Under the Sea

[Dirty Dog]

My wife and I recently returned from another dive trip. Here's a few of my favorite shots. Opinions and commentary of all sorts welcome.

Pictures are:
Torpedo Ray - these buggers are electric - don't touch!
The next 3 were taken during cave dives. The water in these caves is amazingly clear.
Next, the bow of the C-58, a WWII Minesweeper sunk in 80 feet of water.
A blowfish (with a remora on its head).
Sue & Alvaro (our guide) between decks on the C-55 (another WWII ship), watching a pair of Spotted Eagle Rays.
A Hermit Crab. I just think they're cool.
A Cleaner Shriimp. These guys hide inside the reef, but if your bouyancy is good, you can hold a hand out to them, very still, and they will come out to clean it.
A Lobster.

 

[Dirty Dog]

More pictures...
First, a small Spotted Moray. People think these guys are aggressive because of their "biting" mouth movements. Not true. When not swimming, they do that to pump water across their gills.
Next is me, with a Lionfish. Lionfish are not native to the Carribean. They were accidentally introduced in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 80's and are spreading like mad. Nothing recognises them as food, and they eat everything. Lionfish have been known to wipe out as much as 80% of the fish population on a reef. I do not harm any native creature, but Lionfish I kill on sight. I shot 21 of them on this trip.
The next two are a Rockfish. First I have ever seen. Probably not the first I've been near, but as you can see, they're difficult to spot. The ladies hand in the second picture scared hell out of me. Rockfish are venomous, and she had not seen it. Had she touched it, she would have been very unhappy.
Next is a French Angel. Common, and lovely.
A few of the Barracuda that followed us.
Last is a cave fish. This picture is actually a capture from a video, so it's not as good. These fish have lived deep in the caves where there is no light - ever - for so long that evolution has eliminated such useless features as color. And eyes. Alvaro (the guide we use in that area) has been diving these caves for 30 years, and this was the 4th one he'd ever seen.

 

[MA-Caver]

Awesome.
Due to some internal ear problems I'm unable to dive (painful pressure) but I've several friends who are avid divers and a few who are certified cave divers. So unless I win a 9 digit lottery and buy my own personal submarine I'd just have to enjoy the photos of my friends.

Thanks for sharing. Worth a rep point! :uhyeah:

The cave fish aren't exactly rare just hypersensitive to their surroundings (better to find prey) and the presence of divers can send them scooting for cover long before they're seen. So yeah, being able to see one is indeed a rare treat.

I've read a lot about the morays and while they look fierce (because they are) they can be quite tame if the divers are careful with them. Some have acclimated to divers and expect food (bits of shredded fish and such).

No Nemo huh? Must've gotten lost again.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Awesome.
Due to some internal ear problems I'm unable to dive (painful pressure) but I've several friends who are avid divers and a few who are certified cave divers. So unless I win a 9 digit lottery and buy my own personal submarine I'd just have to enjoy the photos of my friends.

Thanks for sharing. Worth a rep point! :uhyeah:

The cave fish aren't exactly rare just hypersensitive to their surroundings (better to find prey) and the presence of divers can send them scooting for cover long before they're seen. So yeah, being able to see one is indeed a rare treat.

I've read a lot about the morays and while they look fierce (because they are) they can be quite tame if the divers are careful with them. Some have acclimated to divers and expect food (bits of shredded fish and such).

No Nemo huh? Must've gotten lost again.

The sub would be too big to fit in the caves anyway...

The same is true of most "rare" fish. They either go away when they see us coming, or (like my Rockfish) they're naturally hidden. I've explained to many friends, who invariably ask about shark attacks (which simply is not an issue for SCUBA divers), that sharks see us far more often than we see them.

Feeding fish is a bad idea for many reasons. I hate it when I see divers or dive ops doing this. I've eliminated dive ops from consideration simply because they were known to do this.

As for Nemo, he's not lost. I know exactly where he is...

 

[MA-Caver]

True that... on feeding the fish, especially other fish which might be a distant relative... ark... but more seriously on the smell attracting the very sharks that aren't an issue to begin with... like "hmm, easy meal".

Well cruising around a reef wouldn't be an issue for a sub I reckon. As for the caves... heh... I'll pass on those. Far too many "cave diving incidents" have ended in fatalities... roughly 99% of them. My friends who are certified have told hair-raising stories of near misses.

