I be back…

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Judy G Diver

There has been radio silence on this blog as I have been away, diving in Indonesia, specifically all around Komodo National Park, with a few days on the front end diving in the Tulamben area on the northeast coast of the island of Bali.

Let me say right up front – it did not suck. In fact, it was all pretty much marvellous.

I took a lot of pictures, which I have yet to process. There seem to be two kinds of (diving) photographers – those who shoot, and at the earliest opportunity, download their images on to their laptop and then spend precious hours of their vacation working and tweaking their stuff. And then there is my kind – I prefer to dump the images as needed (ie when the card gets full), allocating them to folders that are simply labeled “Day 1/2” etc, etc. I will scoot through the files after download to make sure there are no major technical fubars with the images/camera, and at that time delete the total duds. And then I go soak in the views, chat with the buds, and have a beer. Or three ;^) It is not until I get home that I set to work on the images – culling out the keepers, tweaking them as necessary (and I try to do minimal adjustments – as I have written before, my goal is always to get it right, out of the box). It helps to prolong the afterglow of a great trip to revisit the images once home.

Anyhoo, in the weeks to come, as I recover from the dense fog of jetlag from which I currently suffer, I will be sharing some of the images from this wonderful adventure here on the blog. In the meantime, I invite you to view a short (10 minute), beautifully shot and produced video of our trip. It really tells the story of where we were, and some of the beautiful scenery and critters (both above and below the surface) that we we saw.

This video was shot by our outstanding Cruise Director, Michael Ishak, aboard the Komodo Dancer. Michael is Indonesian by birth, and is totally passionate about the ocean and its inhabitants. In the coming weeks I will be blogging a lot about our trip, including Michael’s crusade against the ongoing practice of dynamite fishing in Indonesia -specifically illegal bombing that is occurring in Komodo National Park. Let me just say now that we were, er, front row witnesses to this dangerous and environmentally devastating practice.

Michael has very kindly given me permission to share his wonderful video from our trip. Let it be a teaser for all that is to come…

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Pic of the Day – Cavern Diver in Blue Hole

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Judy G Diver

I thought I’d share this picture, which used to be on the front page of my website.  The blog is now the home page, so this image is buried.

This image was taken on my first dive with an underwater camera.  It was an Oly 4040Z, in a plastic Olympus housing – no strobe (yet), and no wet wide angle lens (yet).

I had been writing for quite a while, and had taken several writing for magazine courses through continuing ed at a local university, as I figured magazine writing might be a good fit for me as an easier entree in to the publishing world.  Through the process, I realized that what I really liked to write about was diving, and dive travel.  It seemed a natural extension to get a camera to try to take underwater pictures to go with the stories, so I bucked up for a little point and shoot and gave it a whirl.  This shot was the fifth out of the box.  Truly, beginner’s luck, and there was still a big learning curve ahead, especially with regards to lighting.

This was also my first cavern dive, and it was mind-blowing.  The water was so incredibly clear that it almost felt like diving in air.  The caverns themselves are stunning.  This cavern is in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, and has several beautiful skylights up in to the jungle.  Stalactites and stalagmites line the underwater tunnels that connect them.  It was a fantastic experience, and I ended up making several more dives in various caverns over the next few years.

I wrote quite a bit about the cavern diving experience, and initially shared it on Scubadiving.com’s Diver to Diver forum.  Folks said some nice things about it, so I kept on shooting, writing and sharing. If you follow this link, you can read much more about cavern diving in Mexico, and there are links to galleries and slideshows —> Tripping the Dark Fantastic.

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My Favourite Place to Dive? – Part 5

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Judy G Diver

After the last write up on this topic – My Favourite Place To Dive? – Part 4 Galapagos – I took a big breather, because I suspected that this final instalment in the series regarding my favourite places to dive was going to be a bit of a whopper.  I also needed to finish up the most recent gallery for the location.

This series of posts was inspired by an oft posed question – What is your favourite place to dive?  I have always answered that there are several places, for several reasons, that I love to dive. In this blog series I set about trying to describe them with words and with pictures. The list has been shared chronologically, and started with British Columbia, then Cocos Island (Costa Rica), Fiji, Galapagos, and finally, this instalment – Indonesia.

Continue reading →

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New Gallery – Banda Sea, Indonesia

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Judy G Diver

I have been very delinquent in regularly blogging over the past while.  The weather has been wonderful here in Vancouver, and to escape the maddening mess of a seemingly neverending kitchen renovation, I have been making busy in the garden – starting the Fall tidy up, and staining mucho cedar so it is protected for what is sure to be a long and wet winter ahead.

