Diving the Mayan Riviera

Before going to the Mayan Riviera in April 2011, I thought that diving there would be like diving Cozumel's little brother. The two are geographically close enough together that the amazingness of one had to trickle down, right?

To temper our expectations, our dive master quickly told us on the boat that diving here was nothing like diving in Cozumel. However, after he found out where we got certified, he challenged himself to find us a two headed turtle. That he didn't succeed in doing, but he did definitely take us on 2 great dives...

We saw our first lion fish

Canon SD870 IS

And a large southern stingray

Canon SD870 IS

But the highlight of both dives were these guys. On the second dive, as one diver turned and look back at Maggie and I, he got really excited and pointed behind us. We turned around to see two huge fish swimming straight at us out of the blue. At first, I thought shark.. maybe because of their grey suits. But I quickly realized they weren't. They were nothing like anything that I had seen before. They looked very little like your run-of-the-mill fish and they swam in unison - almost as if they were attached to one another. They weren't afraid of us and swam right at us, waiting until they were only a few inches away before swerving to circle around and harass another diver. I was able to quickly snap this shot as they came straight at me...

Canon SD870 IS - two large remoras swimming straight for me

With all the time they spent circling us, I was able to get 2 more decent pictures...

Canon SD870 IS - 2 remoras, with another diver not too far away to give a bit of perspective on how big these guys were

Canon SD870 IS - Clear shot of 2 remoras as they swam past

Back on board the boat, we found out they were remoras. One diver told us a story about how he had an encounter with a much smaller one on a past dive where it kept attaching itself to his neck. No way these guys would be able to attach to themselves to any of us... they were at least 2-3 ft long. Only things these guys would be sticking to would be larger sharks and whales...

Short video of Maggie freaking out after the remoras charged right at her...

Trying to fix my Pictures with GIMP

Since I can't afford (read: too cheap) to pay for an expensive piece of software like Photoshop, I'll be doing my photo editing with its free brother: GIMP. I've done some basic picture editing in the past, so kind of I know my way around the basic functions... but to do anything like colour correction, I had to go to the interwebs for help. You may recognize these pictures from an earlier post.  Here's my first crack at colour correction and photo manipulation.

Canon SD870 IS - original

And after:

Colour corrected using GIMP

Another:

Canon SD870 IS - original

And after:

Colour corrected with GIMP

Obviously nothing will match real light from a strobe, but I think these came out pretty good. I'm a bit unsure about the purple splotches in both pictures, but looking at the original (tiny fish picture), it's hard to say whether the purple colour can be anything else.  All the other colours seem to be pretty accurate. This technique is definitely a decent fallback for all my washed out pictures.

All the credit goes to tankedup-imaging.com for the tutorial on how to make this happen.

The tutorial is pretty easy to follow but seems to be a bit out of date (reference to GIMP 2.4 being the latest), so a few UI screenshots are a bit different than the latest version I just downloaded (2.8). I'll be writing up an updated tutorial using GIMP 2.8 and post it in a Photo Tips section. The goal is that as I (hopefully) become more proficient in GIMP, I'll have a running list of tips and techniques that I can share and also refer back to.

Following a Glowstick at the Great Barrier Reef

On top of the 8 dives to complete our open water certification, we were offered an optional night dive. We were apprehensive at first - with only a few dives under our belt, it sounded scary to be diving in the complete dark. But all the other divers/staff that we talked to highly recommended it... just follow the glowstick!  So we thought.. since we're already here...

And we were so glad we did that dive. When we first jumped in, we were a bit disoriented cause it really was pitch black. But once we got our bearings, the dive was awesome. Sharks were out and about at night, so we saw a lot of them! Laura (divemaster and glowstick carrier) found a lobster and a turtle tucked away in the reef sleeping. Those were great to see... not so great for pictures though. I tried, but they were all either filled with backscatter or a blurred mess. I gave up after a few shots and went to video... here's a compilation of some of the sharks we saw.

You might by wondering why there're two red dots throughout the video. Found out later it's cause the CCD sensor in my camera was starting to go. So it's not just the videos... look closely at all my pictures and you can see the same issue - just that it's more pronounced against a black background. Pretty shitty cause this camera wasn't even that old... had it for maybe 2-3 years tops. Ah well... electronics these days...

Mike on the other hand was able to get a couple decent shots. You can see this fish swimming around the sharks in the video. Can't remember what fish they were, but they definitely weren't small...

Canon IXUS 130 - playing tag with the light from our torches

Turns out these fish got to be pretty smart, too. They learned to adapt to the night divers with their torches, and used the light to help them find food. If the light catches one of their prey, they'll quickly swoop in and devour it. That was the reason these were everywhere and kept circling the light. Kinda funny from our perspective, but really sucks for those little guys that just wanted to sleep.

More from the Great Barrier Reef

When we first saw this guy, it just looked like a big fish. Then for the longest time, I thought this was some sort of angel fish. According to wikipedia, I'm not the only one...

