The weather was awesome, the water was “warm” and we got to see a lot of critters. Tons of skates and flounder all over the place, along with the usual assortment of lobster and crabs. More than a few lobster were down claws and a few had none left. I think that was due to male sparring due to mating competition.

One of the coolest thing that we came across was a little gang of hermit crabs battling. There was a spare shell that they were all fighting over and nobody wanted to let anyone get a shot at it. The biggest of the bunch was able to get a shot and do a real quick switch into the new shell. He stayed it in only a few seconds and then hopped back into his original shell. All the while, the rest of the gang was still trying to fight for a chance.

I’ve never seen hermit crabs change shells and it was really neat and a lot faster than I expected.

After the switch, the big guy looked like he was going to keep the shell “just in case”, but backed away and let everyone else battle for it. We took off after the other smaller crabs were battling to a stalemate.

Naturally, I decided not to take my camera today because we didn’t get to sorting out the gear until about 11 last night. Not having the camera probably added to the nice relaxed pace of the dive, but it would have been nice to be able to shoot some of the subjects we saw.

Either way, it was a super cool and a fun “crazy random nature” moment.

You can check them out by clicking on the image below.

Enjoy!

One thing that has come out of this trip is that I’m absolutely convinced that we need bigger/better luggage. With two full sets of scuba gear and my underwater photo equipment, we have a lot of “non-essentials” (e.g., “not clothes”) that have to come with us. I paid for extra baggage fees on the way down and will have to do the same for the return. Blech. I’m confident that I can cut out an entire bag by replacing one of the ones with a slightly larger bag. Most of what we checked was all significantly under weight, so that’s all missed opportunity. With few exceptions (mostly on the extremes), checked luggage is only concerned with weight, not its actual volume.

It’s just a pain in the ass that will get sorted before our next trip.

Much of the photo editing was done last night before bed. I still have a bunch more from the shark feed to do. There’s just a lot of “almost great” greats that I need to do some final culling of. It was just such a chaotic event that I wasn’t properly prepared for. Should I do another, I’ll be much better suited than this time. I think I can say that of underwater wide angle shooting in general. In just 5 days, the quality of images taken improved dramatically. It feels good to not only say that, but to have the photo record of it as well to go back and analyze when I have a bit more time. I probably won’t be shooting much wide angle at home given the lack of good subjects and the fact that visibility kinda sucks.

I know that for the next trip where I’ll be shooting underwater wide angle that I’m going to need to get a second strobe and longer strobe arms. The second strobe is to better-manage my light and have the ability to fully cover the area that I can shoot with the wide angle lens. The longer strobe arms are to get the strobes further away from the dome port and further minimize backscatter, which is evident in some of the photos that I took (it’ll be rather trivial to clone it out, but it’s still time I’d rather spend doing anything else).

I could definitely handle another week’s worth of diving in the Caribbean, but I’ll have to just take what I got and enjoy it.

::sadface::

The dives were OK. Nothing amazing. We hit two more wrecks, which there’s an amazing abundance of here in the Bahamas. They’re on the smaller side and within recreational limits, which is probably good for the majority of people diving here. If you need something more robust, you could always hit up Truk Lagoon or The Oriskany. For my needs, these smaller wrecks are a lot of fun and harbor some decent life.

I took a bunch more photos today and I think there has been a marked improvement from the first day of diving on Friday until today. Since this was my first real excursion with the wide angle lens and shooting behind a large dome port, I’m pleased with my progress. I think I hit my “10 good shots” goal and I’ll work to get them up soon. Tonight will likely be a slow night (we’re somewhat pooped from the five past days of diving) and tomorrow will likely contain a decent degree of lounging as well.

That’s about all I have in me for an update. The following recap sums things up really well:

Diving = yay! Photos = yay! Mike = tired!

First, I want to say that we dove no less than 6 wrecks today. Maybe plus or minus one or two pending what qualifies as a “wreck” in people’s books and if some debris was part of the wreck we were diving or some other piece of sunken something. Surprisingly, it’s sometimes hard to tell.

The first 3 were at our first dive site, located relatively close together. I believe the site was called Steel Gardens. The second dive site had two wrecks. Well, I guess one is more of a “movie prop” than a true wreck. The true wreck is called The Tears of Allah and is featured in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. The faux wreck is the scaffolding that’s left behind from the vulcan bomber from Thunderball – another Bond flick for those not familiar. I think the site is commonly referred to as “the Bond wrecks” by most people.

