The Underwater Paparazzo

Stalking Elephant Seals, Crocodile Hunter Style

2009-02-05T21:48:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday (yes, I said Tuesday - one of the fringe benefits of working for myself and being between corporate jobs), Roger Uzan and I chartered a little yellow boat called the Andrea M for the day. We were supposed to be a group of three, but our third had a family emergency and had to back out.

Our plan was to eventually reach the Coronado Islands in Mexican waters, but to take our time getting there. We checked out several floating kelp paddies along the way, but didn't find any pelagics or unusual critters. We came across three pods of California Grey Whales, two groups of white-sided dolphins, and a solo dolphin heading somewhere else very fast. None of them wanted to stay and play.

We finally got to South Coronado Island. I didn't know that there were pens holding farmed tunas.

We dropped into the water south of the island, on top of a pinnacle at 55 feet of depth. The site was crazy with nudibranches. I easily spotted a dozen species in the first ten minutes. Here are a couple photos from that site.

We then took the boat around to Middle Coronado Island. There is a particular beach on which you can usually find a colony of elephant seals. In the photo below, you can see the beach from where we had the boat anchored. We decided to see how close we could get to take photos of the seals. It was Roger's idea to swim underwater along the left side of the cove and crawl through the shallows to get near the beach. As we got into the water, I had a strange feeling that I guessed was a lot like the Crocodile Hunter might have had when somebody suggested that he grab a crocodile or touch that final stingray.

The approach worked well. Actually, the elephant seals didn't seem to mind us, although the female next to the big male was keeping a wary eye on us.

According to National Geographic, bull elephant seals can be 20 feet long and 8,800 pounds. I've seen bigger ones on television, but I bet this one weighed 6,000 pounds. Even though I was in mid-thigh deep water in front of him (and you can see that he is at the water's edge), he barely even opened an eye to see me. His girlfriend was keeping her wary eyes on us the whole time.

While we waited and hoped that the elephant seals would take a swim, we had a many sea lions to keep us company.

INSERT MOVIE HERE

After a bite to eat, we went up to the south end of North Coronado Island. This is the side less frequented by dive boats, away from known dive sites like Keyhole and Lobster Shack. Our boat captain, Danny, knew a location where rare Purple Hydrocoral could be found. Its deep, though, usually in the 80-120 foot range. We found our first piece at 50 feet and a large quantity around 100 feet deep. We also found a nice cabezon. The sea lions were around again to entertain us.

Last, here is my dive buddy and trip planner Roger Uzan. One of his videos can be found on YouTube. Be sure to watch it in HD.

More of my photos can be found at my Photobucket Album and some of Roger's stills can be found at Roger's stills.

Truth Trip VII: The Rest of the Photos

2009-01-19T17:17:00.001-08:00

Here is a final selection of photos from the TTVII Trip.

A Crevice Kelpfish

A Snubnose Sculpin

A large Lingcod with some pointy looking teeth

I like how the baitfish come in different color patterns. Some have stripes over their top halves, some have spots, and some are just silver.

The ones with a row of spots are Pacific Sardines. I'm not sue about the stripe-topped ones. They could be small Jack Mackeral, but I'm not sure. And then there are the plain silver ones.

And now for a small assortment of nudibranchs. Usually, if I can't find anything else to take macro photos of, Spanish Shawls are the backup plan. Sometimes they will even pose!

And here's a cute little Limbaugh's Cadlina.

And finally, a boldly colored Porter's Chromodorid.

A few more photos are located in my Truth Trip VII Photobucket album.

Truth Trip VII: Group photo

2009-01-19T17:05:00.000-08:00

Here's the motley crew from Truth Trip VII. I'm the one with the baseball cap in the center of the back row.

Its called the "Truth Trip", but we were on the Vision and not the Truth. The Truth was used for the first trip and the name stuck. The boats are very similar.

All of the boats are run by Truth Aquatics, a great operation out of Santa Barbara.

Truth Trip VII: How to fnd Octopi Using the Braille System

2009-01-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

The Truth Trip is a yearly scuba diving trip to coastal southern California that is organized by members of the Scubadiving.com Diver to Diver (D2D) internet forum. This year was the seventh trip and it was held in mid-September, 2008. I have realized that I never posted any photos from the trip, which was a lot of fun.

