Capturing the Moment

Heading to the boat After our first day of diving in the warm, beautiful waters around Mnemba Island the group woke up ready for more today. We decided to head out as a united front today, scuba diving in one large group so everyone could share in the experience. Emperor Anglefish Fire dartfish ( Nemateleotris magnifica )   I wasn't able to bring my big camera setup this trip due to the weight limitations of all the small safari planes, but I did bring Heidi's compact camera, a Canon PowerShot S110 in an underwater housing to record some of the underwater action out here off the coast. All of these pictures were taken with that, and you can see the underwater video capabilities in the previous post . Clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean Fi in her element   We saw many of the same fish and nudibranchs from yesterdays dives, although the schools were even bigger and denser today. A couple of beautiful angelfish showed up as well as a sleeping green sea ...

How to Scuba Dive South Africa from the cold waters of Cape Town to tropical reefs at Sodwana Bay    Everyone knows about the wonderful land animals and parks of Africa. But for many travelers around the world the knowledge underwater life of South Africa is limited to a short clip of 'air jaws' or great white sharks leaping out of the water. Now I understand why this might scare some scuba divers off from thinking about planning a dive trip to South Africa but those in the know have found amazing diversity among South Africa's dive sites that are a true hidden treasure. For those of you still reading you may just have what it takes to take the plunge and find out about these hidden gems for yourself.      Planning a dive trip to South Africa could be done in several visits or in one larger trip if you have a bit of time. Luckily right now the South African Rand is the cheapest I've seen in 30 years, hovering around 13.5SAR to 1 USD. In other words it ...

   Scuba Diving in Cape Town, South Africa: Wide Angle Photography   The cold water off Africa's southwestern tip near Cape Town is teeming with life. It is also teeming with wrecks of ships that didn't find the 'good hope' while navigating around the infamous Cape of Good Hope. There are dozens of colorful nudibranch species for the biological treasure hunter, and quite a few opportunities for some fabulous wide angle underwater photography.    Diving in the southern hemisphere winter will grant you a bit better visibility, but during the summer months a god day will run you 10-15ft at most spots. Now, (October) is the shoulder season so we lucked out with a good 20ft of vis on the reefs, 15 on the wreck, and about 40ft at the Cape Fur Seal rookery.    You can dive both the east and west sides of the peninsula and there are several dive operators that work mainly out of Hout Bay on the west, or Simon's Town on the east side, depending on w...

Kelly looking pumped Heidi hovering over the colorful reef   I realized recently that I've gone scuba diving all around the world, on four different continents, but the closest I have come to diving in the Atlantic Ocean was Puerto Rico...which is still pretty much the Caribbean. This all sounded pretty crazy to me since I grew up in Savannah, GA right on the Atlantic Ocean! But I also grew up not hearing about anyone diving in the murky, organic ocean water there. Even though I have spent countless hours and days playing in the ocean water of the Atlantic its underwater world has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Nate and Kelly to the rescue! Fish and diver Shark heading towards Nate    While Heidi and I were planning our Florida road trip to see our friends in Miami, Nate mentioned a possible shark dive while we were there. I had definitely heard of a muck dive spot in Jupiter called the Blue Heron Bridge but a shark dive was news to me. It didn't ...