Canon SD870 IS - big batfish (a.k.a. a spadefish - but batfish just sounds better :)

Jed also showed us Christmas tree worms, which disappear into their holes as soon as you wave or snap in front of them.

Canon SD870 IS - The novelty of waving them back into their holes never wore off

One of the coolest things we saw on our trip was this guy.

Canon SD870 IS - You can see in this picture Jed about to flick his fingers to try to get the cuttlefish to change colours...

Canon SD870 IS - ...and change colours it does!

We didn't see too many starfish at the Great Barrier Reef, but here's a small skinny one that we saw latched onto some corals.

Canon SD870 IS

Don't really know anything about this little guy, but it caught my eye enough for me to snap a picture of it. I'm actually a bit surprised how well the image turned out. A lot of the images that I took of small things are all super blurry.

Canon SD870 IS - I think this is a great candidate to attempt colour correction... 

And a picture of the reef to finish this off..

Canon IXUS 130 - So... grassy!

Diving the Great Barrier Reef with turtles and sharks

Jed recommended we hold off on the cameras on our first dive since it was our pool skills session and intro dive rolled into one - we could probably do without the distractions. We saw a turtle and a reef shark that dive, and joked that it would be a huge bummer if we never saw anymore - we'd have nothing to prove what we saw! Luckily, we were at the Great Barrier Reef and there was no shortage of turtles and sharks...

Canon IXUS 130

And we caught this guy trying to dig for lunch...

Canon IXUS 130

Canon IXUS 130

The term that Jed used to describe what we looked like to sharks was "washing machine", with all the bubbles and equipment. I still don't totally understand the analogy, but it kind of stuck. Maggie still uses that term to describe what we look like to marine life to our non-diver friends (which, unfortunately, would be all our friends).  It was really hard to get good pictures of sharks though... they just cruise through the water. By the time I see them and get my camera ready, all I can get is an image of them swimming away...

Canon SD870 IS

Except for this guy, who we caught taking a nap in the sand. You can also see a large sea cucumber in the back.

Canon SD870 IS

The better picture is still from behind though, where I got (probably not by intent), some reef and smaller fish in the shot.

Canon SD870 IS

At this depth, the colours are clearly washed out and reds have turned into browns. I'll try colour correcting some of these by applying a red filter and see where that takes me. It it works out, I'll definitely do a follow up post of it.

Great Barrier Reef Liveaboard and Snorkeling

Our next big vacation was a trip halfway around the world to Australia in November 2010. The Great Barrier Reef was definitely a priority and what better way to see it than to live on the reef for a few days. We booked a 3 day liveaboard open water certification course with Reef Encounter and it turned out to be one of the best things we ever did. Accommodations (with en-suite rooms) were good , food was good, people (both staff and fellow divers) were great, and the diving was superb!

Their operation was pretty efficient. Divers and snorkelers boarded a smaller vessel in Cairns, which transported everyone to the reef where the larger livaboard vessel stayed. After some time on the reef, the smaller vessel returned to Cairns with the day-trippers and those who've finished their liveaboard tour.

Maggie and I transferred over to the liveaboard vessel and called it home for the next 3 days. The open water course was spread across the 3 days with a total of 8 dives. Our class consisted of our instructor, Jed, and 2 other guys from Florida, Mike and Tom.

The Camera(s)

We already had a Canon SD810 IS, so it was just a matter of picking up an underwater housing for it. I can't remember what (if any) research I did, but we got the Canon WP-DC17 waterproof case. I knew nothing about underwater photography and only cared that I could take pictures under water.

Mike and Tom had rented a camera with marine housing from a shop in Cairns. It was a later iteration of our camera - a Canon IXUS 130 (known in North America as the SD1400 IS), which according to the comparison here, is a bit of an improvement. They also had the Canon branded housing.

First Encounters

When the small vessel met up with the livaboard, we were given time to snorkel as well. The site was great because it really wasn't deep at all and I was able free dive close enough to snap some decent pictures.

Canon SD870 IS - cookie goes to the first person who can tell me what fish these are. 

Canon SD870 IS - don't know what fish this is either, but colouful enough to warrant a picture

We saw giant clams everywhere at the GBR. It wasn't until a future dive trip when someone asked us about the giant clams that we realized how spoiled we were. We saw so many of them that they took a back seat to all the other "cool" stuff we tried to look for.

Canon SD870 IS - as far as the clam can close its mouth

To give some perspective on size, here's me putting my hand in one. This was actually taken at the end of our tour, after Jed had us try this on one of our dives. Apparently, the muscles in the clam's walls grow to be so thick that it can no longer shut its mouth tight, which is what it's trying to do here.

Canon SD870 IS - giving the clam a mouth massage

A real intro dive

My second dive wasn't until 3 years later in Negril, Jamaica in September 2009 while on our honeymoon. We stayed at Couples Resort Negril where one of the inclusions was scuba diving. Unfortunately, diving was only free for certified divers. Non-certified divers like myself had one free intro dive - additional dives were available but for a fee since.. well.. we needed a baby sitter.