Here is another octopus story!

Just sit right back
And you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful shot
That started with
A clown nudibranch
Just climbing across a rock

Each dive, I was looking high and low for octopi. I found two hiding in their crevices, but the best find was purely by accident. I was making way through the reef when I came across the little clown nudibranch below.

He wasn't in a great position for a photo, so I took a few shots as he crawled through the plants. One particularly annoying piece of kelp kept getting in the way. I brushed it back a few times, but it kept crawling back into the shot. Crawling? That's what I thought. It turns out that my annoying piece of kelp was a good sized (4") decorator crab that was trying to move across my shot. I guided him to a clear area to the side of my nudibranch so that I could take a couple of photos of him. He would wave his claws in the surge, looking like he was doing sumo wrestler moves, with a few "fins to the left" and "fins to the right" moves mixed in.

As I was having to deal with said surge, I put up a hand against the rock to steady myself. To my surprise, my point of contact was the middle of an octopus. It took me a few shocked seconds to realize what I had found. The octopus was so flat across the rock that he looked like he had been steam-rolled and was just a flattened image of his three-dimensional self. Luckily, it took the octopus even longer to realize that I had found him, giving me the time to change camera settings and get off some shots before he crawled into his hole right below where I had found him.

Truth Trip VII: The REAL Hot Action at Santa Cruz

2009-01-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

Also known as Nudis Gone Wild! I'm not talking about UC Santa Cruz, home of the Banana Slugs, this is Santa Cruz Island in the Northern Channel Islands, home of the nudi "slugs".

I was lucky enough to catch a pair of Spanish Shawl nudibranchs making baby nudibranchs. I've often seen them together but never through the whole process - and at this magnification!

First, we have the approach.

The top Spanish Shawl (whom I will call a "him", even though I know that they are hermaphrodites) makes his approach. He introduces himself to "her". He offers to buy her a drink. Perhaps he asks if she would like to come back to his rock to see his collection of kelp leaves. Meanwhile, he friend, hereafter referred to as "the wingman", waits at the bottom of the image, just in case he has to deflect the fat best friend of the female. Luckily for our Romeo, Juliet's BNFF (Best Nudi Friend Forever) has apparently headed to the kelp bar for a little grazing and is away from the action. You can see that his Juliet is tossing her luxurious mane of spikes as she pretends that she is "soooo drunk" from eating fermented algae.

And then comes The Nuzzle.

Juliet shows the universal sign of interest by gently laying an antler upon Romeo's reproductive organs. You can see that she, too, is aroused and ready to make the "four antlered beast with many quills".

And finally - Doing the dirty deed!

Within minutes of first meeting, Romeo and Juliet are turned head to tail and have started a little DP, nudi style. You'll notice that each of them has an penis and a female duct (I'm using the scientific names here, instead of just calling them an "inny" and an "outty"). Mating last only a few minutes and the two part ways, without even the exchange of a telephone number.

And finally, one last gratuitious hardcore centerfold shot.

La Jolla Shores Dive - January 11, 2008

2009-01-18T11:34:00.000-08:00

I went down to La Jolla for a couple of dives yesterday morning. You may not have noticed, but Saturday night, the moon was at its perigee - the point in its orbit in which it is closest to the earth. Its actually 31,000 miles closer than at its apogee. Apparently, the moon appeared 14% larger in the sky and up to 30% brighter. I can attest that it was a big and bright moon. The other effect of a close moon is a perigean tide. At La Jolla, the high tides was + 7.0 feet and the low tide was -1.8 feet. The effect was a slight bit more on Saturday. For those of you that dive at the Catalina dive park, the tide was so low that upon entering or exiting the water, you had to climb up/down from the bottom stair landing and over the rocks. I hear that it was quite hard. At high tide, the water was above the middle stair landing.

I hit the water around high tide. The beach entry is a shallow slope, so the higher tide made for a very long swim before dropping down. The edges of the La Jolla canyon at 50-100 feet are small shelf walls that are very eroded with lots of holes and crevices. That's where were I found this Coonstripe Shrimp and his Spiny Brittle Star roommate.