I have been working for quite some time on the linked gallery from our fantastic trip aboard the Arenui live aboard dive boat in the Banda Sea, Indonesia – a trip that we took last December!  With a new adventure close on the horizon, I thought it was time to giddyup and get ‘er done.

I have pored over the Tropical Pacific Critter identification books to try to put a name to all of the weird and wonderful stuff we saw in this trip.  Despite several previous journeys to Indonesia (including our first trip to the Banda Sea, that time aboard the now defunct Archipelago Adventurer II with an awesome group of buddies), there were many, many new sightings for me.

One of these days I should get around to writing something up about the Arenui – it is a first class boat and crew, and will be a hard act to follow for future live aboard adventures. They certainly don’t need me to promote them – despite being on the high end of cost, the boat is extremely popular, and sold out for months in advance.

So here is the link to the gallery —> Banda Sea December 2011. Also from that trip is another gallery dedicated to the incredible muck diving we did in Ambon Harbour. It’s dirty diving, but someone’s gotta do it ;^)

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Pic of the Day – Excuses

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Judy G Diver

So, if anyone is actually reading this thing, you may have noticed it has been a couple of weeks since I last blogged ;^)

I have my excuses – we are in the middle of a kitchen redo (renovation sounds so much scarier ;^).  Last week we escaped the mess and turmoil for a week, and took our kids sailing in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. I plan to blog that adventure soon.

We have been living in this old house (currently 73 years old) for just over 20 years.  Before that, it was my childhood home.  My parents bought it in ’65, and brought up their large family of five girls, somehow shoehorning us all in to a rambling cottagey house with not enough bedrooms and a very big garden.

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Pic of the Day – Coleman Shrimp

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Here is another Indonesia photographer’s mecca – a pair of Coleman Shrimp.  These little beauties (the male is the smaller of the pair) are found on the magnificent (aka fire) sea urchin – a colourful, but very hurtful creature – avoiding contact while you frame up your shot is essential.  And I can tell you from extensive experience that it is a bit of chore checking out every freakin’ urchin to find one hosting these little shrimp.  Speaking of little, these shrimp are very small – usually less than half an inch long.

This image appeared in the April/May 2012 issue of Scubadiving Magazine, in an article about muck diving in Indonesia.  The image was captured in infamous Ambon Harbour – a very grubby but critter-rich location.

Coleman Shrimp – Periclimenes colemani

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Pic of the Day – Cucumber Crab

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Sea Cucumber Swimming Crab – Lissocarcinus orbicularis

You know that expression about someone having a bug up their butt? Well, this little crab is known to make excursions up into the butts of sea cucumbers. That’s right folks, it just clambers right up in there.

It is a wee little crab – about half an inch across max, and it would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it.  It is not at all unusual to see divers in the know shine their flashlights up the butts of cucumbers to see if they can spot one of these little fellers lurking in the shadows, and I’ve seen photographers camp out over a cucumber’s bum end to try to get the money shot of one of these guys in the hole.

This crab was spotted on an Indonesian night dive as it was out, circumnavigating the anus of cucumber. We’d watch it crawl up the butt of this crazy patterned cuke, and then the cuke would expel it, with a surprising amount of force – you might even call it an awoosh ;^)  And then it would crawl right back up in there again. The guide and I shared a few giggles as we watched this sequence happen several times.

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The Sweet Good-bye

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Another weekend, another chunk of writing to read ;^)  This piece was part of a series of personal essays that I wrote a while back.  

“Justice?”  is what Dr. Jack Kevorkian was heard to softly utter upon hearing that he was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison for the second degree murder of Thomas Youk, a fiftysomething Detroit, Michigan accountant who had been suffering from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.  Mr. Youk had apparently requested the good doctor’s assistance in speeding his death, a request which Dr. Kevorkian granted.  Publicly.  On CBS’s 60 Minutes, during prime time.  A little in-your-face to be sure, but how else could he bring this issue more blatantly into public consciousness?

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Pic of the Day – Digital vs Film

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Sunburst Over The Reef – Indonesia.

As diving photographers, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. The trick is to somehow translate the beauty that we perceive (real or imagined) into an image that “pops”, ie, that engages other viewers. Exposure, and composition, are the tools of the trade.

