Capturing the Moment

  Today was a great day to go scuba diving in south Maui. We grabbed some tanks from Maui Dreams Dive Shop and drove down to Makena Landing. We were on the lookout for nudibranchs as usual, but also just eager to enjoy the pristine conditions. The visibility underwater was the best we've had in months, and we ended up with some pretty cool critter finds. Check out the pics below! We even got the Hawaiian state fish. This really is a can't miss shore dive when you are on Maui.

  After a wonderful night listening to the sound of waves outside our open air bandas everyone awoke excited for our first full day on Mnemba island. A stay here comes with two scuba dives daily included in the price. They also offer different PADI level scuba classes which some of the group was going to do. So after devouring a delicious breakfast which magically showed up on my front deck, I went off to the boat house to meet up with the group. Pipefish   Jack, Fiona and myself were all headed out for a fun dive in the morning and another right after. Mary, John, and Maggie were all going to do a refresher dive and then dive with us for the second dive. And Moira was going to do a discover scuba course since she is not certified...yet.   For most of the group this was their first time taking a dip in the Indian Ocean. We went to Little Wall and Cabbage Reef and had a couple of wonderful dives. The critter hunting was nonstop as we came across cool finds like p...

Stuck in the Sand: Sodwana Bay      It is slow season for diving in Sodwana right now so we scored a great deal for accommodations at Triton Dive Lodge . The attached dive shop gained fame for being the ones to find the once thought extinct Coelecanthe. They found it 113meters (that’s nearly 350ft!) down in caves at a site named Jesse’s Canyon. While we did not plan to do extreme tech diving here to those depths, we did come to see the beautiful coral reefs at recreational diving depths. I dove here once before about 6 years ago and saw dolphins, a whale shark, nudibranchs, and all sorts of fish among the reef. So I was eager to come back. But first we had to get there. Deep sandy roads in Sodwana     We saw the Triton Dive Lodge sign, but looked for any other way to get there. Our little Ford Fiesta would not like the deep sand of the road past the sign. But after a few failed attempts at finding another route including accidentally drivin...

Camouflaging orange sea star   Scuba Diving Cape Town: Macro Photography Diving in the cold waters around Cape Town mean reduced visibility and low light, but a lot of life. Macro photography, a kind of specialized close up photography, is wonderful for these conditions. Most point and shoot cameras can do this, it is the little flower symbol on the round dial, but to get professional quality shots some more specialized equipment is needed. I use a canon 5d mark ii, with Ikelite Housing, and a canon 100mm macro lens with the corresponding underwater lens port. I also use an Ikelite DS161 underwater strobe to bring light down into these dark places. Janolus nakaza n udibranch on the reef Tambja capensis   Working very close to your subject means that you don't have to worry about your flash hitting all the suspended sediment and bouncing back at backscatter. Plus your light reveals the hidden colors where normally these colors can't be seen this deep. Imagine l...