Our afternoon dives were for the shark feeding dive. This consists of one “pre-shark dive” where there’s no bait in the water at all. This lets us observe the sharks in a more natural environment because they’re just hanging out being sharks. You could see the black outlines from the surface before we got in the water. This was definitely freaky at first. After a quick decent, I really didn’t feel threatened at all. I was hyper aware of the fact that there were sharks around – they were pretty much always in eyesite – but they never made you feel like you were dinner. The shark feed itself was an altogether unique experience. Super fun – super exciting – and beyond surreal. There were at least 30 Caribbean Reef Sharks in a really tiny area – that was shared with 9 divers and what felt like twice as many yellow tail snapper. I’d recommend this dive to anyone that’s got their certification and isn’t going to poop themselves at the idea of sharks being in the water when they’re in the water. I have a TON of photos that I need to go through and process. There should actually be a few worth keeping and maybe printing!

The pre-shark dive was done at the Ray of Hope wreck. It was a normal wreck dive – just with a ton of sharks around. We briefly skirted a wall and made our way back to the wreck before ascending the line to the boat… all with sharks around us. The shark feed itself was done on the bow of the Ray of Hope – which is something that apparently isn’t done all that often. Due to some filming being done at the normal shark feed site, we were “bumped” into this semi-exclusive location. If you saw the Mythbusters 2nd Shark Week special where they did a night dive to test shark’s aggressiveness at night, this is the same location.

I have a ton of photos to dig though and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. Four dives and countless hours on boats in the sun can really wear you out. It doesn’t help that some rougher seas and winds blew in this afternoon and we spent much of the boat time during the last two dives just keeping from falling. Since the first part of our trip has seen excellent weather, I’m not going to complain too much.

Hopefully that begins to describe the degree of awesomeness that today has been.

The first day got off to a slow start due to a pretty good bunch of inexperienced divers. It just kinda goes with the territory sometimes. It doesn’t make it any less annoying, just easier to get over later. We’re all on vacation and we all have a limited number of dives we can do. The last thing we want to do is waste time sitting in a sandy patch waiting for people to sort their shit out while air is needlessly wasted. One thing I didn’t expect was to have someone literally use me to balance themselves while I was kneeling down prepping gear. She was doing the same. She didn’t even say excuse me or acknowledge the fact that she had just did it. It was more than a little rude and mildly pissed me off. I just made it a point to avoid them and not ruin anyone’s good time.

That said and out of the way, the two sites we hit were nice. We hit up another wall for the first dive and the second dive was a really nice shallow coral garden. I got a few good shots from today, which is nice to see. I’m starting to wrap my head around the fisheye and wish I had a lot more time to play with it here, but we’re only diving 2 more days. Luckily, we squeeze another 6 dives out of those two days.

When we got back, we had a go at jet skiing. I liked it. Corinne, not so much. It didn’t help that at one point she fell off (I was driving, so one concerned with “placing blame” could lay it at my feet) and as a result I fell off as well. Whoops. I got a mouth full of seawater, but thought the whole thing was hilarious. Again – Corinne not so much. I’m honestly just happy that she agreed to give it a try.

I think I’m going to finish resetting up my underwater photo gear and go find Corinne, who’s outside enjoying the sun. I’m not a tanner myself. I darken up plenty just being on a boat. Thank you mostly-Mediteranean heritage.

We saw our first shark here – a Caribbean Reef Shark. It probably only got within about 50 feet of us, but it skirted the top of the wall that we were diving and passed out of view. I fired off a few shots, but none of them will likely be all that useful. One of them did allow me to ID the shark by pushing the levels and contrast.

The first day out with the dome port went well. Definitely learned a lot already. Not least of which is that I absolutely need a second strobe to cover a scene with the Sigma 15mm fisheye. I briefly considered buying one (anticipating this problem), but decided that it wasn’t the right time to spend another $1000+ on this trip.