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Fisheye

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Today, I boldly go where this blog has not gone before.  I am starting up a new category – Writings – a place to share some personal essays written in the past, as well as new stuff that I will crank out from time to time.  I wrote this piece way back in 1999, when I began (better late than never ;^) to explore my interest in writing.  

And what was true then is even truer now…

Lurking in my basement, haunting me, is a salmon. Luckily, its flesh was removed long ago, smoked for lox, if I remember correctly. Its skin has been cured and its fins plasticized, and it has been reconstructed in sytrofoam to its original shape. The Tyee trophy is stored there, a large silver fish, hung on a stud by a nail, tucked behind the boxes of photo albums of past lives — the ones before kids and each other, some dusty camping gear, and some eternally hopeful suitcases.

When I was a little girl spending my summers in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, my dad and I would go fishing for salmon. Most days we’d catch one, or at least snag a rock cod or a ling for our trouble. And if we were lucky, we’d catch one big enough to keep — big enough to feed our family of seven for dinner. He had all sorts of doodads and downriggers and flashers and stuff, and his surgeon’s hands could quickly untangle the knots or tie another lure on, in hopes of hooking Charlie. Charlie was the big one. The fish that always got away.

Sometimes, when we got a really big pull, the reel would not just whir, it would sing. We’d look at each other with raised eyebrows and mouth Charlie? And then in our family tartan, woven over time, I would shift the boat into idle while he released the pole from the holder and played the big fish.

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Pic of the Day – Mangroves

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Man, in Mangrove

Every now and then, we divers are treated to surreal scenes. This was one of those times.

I have only had this one opportunity to dive in a mangrove. This is where trees grow, roots in the ocean. That’s right – trees growing in salty water. It makes your head hurt, just thinking about how that could be. The trees are specially adapted to exist in the high salinity of the ocean, and to somehow extract nutrition from a silty ocean floor.

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Pic of the Day – Blue Ring Octopus

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Judy G Diver

New day, new venomous critter ;^)

Blue Ringed Octopus – Hapalochlaena spp.

The Blue Ringed Octopus is a mecca for any Indo Pacific diver, especially photographers. But these little beauties pack a lethal punch – as one of the most dangerous animals in the ocean, one bite is capable of pretty quickly killing a human being.  It is said that the venom of one little octopus (they max out at about 6 inches long), is so lethal that it could kill several humans, cold.

I have seen some funny sh*t with octopi, including being stalked by a Giant Pacific Octopus (just call me ‘Sir’) in British Columbia, but none was funnier (in a schadenfreude kind of way) than watching Simon Buxton (a great photographer and now of NAD Resort Lembeh infamy) line up a shot of one of these little devils on a night dive in the Banda Sea, only to lose sight of the octopus as it lifted off and landed on his housing.  He dropped that thing like a hot potato, and was in a bit of a frenzy as he checked his head, hands and feet to make sure the little sucker wasn’t camping out on him.

The image above was shot on my most recent trip to Indonesia.  This one was out on the reef in the light of day, and was spotted by the eagle eyes of one of the other passengers on the Arenui.  Its bright blue rings are an indicator that it is highly agitated.  I was shooting a macro lens, so had to get in tight, but I kept a keen eye on the critter and made sure he stayed on the reef.

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Pic of the Day – Leaf Scorpionfish

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Despite good intentions, it has been a while since I made a blog entry. That last one on Galapagos was a biggie though ;^)

In the interim, there have been a few adventures – white water rafting on the Thompson River and riding Paso Fino horses in the mountains, and some time spent in the beautiful gulf islands of British Columbia with family.

Oh, and did I mention the kitchen renovation? ;^)

I have one more location to share in the “My Favourite Place to Dive?” series – hopefully I will get it happening this week.

In the meantime, here is a sneak preview from this location, to tide me over:

Leaf Scorpionfish – Taenianotus triacanthus

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My Favourite Place To Dive? – Part 4

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Judy G Diver

So far, I have revealed British Columbia, Cocos Island (Costa Rica), and Fiji as my picks for my favourite places to dive.

That brings me to my next (alphabetically sorted) instalment, which begins with a G – G for gorgeous, gnarly, gotta-get-there Galapagos – the muthah of all dive meccas.

Darwin’s Arch

Galapagos is one of those places that is way out there – both literally and figuratively. Located some 500 miles off the coast of South America, I am not entirely clear why these islands belong to Ecuador; they could just as easily been claimed by any number of countries, citizens of which made landfall over the last several centuries, and several of whom eventually settled there. I won’t rehash the entire history of the islands in this blog bit, but if you would like to surf into here, there is a fairly succinct description of the history of the islands, compiled from several sources, from discovery to present day.