One of the pre-requisites for the intro dive was a swim test. It was probably 100 m in their pool, but the instructor stopped me after a few lengths. Guess it was more of a "show-me-you're-comfortable-in-the-water" kind of a test. At the time, Maggie wasn't a strong swimmer so she didn't bother. Another couple were sent away because one of them struggled with her lengths.

The skills session in the pool was easy because they were the same as what we did in Thailand. I just needed the refresher. But unlike the dive in Thailand, this dive was off a boat in real open water.. I was excited! It was just myself and one other diver (let's call him Kevin) on the boat. I remember the instructor telling me that Kevin was finishing his open water certification, and tried to sell me on doing mine as well. He said it was a really good price at the resort since the cost of the dives themselves were already included. I did consider it but looking back, I'm glad I passed as it worked out better to do it together with Maggie later.

The dive site had a very sandy bottom and aside from the usual fish, I remember seeing a lot starfish in the sand. I assumed Kevin was mostly finished his certification because the only thing he did on that dive was tag along and take pictures. The instructor asked him to take a picture of me with a starfish on my head, which he did. I gave him my e-mail afterwards but never saw that picture. Ah well. I also remember seeing a stingray cruising by in the distance, which was pretty cool.

This time, I had to control my own BCD. I remember buoyancy control was a bitch that first dive. The entire time, I kept inflating and deflating my BCD trying to get a good balance. It really hit home when, at one point during the dive while we were waiting for Kevin, I saw the instructor effortlessly suspended vertically in the water - arms crossed and legs just kind of hanging there. Meanwhile, I was flapping my arms and kicking my legs and inflating/deflating my BCD. It was clear that I was doing it wrong. I commented on this back on the boat, but can't remember most of what he told me... only that it would come with experience.

Oh, I and also.. this was the trip where I flooded Ronald's camera. The sad thing is it wasn't even during a dive (not that the housing could have survived that depth anyway).

Way back when

I love being in the water and I love nature. I had already been (and really enjoyed) snorkeling so by extension, I really wanted to try scuba diving. However, living in Ontario, Canada didn't lend me many opportunities. And although it was something I had wanted to try, it just never seemed that accessible - it didn't seem like something that the average Joe did. So I never really planned for it - and it definitely never occurred to me that it would be something I would do more than a handful of times. How things have changed...

My first ever dive experience was during a family trip to Phuket, Thailand in August 2006. Diving wasn't originally on the radar, but when it came up as one of the optional activities for the tour that we were on, my two brothers Ronald and Bennet, my girlfriend Maggie (now my wife), and I all jumped at the opportunity. I don't remember the obligatory pool session being too difficult. After which we were assigned an instructor/divemaster for each pair for the intro shore dive.

Even back then, Ronald had an underwater housing for his point and shoot camera. It was a Sony DSC-W70. I know the model because I had to replace it after flooding it on a later trip. I had forgot to put the o-ring back on the housing after taking it out to clean the night before. I know, brilliant. All the effort to clean the housing and the o-ring to prevent it from flooding - only to completely forget to put it back on... the irony. Anyway, the housing was only rated for 10 ft and we weren't sure how deep we would dive, so we never used it. It was our first dive so we had no perspective on depth but I seem to recall the one other guy from our tour use a disposable waterproof camera on his intro dive without problem. Ah well...

I can still remember some details from that dive. From a marine life perspective, I remember seeing a lot of clown fish swimming in and out of and hiding within anemone - just like in the beginning sequences of Finding Nemo. That was really cool. I haven't seen any clown fish since. I also remember that our tour guide made fun of us for spending all our dive time playing with Nemo. Apparently, she had waded into the water at one point and tapped our heads to get our attention. Neither me nor Maggie noticed this, but that's a pretty good indicator of how deep we went.

From a diving perspective, I remember all we had to do was breathe. The instructor told us to ignore the BCD inflator and that he would control it for us. Knowing what I know now, I can't see how that made any sense - maybe because it was a shore dive and we never went below 10 ft. Either way, I remember feeling it was a struggle to keep myself from floating to the surface. I didn't think too much of it though - I was too focused on watching real-life Nemo!

Although this was technically my first ever dive, I've never really considered it a real dive. Other than having to breath through a regulator, we didn't really "dive".

About

Eight years after my very first dive, I've decided to start this blog. It wasn't until recently that I really started to take an interest in underwater photography, and I thought this would be a good way to record my lessons (read: screw ups).

This blog will chronicle my diving experiences and the progression (or perhaps lack thereof) of my underwater photography interests. Although I'm only starting this blog now, I will try to recall my previous dives. The good thing is that there really hasn't been that many, so documenting them years after the fact shouldn't be too too hard - and that's why we have logbooks, right?

I'll admit that I have a few failed attempts to start blogs in the past. Partially due to lack of material, and partially due to laziness. I'm hoping that neither of those will become issues this time around, considering I'll realistically only be posting a few times a year - and I really really love diving.