Another tidbit gleamed is that I’m going to need to exert more control over flash output. My flash photography is either done with automatic metering or with studio strobes when shooting static product type scenes. The automatic metering (Canon’s ETTL system) does a really good job in most cases for my needs. A little FEC goes a long way. For my studio work, since I’m shooting static subjects, I have all the time I need to fine-tune strobe output and positioning – so that’s really not a concern. When shooting most things underwater, at most, you have a few seconds to take the shot before the opportunity is gone. That’s just the nature of it. Both you and your subject are always moving – as is the medium in which you’re both suspended! You just have to be ready for it.

I haven’t really had time to start processing and posting images yet. I don’t think I’d want to on a laptop without an external mouse either. Expect some after I return. I should have much of the lot culled by the time I get back and I should be ready to put up some photos not that long afterwards. For now, I think I have a few shots that I’ll be hanging onto. I’m not to the point where I can capture the shot that I see in my head while underwater yet (which I’m fairly good at with macro work). Just need to keep on shooting and keep the mental process churning while technique catches up.

…if only I went on more tropical vacations!

The conditions on the water today couldn’t have been better. The seas were almost mirror-smooth. There was no swell. No wind. Barely any current to speak of. Really a perfect day for diving. Days like this open up access to sites that are otherwise inaccessible without pristine conditions.

Brief list of notable critters spotted:

• Sea Turtle (didn’t get a clear look at the head as he was hiding)
• Barracuda
• Sting Ray
• Lion Fish (unfortunately notable given the fact that they wreak havoc on the local marine ecology)
• Grouper

Add to the list the usual Caribbean suspects and you have a great first day diving. Hopefully the weather holds up and the sea conditions stay so great. On the ride over to the dive shop, we heard someone talking about the last few days being rather crappy; with lots of wind and poor sea conditions. Given the poor conditions of our last boat dives before today, I hope we’ve built up some good sea-going karma.

Tomorrow’s the first day I’ll be bringing my camera. It’s also the first day with the dome port I got shortly before the trip, so I hope that all goes smoothly. I watched a guy flood a camera today (luckily only a smaller point-and-shoot model!) and it just reminds you that housing floods *do* happen. While I would love an excuse to upgrade my equipment to house my 5D mark II, I would hate to lose my trusty 30D to something as devastating as a housing flood – especially since that’d take whatever lens I’m using with it. In tomorrow’s case, that’s the Sigma 15mm Fisheye. When I shoot macro, that’s the Canon 100mm Macro lens (easily my favorite lens out of the bunch).

So while I don’t expect to take any breathtaking shots tomorrow since it’ll be my first foray with the large dome port, I’m hoping to nab a few keepers. As I mentioned to someone at work before leaving, I’ll be happy if I walk away from the trip with 10 “good shots”. We’ll see how close I come to realizing those expectations.

But for now, it’s time to wrap things up and get to bed. Diving is for the early risers – whether it comes naturally or not.

Packing was a bit of a bitch. I have all my photo stuff plus the underwater photo stuff. On top of that is dive gear for the two of us. On top of that is the normal everyday stuff that people need – such as clothes and toiletries. Ugh. Say hello to extra baggage fees. I’m totally going to invest in some bigger/more appropriate luggage once we’re back.

My on-call rotation ended this morning at 10:30am. Our rotations last for a week from 10:30am Wednesday to the following. I’m so glad that’s behind me. People on my team have been commenting on how bad my on-call week has been … since last Friday. All you can do is keep your head down and plow through. Still, it’s not as bad as the week where I spent 27+ hours over the weekend rebuilding data for a particularly large and influential customer. That was all sorts of shitty.

But that’s looking behind me – I want to look forwards… sunshine, scuba diving, sharks, tropical fish and generally doing little else.

Can you dig it?

This means I got a late start on the day – rolling out of bed around noonish.

After convincing Corinne to make me pancakes, we went to the dive shop so I could get a tank for a few hours to make sure all of our gear was working fine. We haven’t dove since the end of September, so it’s good to give everything a once-over. The only thing that needed tending was getting new batteries for the dive computers.

I also trucked Corinne over to Target so she could get some warm weather clothes. Being oncall, I’m always hyper-aware of time and when some of our automated processes fire off (as problems will usually revolve around these set times more often than not). Luckily for me, she powered through the shopping and we were out of there in no time.

After dropping off the scuba tank, I grabbed some food and fell asleep on the couch for a little while. Nothing too crazy – maybe 20 minutes – but now I’m just foggy and want to sleep for a long time. I probably won’t – but that’s what I’m feeling like.