On my second dive, I finally found a fringehead. His heckling of me while I tried to get a good photo in the low visibility helped me to identify him as a Sarcastic Fringehead. "You think you're a photographer? I've seen better efforts by a blind person."

Speaking of visibility, the first dives was okay at about 15 feet. What I hadn't counted on was the huge 8.8 foot swing in the tides would drag a lot of crap and particulate over the lip of the canyon as that huge amount of water was pulled away from the beach. I bet the incoming tide was very clear (and cold) as water came in from the canyon.

I present...the Sarcastic Fringehead.

There were a few nudibranches on the dive, but nothing too exciting. I did see a pretty Navanax, but none of the photos were worth posting. Here is a token nudibranch for the nudi lovers.

A White-Spotted Dorid

There were little Speckled Sanddabs all over the place.

On the way in, you cross hundreds of feet of sand dollar beds. Most of the sand dollars were more like "sand fifty-cent pieces". I guess that's because of the economy and recession. Everything is worth 50% less. Many people probably don't know that they are really a pinkish color before they die and dry out, becoming the white skeleton that you find on the beach. They stand on end in the sand and use their short bristles/arms to feed as the water washes back and forth. They are mostly oriented toward the beach to best feed off of the waves that sweep in and out. Some of them even have little trails behind them where they have changed position. Once you find the sand dollars, you don't even need a compass to find the beach exit. Just head toward shallow water and go in the direction that the dollars point.

Living Sand Dollars.

Dive 1 Summary

Time under water: 61 minutes
Maximum Depth: 101 feet
Temperature: 49 deg F

Dive 2 Summary

Time under water: 53 minutes
Maximum Depth: 64 feet
Temperature: 54 deg F

Doesn't include that %@$ quarter mile swim from the beach to where you can at least drop down twenty feet.

Diving on the Eureka Oil Platform

2008-11-12T17:14:00.000-08:00

I've been a little slow to add photos, so thanks for checking back. I'm going to try and add photos more often in the future.

Last weekend, Scuba Center Temeula chartered The Bottom Scratcher for a three tank trip. The ultimate destination was the Eureka Oil Platform, but we first stopped at Izor's Reef along the way.

Izor's Reef is an artificially created fishing reef. It is in 100ft of water, but the structre can rise 20 feet above the sand. The reef is made from concrete poles that are about 2ft square and up to 50 feet long - or longer. There were many small fish and schools of juveniles, particularly blacksmiths. There were many White Plumed Anemones (Metridium) which are also common on the HMCS Yukon, a sunken wreck in San Diego.

After one deep dive, we headed over to the Eureka Oil Platform. The Eureka is 9 miles out of Long Beach, in 700ft of water.

Most of my two dives were spent at 55ft where there were horizonal structural element that stretched between the legs of the platform.

This Sheephead had some pretty gnarly teeth.

My occasional dive buddy Bill Kibbett.

Roatan - Day 5, continued

2008-07-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

"Won't cha take me back down to blennie city"

There were nine of these little fellas in a five inch piece of
encrusted railing on the Prince Albert. The PA is a sunken freighter
right in front of the resort. It is about one-hundred feet long and is
in about sixty-five feet of water. It is covered with a lot of coral
growth and sea life. The blennies can be found just about anywhere
that you care to look on the upper parts of the ship.

Roatan - Day 5, continued

2008-07-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Peek-a-boo!

Roatan - Day 5, continued

2008-07-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

Even better, several eel photos. This spotted eel is getting his chin
tickled by a yellowline arrow crab.

Roatan - Day 5

2008-07-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

Another day, another four dives!

No tropical dive photolog would be complete without an eel photo.

Roatan - Day 4, continued

2008-07-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight, some local children came to the resort to perform traditional
Honduran dances. Besides performing for tourists (which helps raise
money for the program), they also compete against other dance groups.
Honduran children are very good looking.

Roatan - Day 4, continued

2008-07-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hummingbirds are very numerous around the reset. There were ten of
them fighting over two feeders.

