Capturing the Moment

Shark's Cove, North Shore, Oahu Ed and Heidi descending    My friend Ed had just become a certified scuba diver before coming to Oahu and Heidi had recently procured an underwater camera so we were all anxious to check what was below the waves of Oahu's North Shore. We picked up tanks from one of our favorite dive shops located in Haleiwa, called Hawaii Eco Divers. The three of us packed in our dive gear and Jamie came along to do a little solo snorkeling. We headed to our favorite North Shore spot called Shark's Cove. There is a pretty easy shallow entry near the entrance to the huge tide pool. Lots of huge boulders give fish plenty of places to hide near shore and excited snorkelers who don't want to stray to far. Ed, Heidi and I headed away from the protected area out to the point where we were going to drop down and start our dive. Just before we arrived I heard Heidi's tank banger and whipped around to see a pair of spotted eagle rays gliding under us....

Turtle Photos for Sale   On a recent scuba dive at Shark's Cove on Oahu's North shore I had great success finding and photographing sea turtles. After that I decided to return to the North Shore with freediving gear so I could follow the graceful reptiles to and from the surface with ease. Sea turtles have lungs so they need to come to the surface every once in a while to replenish their oxygen. It is hard to bounce up and down while scuba diving. The freedom and maneuverability that comes with freediving can be a great way to photograph marine reptiles and mammals. "Breath of Life"   I took out a 24mm prime lens on my canon 5d mark ii in my Ikelite underwater housing. I also had two Ikelite strobes set up on either side of the housing to provide some light. The strobes are important if you want more than just the silhouette of the turtle while photographing from below. Turtle Reflection Among the Clouds   It took about 45 minutes to find the fir...

Sea Turtle near the surface with clouds   Summer time in Oahu means the North Shore calms down and scuba season opens up. Heidi and I picked a very calm morning to rent some tanks and check out the underwater landscape at Shark's Cove, one of the North Shore's most popular scuba and snorkel sites.   We snagged a couple of tanks from Eco Divers in the quirky North Shore town of Haleiwa. From there it is just a short drive to Pupukea, the community that contains shark's cove. It was a beautiful day and many people had already hit the water. Turtle Photos   Right when we got into the shallows I could see that it was going to be great viz for our dive. We started out by heading to the right but after not finding much and getting separated we decided to turn back to the left. The wall on the outside of the lave flow forms a vertical shelf that extends 20-30ft underwater. We swam past small schools of fish and a couple of fun nudibranchs but the best photo opportu...