And it is a bit of a shame that Ecuador’s flag flies over the Galapagos – despite a healthy budget funded by big fees being collected (US$100 per person at time of writing) from the stream of tourists visiting these unique islands, Ecuador’s corrupt government is pretty much hopeless (some might even say negligent) in adequately protecting them.  The Galapagos Islands are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a huge portion of the waters surrounding them are a marine reserve, but that does not seem to stop rampant poaching around the islands, especially for sharks.

Continue reading →

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A Mother’s Tale

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Judy G Diver

I am going to take a break from writing today, and instead share an extraordinary piece of award-winning non-fiction, written by my friend Judy McFarlane.

Judy’s son was the victim of a very serious workplace accident a few years ago.  Her piece is gripping, honest, beautifully written, and enormously touching.

After and Before.

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Pic of the Day – Manta Rays

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Judy G Diver

My last post was all about one of the tiniest subjects I have attempted to photograph. The only thing smaller is a Hairy Shrimp – spotted (and photographed) on my last trip to Indonesia.  I’ll share that image another time, because today it is all about the other end of the photographic spectrum – a very big critter:

Manta, Manta

There are few animals in the ocean as graceful, and as awe-inspiring, as these humungous mantas. When one of these beauties does a flyby overhead, they are so big, they eclipse the sun. This manta was at least 15 feet wide, wingtip to wingtip.

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Pic of the Day – Pygmy Seahorse

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Another day, another picture ;^)

While I am in the process of writing up the next of my fave destinations, I thought I’d throw another teaser out there.

Pygmy Seahorse – Hippocampus bargibanti

These little beauties are seriously tiny – this variety of Pygmy Seahorse (there are a few) is about the size of a grain of cooked whole grain rice.

I am going to confess right up front that there is not a chance of a snowball in hell that I would ever be able to find one of these little cuties with my own eyes. I suffer from (age onset) vision deterioration (can you say +5 prescription and still heading south? ;^).  My opthamologist has suggested that a lot of reading in poor light, plus skiing and sun exposure without wearing protective lenses, all when I was young (and foolish), are the villains in my case.

Continue reading →

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Pic of the Day – Costa Rica Sunset

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Taking another short break from the Favourite Places to Dive epistle…

Sunsets are a favourite topside photographic pursuit. This one was taken in Costa Rica, near Puntarenas, as we loaded the boat and headed out on the journey to Cocos Island.

Costa Rica Sunset

Oh, and about that “Red Sky at Night, Sailors Delight” thing? Um, not so much. The next day we wallowed through huge swells on the crossing to the island.

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My Favourite Place To Dive? – Part 3

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Judy G Diver

Whew! – finally the pix are processed, and so here we go with the next of my (alphabetically sorted) favourite places to dive – Fiji. The previous inclusions are:  British Columbia and Cocos Island, Costa Rica.

What makes Fiji so special?

Well, it isn’t just one highlight – it’s many.  It is the people, and the modestly populated, beautiful and diverse country, and the drop dead gorgeous reefs, and the healthy marine biodiversity.

Getting there from the west coast of North America is almost a breeze, compared to the network of flights required to get to some of the other great Pacific diving locations, like Indonesia.  Air Pacific runs overnight non-stops out of LAX, most days of the week.  Quaff a beverage or two, slug back a sleeping pill, contort yourself into an inhuman posture of repose in the back of the 747, (hopefully) bag a few zzzz’s, and you are pretty much there.

Continue reading →

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Pic of the Day – Pygmy Pipehorse

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Judy G Diver

And still beavering away on the gallery.  I took quite a few pix, and sadly only processed a small percentage of them on our return home.  So here I am, more than a year later, finally getting to it.  Procrastination will surely bite ya in the butt…

Here is an image to represent the other end of the spectrum from yesterday’s Pic of the Day, which was a big, wide angle, soft coral covered bommie.  Today I offer up a teensy weensy Pygmy Pipe Horse, shot in the sandy rubble underneath one of those epic big bommies.

Seriously – so tiny.  I was only able to see any detail of this delicate little creature by eyeballing it through my viewfinder and seeing it enlarged through my 105mm macro lens. Otherwise, this little thing looked pretty much like a piece of thread, waving in the breeze ;^)

Pygmy Pipe Horse

 

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