Roatan - Day 4

2008-07-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is a squirrel fish. You might remember them from my last Maui
posts. He wasn't doing anything special, but I like the look on his
face.

Roatan - Day 3, continued

2008-07-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

A busy reef scene with a variety of coral and fish.

Roatan - Day 3, continued

2008-07-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

We spent the surface interval (the rest period between dives) at a
shallow spot between two small cays (islands). There were some
mangrove trees along the shore. I made this wide-angle over/under shot
using my 8 inch dome. This is one of the things that you can only do
with an SLR and not with a compact camera. You can see the mangrove
trees on top and a school of small fish below. It is impossible to get
both in focus without a special half filter. Still, I'm happy with
with the results.

Roatan - Day 3

2008-07-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

Although this photo is from Tuesday, today is actually Saturday and we
are waiting for our transportation to the airport. I dove four dives
on most days, each an hour long, for a total of twenty dives. That's
half if a work week that I spent underwater. Its amazing how tiring
that can be. I haven't really had much time (or energy) to post photos.

Speaking of work, Melodie found me a t-shirt that says "Get a job...or
dive. You chose!" It seemed very appropriate considering my
unemployed status. If it wasn't for obligations in Temecula, I would
probably choose to dive and travel the world for a year.

The bar/dining room has wifi so it is easy to check email on my
iPhone. I'm sending these posts from my iPhone. It looks like the
formatting is a little off, so I'll have to fix it later.

Below is a head-on shot of a peacock flounder. They are really good at
blending into the sand, but not as good when they are on the rocks and
coral. You can see his protruding eyes. One of the divers kicked him
with her fins, chasing him off. I imagined him exclaiming "Oh my
protruding eyeballs!" as he swam away.

Roatan - Day 2, continued

2008-07-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Sea horses are one of the favorite things to see here. They come in
all kinds of colors and are difficult to find, even if you know where
to look. This is the only one that we have seen so far.

Roatan - Day 2, continued

2008-07-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my wide angle skills, particularly in getting the
bottom side of the water surface to look nice. This is one of my best
shots so far.

Roatan - Day 2, continued

2008-07-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

Divers on the reef! Most of the diving is wall diving which means
that we dive along vertical coral walls that go down to over 100 feet.
Usually, we go along at about 60-70 feet until we use half of a tank
and then we come back across the top which is usually 30-40 feet deep.

Roatan - Day 2

2008-07-09T15:19:00.000-07:00

I seem to be on a shrimp theme. Here are a couple more banded coral
shrimp in a tube sponge.

Roatan - Day 1, continued

2008-07-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

Here is another kind of shrimp - a Pederson's Cleaner Shrimp. I saw
the shrimp cleaning a fish. After the fish spooked, I stuck in a
finger and got my cuticles trimmed (seriously - but I couldn't take a
one handed photo of the manicure). If you look really closely, you
might see some eggs in it's transparent abdomen.

Roatan - Day 1

2008-07-09T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Temecula Valley Dive Club is in Roatan, Honduras, for our summer
trip. We have 41 people here - 40 divers and 1 non-diver. Melodie, the
non-diver is enjoying some down time after our three week European
tour, which ended just 8 days before this trip (thank you Guidant!).
The diving is good, as usual. The Nikon D-80 is behaving well and I'm
happy to own a second DS-125 strobe. This first shot is of a banded
coral shrimp in a big barrel sponge. The shrimp hide in the crevices.
It is easiest to find them
By noticing their long white antennae sticking out of the sides of the
sponge. This one was actually on the bottom side of a sponge. You can
see a few of my air bubbles that were trapped.

My New Dive Buddy

2008-06-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

It's Stitch!

Test of mobile blogging

2008-06-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

Now I can post directly from my iPhone!

Classic Photo Post

2008-04-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't been diving in a few weeks, but I am going out tomorrow night. Local reports say that the La Jolla shores area has been cold (mid to high 40s) with good visibility. It should be a good night.

