44 replies to this topic

[james]

Hi Everyone,

Well - people are starting to arrive for our trip on the Shearwater. I thought I'd start a thread for everyone to chime in about the trip, post photos, etc.

Today I dove the Blue Heron Bridge with trip participant Ron Watkins and a friend of Ron's from Miaimi (George) who dives here every weekend. We each made our Al80 last 120 minutes :-)

Right away, we were into it! We found octopus, a cooperative reef squid, and all sorts of critters just around the sailboat moorings. Then - a special treat! A pair of hairy frogfish - that just went right on fishing while we took their photograph. They didn't catch anything while we were watching though :-)

Here are a few of my photos from today's dive. We are going to dive the bridge tomorrow with a bigger group.

Cheers
James

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[Alex_Mustard]

Very cool. Looking forward to following your progress. Most jealous - love the July sharks and dolphins trips on the Shearwater.

Alex

[Steve Williams]

Have a great trip James! Looking forward to the images.

Cheers,
Steve

[james]

Thanks Steve and Alex,

I'm just back home from a fantastic trip. So many images to go through!

We had great weather and great encounters - and I met some cool new folks. I think the longest traveler award went to Chris who flew in all the way from Melbourne for the trip - I don't think you can get any farther.

I'll post some images soon. I think I got pictures of just about everyone - in the water, either with sharks or dolphins :-)

Cheers
James

[loftus]

Surely you have some teasers that you processed on the crossing home! What kind of trip leader are you?

[james]

Hi Jeff,

Well - the crossing home was a wild ride. When we got about 20 miles from the Bahamas we crossed a front-line and things got kind of bumpy :-) - but fortunately it calmed down as quickly as it hit us.

Here are a few teasers from our first day with the dolphins. I have to say, the experience of floating in the Gulf Stream at night w/ nothing under you but a thousand feet of water, and speeding dolphins shooting past around like guided missiles was pretty intense. Mark Prior and I looked up at 11pm and noticed no one else was around - we'd been in the water for hours! :-)

Cheers
James

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[TheRealDrew]

I have to say, the experience of floating in the Gulf Stream at night w/ nothing under you but a thousand feet of water, and speeding dolphins shooting past around like guided missiles was pretty intense. Mark Prior and I looked up at 11pm and noticed no one else was around - we'd been in the water for hours! :-)

Based on those shots, it looks like those hours were very welll spent. Really love the third shot.

[loftus]

Now that's what I'm talking about!

[crubie]

Great pictures !
Brings back memories...
Keep the good stuff coming...Can't wait to see more !

[james]

Thanks guys. As the other folks from the trip get home I'm sure they'll post some photos too. Some of them had a LONG haul to get home.

Cheers
James

[bmyates]

Beautiful, James!

Why can't you get your pool models to swim as close to the surface without bubbles as that last shot?!

It really sounds like the only thing the trip was missing was.....well.....ME!

[xariatay]

Wow, dolphins staying up late too! The 3rd is special, all very nice...

[Steve Williams]

Thanks James, beautiful stuff. The night dolphin is seriously cool. When do we get a taste of the sharks? Please more dolphins too.

Cheers,
Steve

[diggy]

Absolutely beautiful, specially the dolphin shots and the last one is really awesome..thanks for sharing and please post some more. At least i can live the experience through the photo's

Cheers,

Diggy

[Alex_Mustard]

Fantastic. I love Shear Water summer trips.

[yahsemtough]

I second what Alex said. I really need to do another one very soon.

Cheers

Todd

[james]

All right - since everyone asked so nicely, here are a few more teasers. These are the reef sharks at Carcarius Cut - a fantastic dive site.

One thing that scared me was the HUGE number of lionfish I saw on the reefs. They don't have any predators and an abundant food supply and they seem to be multiplying like lemmings!

Cheers
James

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[climbrox]

Thanks for sharing all these great shots! Really nice work.
I would love to join this trip next year.

[scubarews]

James,

Thanks for getting this thread started and leading such a wonderful trip. I enjoyed your company as well as the rest of the group. We had a nice diverse team and we all learned something from each other on photography, diving, marine life and life in general. My favorite water things on the trip were
- two nights and over 4 hours of snorkeling with the dolphins at night (and clearing the pool after spotting a large tiger circling below us)
- Daytime snorkeling with dolphins even though I need to buy some better fins and learn to hold my breadth like Lud and Cal
- Lemon Snaps and the many near misses
- shooting the lemons at dusk on the surface with the golden light
- Macro photography of the lemons with my 105mm
- my rare (at least on our trip) close encounters with tigers
- Time spent with James photographing before the trip and the Blue Heron Bridge (it really is our local lembeh).

The only bummer on the trip was that Jim Abernathy was not on board, but the crew of Brian, Mike, Grey and Ed were great and made sure we got put in the right sposts for the action and everyone came home with all of their body parts and well fed.

Here is a quick sampling of some of my favorite shots. I will divide them in a couple of posts because of the size limit:

Here are some Dolphins:


Ron Watkins
Nikon D200/300 housed in S&S with S&S 110alpha strobes (used Tokina 10-17, 10.5, 12-24, 105 on this trip but most with 10-17 that James convinced me to buy the day before the trip)

Edited by scubarews, 23 July 2009 - 09:16 AM.

[scubarews]

Here are some of the sharks