 

[Sukerkin]

Most wonderful pictures, DD, thank you very kindly for sharing :bows:.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Simply fantastic pictures! Thanks for sharing!

 

[WC_lun]

Amazing pics! Thanks for sharing them.

 

[Mark Jordan]

Breathtaking shots! You've just given me a break from my usual routine. Thanks for sharing. Have a great day!

 

[dbell]

Thanks for the pictures! Makes me want to get back into diving again!! I miss it, but am land locked now, and work is hard to get away from now (we have to put leave request in by December the year before, and aren't able to change it once the year starts, and I'm low man on the totem pole, so I get what is left...)...

Good pictures!

 

[Dirty Dog]

True that... on feeding the fish, especially other fish which might be a distant relative... ark... but more seriously on the smell attracting the very sharks that aren't an issue to begin with... like "hmm, easy meal".

Well cruising around a reef wouldn't be an issue for a sub I reckon. As for the caves... heh... I'll pass on those. Far too many "cave diving incidents" have ended in fatalities... roughly 99% of them. My friends who are certified have told hair-raising stories of near misses.

It's mostly that I think it's a bad idea to teach fish to associate people with food. It's bad for the fish (especially since what we feed might not be healthy) and can interfere with their normal feeding behaviors. It can also lead to injury (though sharks have nothing to do with this either). There's one case of a big green Moray that's been fed hotdogs and such by divemasters for years. It's now unusually large and unusually old. And it's no longer able to hunt effectively. Without the hand feeding, it would be dead.
Well, along comes one of the inevitable storms and there was no diving for a few days. Mr Moray got really hungry. When next divers approached, he mistook a thumb for a hotdog... Never would have happened if he hadn't been taught to rely on people.

I also object to spearfishing on similar grounds. One reason you don't see most of the wildlife in the forest is simply because they've been taught to fear us. I don't want fish to learn to fear us. Part of the coolness of diving is how unafraid the critters are. That's why the only things I will spear are the Lionfish.


Most cave diving incidents do not end in death. Most incidents are, like open warer incidents, dealt with without difficulty by the diver. That's what you're trained for. Most of the incidents that end in death are a result of divers making serious errors in judgement.

A couple examples:
A man died in a cave in Florida. Why? Well, for starters, he'd never been trained to dive in caves. He jimmied the lock on the gate that was installed to keep people like him out of the caves. He had inadequate training, and substandard gear.
A very experienced cave diver, who was the stunt-double for the women in the movie Sanctum, died in a cave in Australia. Why? To start with, she left her buddy and entered an unmapped side passage. She was certainly qualified to explore such a passage, but solo??? She then removed one of her air tanks and left it behind because that was the only way she could get past a restriction in the passage. Coming back, she was unable to get past that same restriction to reach her tank. It's pretty much always considered a bad idea to drop your bailout bottle.

One of the axioms I was taught is that when you have a problem while diving, relax. You have the rest of your life to think of a solution.
But the simple truth is that "incidents" while diving are actually pretty uncommon, and as long as the diver is staying within the limits of their training and experience, they will probably be able to deal with the issue.
Number one reason for death during a dive? According to what I've read, it's actually cardiac arrest, unrelated to the actual diving. It's just difficult to have a heart attack and survive it when you're underwater.

Oh, for the real photographers reading this...
These pictures were shot using a Sanyo Xacti. An HD video camera that also takes 10mp stills. Its protected by an Epoque underwater housing and I use an Epoque 0.56X wide angle lens, and a red filter to bring back some of the color lost to the depths.

 

[KELLYG]

Thanks for the pictures. The are wonderfull!

 

[Dirty Dog]

Thanks for the pictures! Makes me want to get back into diving again!! I miss it, but am land locked now, and work is hard to get away from now (we have to put leave request in by December the year before, and aren't able to change it once the year starts, and I'm low man on the totem pole, so I get what is left...)...

Good pictures!

We plan our trips way in advance. Usually, by the time we board the plane, I'm in the preliminary stages of planning our next trip. Right now, I'm looking at options for a trip in (probably) December. Cozumel is the frontrunner, but we're still looking at options in Belize, the Cayman Islands and Hawaii....

Being landlocked is an issue, certainly. Since we live in Colorado (can you possibly have less divable water around you than us?) it's an issue for us too. But we still managed to get in 70 dives in the past year. Go for it.