Here is a classic photo from right after I got my Nikon D80. In fact, I think that this was from my first outing with the camera. I took the photo at Casino Point at Catalina. The subject is a Garibaldi, the state marine fish of California. Garibaldis are a form of angelfish. They are fearless and willing photo models. Its a good thing that they are a protected species, because it would be easy to catch a lot of them. The lens used was the Nikon 60mm macro.

Bobcat Update

2008-04-09T22:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen Bob in a week. I hope that he is doing well. In eight years of living here, he is the first bobcat that I have seen. Coincidentally, one of my friends in a neighborhood a couple of miles into the city (Paseo del Sol, for you locals) saw a bobcat last month.

Bobcat watch!

2008-04-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

I've got a new neighbor! He's Bob the Bobcat. Okay, so it's not a very original name. I also call him Kitty, as in "Here, Kitty, Kitty. I want to take your photo." I first noticed something unusual when I found some clumps of fur in the backyard. Then, on Friday, I was sitting in the kitchen when I saw a large cat walk across the patio. Bob isn't particularly large, but he is a bit larger than the biggest domestic cat, but he's still small for his species. Maybe he is a youngster. I then saw him on Saturday afternoon. He passed by the third time on Sunday evening.

The picture below is the first picture that I took, through the sliding glass door. You can see his stumpy tail. You can also see how tall Bob is compared to my barbecue island. Bob walked past the island and then turned back to see what the noise was when I came outside. That's when I took the above picture.

You can find out more about Bobcats at Bobcat Information.

A few pictures of me

2008-03-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

These photos are by my dive buddy Jeff Rose on the Truth VI Trip late last year. You can see how big my camera is.

Diving on the Bottom Scratcher

2008-03-10T21:39:00.001-07:00

I got to go diving last week, only the second time since Maui. The local dive shop (Scuba Center Temecula) chartered the Bottom Scratcher out of Long Beach. The BS is one of our local favorite. The Captain, Greg, is a grizzled old coot with the pleasant habit of encouraging the divers to start their first dive by playing "Danny Boy" on his bagpipes. It sounds a bit like a funeral dirge, not exactly the way to start the day.

On the first dive, I found a new creature, the Mantis Shrimp. People say that this large shrimp has claws so strong and sharp that they can cut off a finger or shatter your camera lens.

I also spotted a Pacific Angel Shark hiding under the sand. Our presence disturbed him a little, so he shook off the sand and swam further into the kelp.

On the next dive, I found three Horn Sharks hidden in rocky crevices all within about twelve feet of each other. The first two were larger (up to 3 feet) and darker in color. The last one was young and spotted. This is the second one. Isn't he cute!

The Brittle Starfish all had one or two arms below the sand and their remaining arms sticking into the air to catch dinner.

Of course there were a few nudibranches. This one is called a Peltodoris mullineri.

We also found quite a few endangered Abalone. One of them was as big as two spread hands.

Thanks are due to everybody who put up with me for the first few dives. I was a little under the weather until a couple of Excedrin and a glass of water perked me up. I claim it was a mild case of sea sickness, but it might have been those beers and tequila with Tex and the guys in Long Beach the night before. Might have been, but probably not. :)

They're coming to America!

2008-03-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

While scuba diving on a boat out of Long Beach, California, I saw this transport ship headed into the harbor. The Texas Highway is called a Ro/Ro car carrier - "Roll on, roll off". Built in 2003, it carries up to 6,043 vehicle. Wow!

Whale Watching in Maui

2008-01-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

WARNING: This post contains a large number of whale photos. If you don't like whales, feel free to move along. There's probably a blog about housecats somewhere nearby.

On our last whole day in Maui, we went out whale watching with the Pacific Whale Foundation on their boat the Ocean Explorer. This is my favorite non-raft or RIB boat. It seats about 40 with most of the seats up front. Whale Foundation members get to board first and choose their seats (and at a discount, too, so be sure to join).

The whales were more active than I have ever seen. We had been seeing lots of them from the hotel balcony and beach, so we had high hopes. We quickly found solo whales and small groups to watch. We would find them by spotting their spouts and calling them out to the crew.

Most of the time, we would just end up with a presentation of the tale, if anything.

Sometimes the whales like to wave and slap their pectoral fins. Kind of a humpback hello.

