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Nudibranchs, shrimp, crabs, and anemones off Oregon Coast,
Seahorses, pipefish from Papua New Guinea and Thailand. Hammerheads, whalesharks, turtles, and mantas around the Galapagos Islands.
Then there are new subjects that can send you off on a tangent to spend the
rest of your life searching for - like swimming into a school of sailfish off
Western Australia and only getting one really good shot.
I think we need to give the digital still camera another minute or two before
it comes up to snuff with the old film-style cameras. I shoot slide film exclusively. It gives me a positive hard copy that can be
scanned, manipulated, and printed on anything. I can hold a slide up to the
window to read it. Digital is changing so fast I'd be afraid of losing photos to obsolete
equipment - floppy disk to Zip, to Jazz, to CD with an expensive reader to go
with each format....If your intention is to shoot snapshots of the family dive trip, by all means
go digital. If you have hopes of publishing photos, I'd stick with slides
until the entire industry is digital. Remember, this is only my opinion. I
am not a digital expert.
I have an entire library of memorable moments - let me choose one. I was
diving off Galapagos Islands. The dinghy had brought us over nearer to
Darwin Island and the current was ripping. I jumped in, lost my buddy and
went for a Six Flags ride until I was able to swim into an eddy to a rocky
shelf, about 40 feet down.
I was enjoying the barnacle blennys stuffed in
the old shells when the lights went out overhead. My brain went through a
rapid series of assessments that probably sounded like this, "...Whoa - big
cloud, no, hmmm where AM I? Gotta change fstops. Did they move the boat or
did I drift to the boat? Cute blennys. The boat's too big to come this close
to the reef, must be a cloud, whew - ouch, that barnacle has a crab in
it...that's a big cloud, hmmm (then the tiny voice in the back of the head
yells, "Look up, you idiot!!".)
Slow brain meanwhile thinks this through,
checks the gauges, yep at forty feet, I'll probably be able to see what's
blocking the light...I looked up and not fifteen feet over my head was a
whaleshark quietly hovering in the current. This animal was forty feet long.
A city bus parked on top of me and I didn't hear music or anything!!! I also
had a macro lens on my camera.
All Oregon dives are hair raising because they're so damn cold. One is in a
constant state of goose bump.
This particular moment happened while diving
with a bunch of spear fishers who were dragging their catch around on
stringers attached to their weight belts. I was quietly taking pictures,
thinking about how this group of divers must smell to a hungry great white.
I was deeply into shooting nudibranchs and thinking about sharks and how you
wouldn't be able to see them in this crappy viz and you'd never know what hit
you and I wonder if this strobe is attracting sharks the way the stringers
are...and then I felt a presence. Something BIG - I could feel it right next
to me. My heart leapt into atrial fibrillation. I wolfed down 5 or 6 hundred
pounds of air and tipped my head sideways expecting it to be removed at the
neck. I was staring into the eyes of a bull sea lion who's curiosity had
gotten the better of him. He just wanted to see what I was doing...I found
out later, he had caused havoc amid the other divers by ripping the stringers
off their belts like they were bits cotton candy.
Galapagos for big stuff, Papua New Guinea for little stuff.
Oregon Coast, because I can.
I am planning on going to Indonesia in September 2003. I will be on a
liveaboard boat with 10 other divers and we will explore the Alor and Komodo
Island area for sixteen days. Ought to be time to get a few underwater shots
and even walk with the dragons! I hear the invert life is out of this world.
Two nights in Bali...
