.

(Panda Anemone Fish)

As I headed back towards the reef from shooting the anemone fish, I was suddenly drawn to an area with hundreds of fish swarming it. I swam closer, and came to see that it was a massive school of banner fish, and they were dancing around the coral. They are usually in smaller groups, and until today, I have found them incredibly hard to shoot. Even today, I had to really fight to get close to them, and I didn't manage to get as close as I would have liked to, but none the less I got the shot.

(Banner Fish School)

(Banner Fish)

After being swallowed by the school of banner fish, I began to head up to the shallows of the reef, where the floor is covered by a massive forest of stag horn corals. On my way up I was taken by the number of fish. The first small bommie I came to had another swarm of cardinal fish, but as I went up I came to a coral mountain covered in various types of fish. It was stunning to see quite so many fish all swarmed around a single rock, it is enough to make you loose your train of thought.after snapping a few shots I continued up to the stag horn forest.

(Cardinal Fish)

(Amazing Life)

As usual the massive stag horn cora forest was breathtaking, it seems to extend forever. It is lime millions of little brown coral fingers with gleaming white tips sticking up from the ground. It was beautiful, and all different kinds of fish of all shapes and sizes were buzzing around the corals. After the forest, I decide it was time to end the dive before I ran out of air, so Leon and I surfaced. Everyone came up to the boat with similar reactions, they were all amazed by the vast number of fish, and the extensive coral fields that extended on for hundreds of meters.

(Stag Horn Forest)

Our next dive was about 15 minutes away, we were headed back to Nikson's garden, one of the most amazing dives near the resort. After Markus reef I didn't see much that was too out of the ordinary, so I didn't shoot much. I mostly played with the bommies, and having people model in my shots, so not too much to report from this dive. It was amazingly clear, and undoubtably alive. I am going to miss the diving here, and the experience, it has been a truly amazing journey. I am looking forward to going to the Philippines, it will be awesome I am sure. Sorry it is so short today, but I am off to pack.

(Amazing Colour)

(Nice Scenery)

(Leon)

(Leon And Claudia)

(Beautiful Colors)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Pygmys, Wobbegongs, And Night Dives

(Map From Today: Resort= Red, Dives= Yellow)

The weather today was not quite as good as yesterday, but still amazing. I was woken up by Leon and Nikson screaming "WHATS UP" on the top of their lungs. We started this trend by showing Nikson an old Budweiser commercial in which all of the actors scream what's up to one and other. It was a shock, Claudia was there filming of course, and Nikson thought it was hilarious, and is still laughing about it. I walked over to the restaurant and had my breakfast right before heading out to the boat. The sky was a little cloudy, but it was still nice and calm. Our first dive was at Wofoh again, I love this dive, it is very cool. Claudia and I went straight down to the Pygmy seahorses and began to take shots. I had a bit more trouble focusing on him today, but I got a few cool ones.

(Pygmy Seahorse, The Metal circle behind it is the size of a pencil)

(Can You Find The Pygmy)

After the seahorses, Leon and I headed over to the crack in the wall. Today it was absolutely amazing, there were literally millions of glass fish around it today. Unfortunately I didn't have my wide angle camera with me, so I was stuck with macro, but Claudia foot some amazing video. I went into the crack and sat in the bottom while I got encased by glass fish, they were so thick that I could not see past them. It was a stunning display of nature, and really cool to see. After the crack, I began to get a little cold, so Leon and I went back up to the boat to prepare for the next dive.

(Video Of Glass Fish Today: Thanks To Leon And Claudia For the Footage)

Our second dive was at Manare, a beautiful reef with amazing life, and massive bommies. The visibility was amazing and all of the bommies were surrounded by cardinal fish, it was absolutely incredible, they were all grouped together around the most colourful corals, making for beautiful shots. I hovered around in the current taking pictures of all the fish infested bommies. Once I was satisfied with the number of shots I had, I got Leon and we went with the current across the reef. We had to negotiate with the current a good it to insure that we made it to the bommie we wanted to go to.

(Fish Filled Bommies)

The particular bommie were aiming for was one that is home to many wobbegong sharks. Today there were four of them, all sitting in various holes in the rock. I hovered around the bommie gripping on to various rocks to keep myself stationary for long enough to get a shot. It was amazing to play with the positions of all the glass fish, they make tunnels around the wobbegongs when the strobes go off, making for absolutely awesome shots. I was shooting around the coral when I realised that I was running out of air, so Leon and I went back up to the surface, swam to the boat, and we all began the beautifully calm and quick ride back to the resort

(Wobbegong In A Tunnel Of Glass Fish)

I had an absolutely amazing night dive, I went with Nikson after dinner, and we went off of the resort's jetty. We went towards the shore in search of the walking shark. On our way to the mangroves, we came across some very cool stuff. I came across several more little spiny lobsters, and Nikson helped me to get them out of hiding, and I would quickly snap a few shots before it would go back into it's hole, and Nikson would coax it back out. I got a few good shots of them with their amazing blue colour and glowing red eyes.They were all really small a few inches at most, but their colouring is beautiful.

We came across an anemone filled with sleeping eastern clown anemone fish, they were really sleepy and easy to shoot. They were really aggravated with me because I was disturbing their nights rest. They kept nestling in deeper to their anemone, but I got some really nice shots of them. While I was shooting the anemone, my knee was placed directly in a basket star, and when I tried to move away I felt a tug. Since we didn't want to destroy the star, Nikson gently pried it off of my leg. As I was untangled I saw Nikson shoot away, and suddenly he was banging on his tank.

(Eastern Clown Anemone Fish Sleeping)

I swam over to see what all of the noise was, and when I arrived, there it was, A walking shark. Nikson told me to approach slowly as they are timid, but this one was a bit like a deer in the headlights. I held onto a rock and snapped away, happily erring th shots of one of the few remaining creatures on my wish list. I was ecstatic, after a few more shots, the walking shark decided to make a run for it. First it ran along on it's fins, slowly trying to escape us, but when he realised we wouldn't give up, he stopped walking and made a swim for it. We followed him, and found him under a shallow rock, we got him out again, but it ran away again, so we let it be.

(The Walking Shark)

(Walking Shark)

After the walking shark, we headed back to the jetty, and on the way we came onto a wobbegong shark. After I had shot him on the rocks for a while, he got freeked out and started to swim, so we followed, he rested down on the sand, and there was a fish right in front of him, so we waited to see if it would be eaten. I took a test shot to make sure that my camera was set properly, and when the strobe fired off, the shark lunged at Nikson. Nikson almost flew out of the water, as I sat and laughed like crazy, flooding my mask, and losing my regulator. After almost begin eaten, Nikson decided it was time to get out, ending an amazing night dive.

(Wobbegong)

Tomorrow is my last full day here, so I will be making the absolute most of it. I am really seeding the thought of traveling again, and being so far away from this amazing dive destination, but I suppose it is probably time to head back to a somewhat more real world. I hope all is well in the rest of the world, as you can tell all is well here, I am in the underwater imaging studio with everyone, all working on something. Check back tomorrow for a new post.