This whale was cruising along on his side. You can see his tail sticking out of the water behind his pectoral fin.

This whale was fun. It was barrel-rolling through the water. It would roll onto one side and slap that fin, keep rolling onto its back raising the other fin, and then slapping the second fin on the water. This whale made several rolls. This photo was taken when the whale was on its back.

Of course everybody's favorite moment is when the whales "breach", or jump out of the water like in the next sequence of photos. They sometimes launch their entire body (except for their tail) out of the water.

I caught this one as it was crashing into the water onto its back. Although it looks like it is smiling, its really upside down.

And finally, here is a whale waving goodbye.

As we head back to the harbor (and were unable to pursue whales), we saw two or three whales doing a series of ten breaches in less than two minutes. It was an impressive display.

Mala Pier, Day 2

2008-01-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

I went back out to Mala Pier again on Saturday and dove 2 tanks. It's a great bargain. I can spend $120 on a two tank boat dive or $20 on two tanks at the pier. It's as good as going out on the boat, but its definitely a lot more than one-sixth as good. I like not having to follow a guide and moving at my own pace. The dives were up to 1:20 long. Its also an easy place to solo dive. A funny thing - when I was out there the first time, so was the Extended Horizons boat that I had gone out on the day before. The weather had prevented the boat from going to Lanai, so it did its second dive on the pier. I would have been a little unhappy if I had paid that kind of money to dive next to the boat ramp.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the turtles were amazing. In the next two photos, you can see three turtles lined up (the ones from the video). I guess turtle #4 had moved on.

I hadn't thought to put my orange magic filter on the Canon camera, so I've corrected the colors using the Photoshop Underwater.atn action, which works amazing well, particularly on pictures from shallow dives. I'm taking the filter out when I dive tomorrow.

There were dozens of Imperial Nudibranchs, as in the past. The little Canon camera has done a pretty good job with the macro photos. All Canon photos have been using only the internal flash or natural light.

And here's one more nudi.

Mala Pier Turtle Video

2008-01-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

I haven't finished processing my photos from my last shore dive at the pier (didn't find any frogfish, again, but I did see a big white tip reef shark), but this turtle video was so cool that I wanted to go ahead and share it. I was following the first turtle with my little camera making a video and I didn't even know about his friends until they came into view in the movie. This is the most turtles in one place that I have ever seen. There was even a fifth one in the sand ten feet away.

Linda, this ones for you!

Shore Diving Mala Pier

2008-01-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

Today I did my first shore dive at the wreckage of the Mala Pier. This was recommended to me by Bob Grecko and many others. The Mala Pier was built in 1922 for loading sugar cane. It was destroyed by a hurricane in 1996.

It was 300 feet long, but half of that is rubble in water up to 30 feet deep. It has developed a good bit of coral growth and is inhabited by turtles (saw five), white tip sharks (others saw some, but I wasn't looking), and frogfish (looked hard but couldn't find any). There were also quite a few Imperial Nudibranches, always in pairs.

These two turtles were amusing. The one on the left was sitting on top of the silty sand. The second one swam over and sat next to the first who wasn't very happy about having company. You can see in the close-up how he expressed his displeasure. The second turtle then swam away.

I didn't find any frogfish, although I am told that they are out there. I'm going back out tomorrow to dive two tanks and find them. On this trip, I was shooting my D80 in a macro setup (60mm lens and dual DS-125s) and I brought my Canon SD700 for wide angle.

Oh yeah - and the ocean ate my mask. Another sacrifice to the diving gods.

Diving at Lanai

2008-01-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

Dive Buddy Bob and I went to Lanai with Extended Horizons. We first dove "No Name Pinnacle" near Paradise Cove and then Cathedrals #2. No Name was a typical Hawaiian dive site were we saw eels, a juvenile peacock wrasse (the photos weren't very good), and some of the other usual suspects.

Cathedrals #2 is a lave tube/cave with lots of holes to let in light. I couldn't get any decent photos. There were too many people in our group and I was the last one into the chamber. It was too silted up by then. I did find a wire coral gobie, which was a good test of the macro capabilities of my Sigma 17-70 lens. I probably could have gotten a little closer.

