Capturing the Moment

Anemonefish, or clownfish as they are widely known, are some of my favorite photographic subjects. Not only are they brightly and boldly colored, but you are almost guaranteed a surreal background. These fish are almost always found darting in and out of their host anemone, which provides a protective home for the anemonefish. http://www.daimarsphotos.com/Animals/Anemonefish/ Waving Hello?    These fish have always been a favorite of scuba divers and underwater photographers, but have gained a worldwide reputation since being featured as "Nemo" in the Finding Nemo movie. With fame comes problems. The demand for anemonefish in the aquarium trade has increased exponentially, an ironic fact since the movie's message preached the exact opposite.   The mutualism between anemonefish and their host anemone has been widely studied but is still not fully understood. Just how the fish are able to avoid the potent poison of the anemone is only theories at this ...

Colors of the deep, who knew?   Scuba Diving Gato Island, Philippines    Since the discovery of a thresher shark dive near Malapascua Island, adventurous divers have been flocking to the golden sand shores of this little tropical island north of Cebu, Philippines. Everyone wants to see big animals like the threshers. Those in the know come here for two reasons; thresher sharks and tiny macro critter hunting. The place to go for the latter is a nearby rock, jutting straight up out of the clear blue water, covered in dense jungle. Terns squawk as they fly in and out of caves and overhangs, but the real wildlife lives just underwater. Gato is famous for sea snakes but also houses treasures like sea horses, nudibranchs, frogfish, and even little white tip reef sharks.    Colors and patterns of all kinds shock the senses as you dive around the island. The shallows are best for nudibranchs and frogfish, while the sea horses like it a bit deeper. Wi...

Two Ornate Ghost Pipefish  When I talked to my dive guide at Malapascua about finding rare small underwater creatures he told me about two nearby places; Calanggaman Island and Gato Island. Calanggaman, he said, is a long sand bar dotted with coconut palm trees that drops steeply off into the abyss. Gato on the other hand, was described as a solid rock topped with jungle surrounded by nudibranchs and sea snakes. I immediately added both destinations to our dive plans during my stay in Malapascua. First on the list was a two dive day trip to Calanggaman Island. Denise's pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus denise) Can You Find the Sea Horse?  I was already impressed by J.N., our local dive guide and creature finder by his skill in spotting wildlife on our first few local dives. When we dropped over the underwater cliff edge on the outskirts of Calanggaman, J.N.'s critter vision went into overdrive. He found pygmy sea horses no bigger than your pinky finger nail. Ornate gh...

This is a clam attached to the wreck  One of the most famous scuba dive sights on the island of Bali, Indonesia is a huge shipwreck called the USS Liberty. I remembered these WWII Liberty ships being built in several shipyards near where I grew up in Savannah and Brunswick, GA. So I looked more into this wreck to see if I possibly came from the same place halfway around the world and what I found was very interesting. In fact the USS part of the name is a common misconception. It should be USAT Liberty. This stands for U.S. Army Transport. She was built in Kearny, N.J. in 1918 for WWI and then survived until an ill fated day in 1942 during WWII when she was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-166 while transporting railway parts and rubber. Other boats tried to help tow the damaged Liberty back to shore but eventually had to be beached at Tulamben, Bali. Not finished moving yet, a 1963 volcanic eruptions moved the ship off the beach into the water about 25 meters offshore. ...