The full frame:

A closer crop:

Here's a shot of the rugged Lanai coastline as we were leaving.

One the way back, we hit some rough water. The boat captain gave use two options: slow and really wet, or fast and hard and probably drier. We took fast and hard. It was a bit painful, but we didn't have it as hard as poor Gwen the Dive Master at the back of the boat. The paying customers get the dry seats up front. She gets drenched. She smiled the whole way.

I recommend Extended Horizons for any of your dive needs. Our group was led by Dive Master Chris who did a decent job.

Maui Rainbows

2008-01-05T00:29:00.000-08:00

The rainbows here have been spectacular. Every day at 4 o'clock this complete rainbow appears to the north. Today, the end of the rainbow was in the condo tennis court. I couldn't find the pot of gold.

This was the other end, a little later, in the craggy volcanoe remnants.

Maui, Day 3 - I finally get to dive!

2007-12-31T18:20:00.000-08:00

Bob and I went diving today. The weather was terrible. It pretty much rained all morning. There wasn't much of a swell. Our dive boat with twelve divers ended up inside Molikini Crater, my least favorite dive site. The coolest thing is the garden eels. They sit facing into the current eating plankton that floats by. They are really hard to photograph because the closer you get, the further they retreat into their holes.

We did see one more cool fish that I can't identify yet. I had to leave my fish ID books at home to keep within Airline weight allowances.

After these two encounters, I felt like an airliner circling the airport burning fuel until it has a light enough load to land. Eventually I reached 700psi and we went up.

The second dive was a patch reef called Marty's Reef. There was a bit more life here, even though it wasn't overwhelming. There were several cleaning stations, accepting customers both large and small.

There was a nice looking Whitemouth Moray who had wormed himself out from under a big section of coral. He looked like the entire patch reef had been dropped on top of him pinning him in the sand.

And last, a bit of wide angle with this school of Squirrelfish who were hanging over the reef.

They may be named after squirrels, but they sounded like housecats. There was a continuous purring/grunting noise when I was near them. Here is a link to what one squirrelfish sounds like.

http://www.fishecology.org/soniferous/ophidion_marginatum_cynreg_1.wav

Imagine a hundred of them vocalizing at the same time. Apparently the sounds of the squirrelfish is a popular research topic, since Google turned up lots of hits.

So all in all, it wasn't a great day diving, but as they say - "A bad day diving is the still better than a good day at work". I don't know if I will use this dive operation again. Most of the issues were weather related, but I still wasn't impressed by the divemaster/guide. I guess I'll go back to Ed Robinson next time.

Until next time, Mahalo for dropping by and reading my ramblings.

David

Maui, Day 2

2007-12-30T23:37:00.000-08:00

Another day without diving - but at least there's snorkeling! Today's turtle count was at least four, maybe five. All in one hour of snorkeling. I saw a couple of new creatures that I hadn't seen before - a scrawled filefish and a couple of nudibranches. My camera battery ran out so I didn't get any pictures of the nudis. Here's a short movie of one of the turtles.

The big moray from Day 1 was still in the same spot. The smaller moray under the coral head was gone, but there was a different species of moray in his hole. Interesting. I wonder who will be there tomorrow.

Here's a daily turtle shot:

The larger eel was right where I left him yesterday.

David

Maui, Day 1

2007-12-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

We got to Maui on Friday afternoon, after a slightly delayed flight. It was delayed enough that I couldn't get into the water until Saturday. The first stop, as always, was snorkeling at Black Rock. We are staying in Kaanapali and Black Rock is a volcanic spit at the end of the beach. It's easy snorkeling and easier diving. You can sea how many people fill the water. Luckily, most of them are weak swimmers and don't go around the point or get close to the rocks where the more interesting life is located.

There are green sea turtles out there almost every time that I visit. In past years, the turtles have been infected with a virus that causes white tumors all over their body. The virus doesn't kill them outright, but it can impair their ability to see, catch food, or eat, which can ultimately kill them. I am happy to say that all four turtles that I spotted appeared completely health.

Some of the turtles sit on the sandy bottom, in about 30 feet of water.

Others wedge themselves under the rocky ledges to sleep. Most snorkelers never even notice these turtles. Everybody's favorites are the ones that are swimming around, usually coming up to get some air. I think the turtles are used to the snorkers because they seem to pretty much ignore them.

Did you know that unicorns really exist? I found an aquatic variety. This is the unicorn fish.

There were even a couple of eels. I'll have to add specific species IDs later.

Last, I saw the cutest little fish of all, Devyn. She is the daughter of a friend of mine. She's quite a good swimmer and likes to show off for the camera.

All of these pictures were shot with a Canon SD700 pocket camera using the Canon underwater housing and the "underwater" scene setting. Not bad for a simple camera.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

This is what a Southern Californian Snowman looks like. Due to a lack of snow, we have to work with what we've got. In this case, it's tumbleweeds. I spotted this guy on the side of El Camino Real in Rancho Santa Fe. He was about 9 feet tall, including his hat.

Fiery Sunrise

2007-10-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

This morning, the sunrise was particularly orange, due to the smoke from the Poomacha Fire, not far to the south of my house. Happily, all of my friends and family have weathered the fires without loss.

Truth Trip VI

2007-10-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

On September 19, 25 intrepid souls set forth from the Seaforth Landing in Santa Barbara, eager to explore the waters surrounding the Channel Islands. Although the adventure was known as "Truth Trip VI", in all truthfulness, we were actual going out on the Vision, sister ship to the Truth. Our itinerary was to start at San Clemente Island, followed by Anacapa Island, and then a stop at the oil platform Grace. We actually ended up at Catalina and Santa Cruz, with no hope of Grace. This change of plan was caused by bad weather that followed us all weekend. Still, even with hail at the surface, we were enjoying the world below.

The storm did stir up the water, decreasing the visibility and making it difficult to take any decent wide angle shots, so most of the trip became a nudibranch hunt. I saw at least ten species, including a few that are shown here. The white on red nudi is a Festive Triton. Below, there is a picture of a very small Spanish Shawl with my glove behind it. This Shawl was only a few millimeters in size. Click on any of the pictures for a larger image and a description.

The story of Sean Penn, official blog mascot

2007-10-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Sean Penn the Octopus is the official mascot of the Underwater Paparazzo blog. Like his Hollywood namesake, Sean got a bit annoyed with the flashing camera of a paparazzo (singular of "paparazzi", you know) and took matters into his own hands (six of them), literally.

I was diving in Honduras off of the island of Roatan. I came across Sean taking a siesta in a crevice under a rock. I took a few photographs, and then a few more, and then maybe a few more. Sean's temper got short and he reached out to grab my camera, probably intent on smashing it into the nearby coral. He actually reached out with six of his arms, covering the front of my camera housing and grabbing on to the various buttons and levers. I would have taken a few more up close and personal photos, but he was holding down the zoom lever on my Oly 5060, keeping me from being able to trip the shutter.

My short photographic career almost over, I fought back, pulling Sean completely out of his crevice. At that point, he decided the best plan was to let go and slither back into his hole.

I kicked Sean Penn's butt. Mano-a-mano. Well, really mano-a-ocho-manos, which would be a lot more impressive if he had been a Giant Pacific Octopus instead of a little Caribbean Octopus.

Welcome to my new blog

2007-10-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

Thank you for dropping by my new blog. I look forward to sharing with you the things that I see underwater. I think of this website as a way of freeing more of my photos from imprisonment on my computer's hard drive, a final destination with much resemblance to an electronic Alcatraz. Not only do I plan to share underwater photos, but also stories from some of my trips, gear reviews, and perhaps some events from those periods between dives known as "surface intervals" - those periods spent out of the water earning money to get back into the water, preparing gear for those water adventures, or cleaning up gear from the last trip into the salty underworld.

Once again, thanks for dropping buy. Feel free to leave a comment or two. This whole online sharing thing is a little new to me, so I'm open to suggestions.

P.S. The photo above is a close-up of a starfish, taken at Santa Cruz Island in Southern California. You can click on it to see a larger image.