Just a bit over a year ago, my awesome husband and I got married up in Calistoga, California. We spent an incredible three weeks in Fiji for our honeymoon, and had such a great time that we resolved to try to take a long trip every year for our anniversary! So, for our first anniversary [...]
Everything seems brighter in the tropics. I chose to process most of these in HDR because I really liked how it brought out the bright, saturated colors of the islands. First, a few from Stuart Cove’s, the dive center where we spent most of our vacation: These bait boxes go underwater with the shark [...]
Our last dive day in Nassau brought sunny, tropical weather once again. However, the ocean had not yet recovered from the storm, and strong currents, coupled with compromised visibility, made diving a little bit difficult. The David Tucker was donated by the Royal Bahamas Defense Force to become an artificial reef. It sits in [...]
Bahamas BBC Wreck In September of 2007, the BBC, with assistance from Stuart Cove’s, purchased and scuttled an old tugboat to study the colonization of artificial reefs for their series “Life.” A contest was held to name the boat, and the winners (a couple from Arizona) won a chance to dive on the newly-sunk wreck, [...]
During our Nassau trip, it became evident that even the Bahamas are not immune to winter. We had a storm roll across the island that brought strong winds, cold temperatures, and a little bit of rain. We hunkered down for a day, but as the storm moved back out to sea, we came back [...]
My favorite dive from our entire trip was the Caribbean reef shark feed. It was the perfect Valentine’s Day gift from my husband! We dove with Stuart Cove’s, a dive operator known both for Bahamas shark diving and the underwater production of many major Hollywood films, such as Flipper, Jaws: The Revenge, Into the Blue, [...]
Barracuda hunt primarily by sight, and are therefore sometimes attracted to shiny objects, as they might resemble the scales of prey fish. I’ve sometimes had barracuda follow my camera around, presumably because they were interested in the flashes of light from my strobes. This was not one such fish. It wanted nothing to do [...]
Just a few of the tropical fish we saw in the Bahamas… Gray Angelfish: Trumpetfish: Pufferfish: Parrotfish:
If I had to characterize the diving in the Bahamas with one word, it would be… “big.” It seems like everything underwater there is big. Unlike, say, Curacao, where the vast majority of sea life is tiny and to be found within the crevices of the coral reef, the marine life of the Bahamas [...]
I like groupers for three reasons. 1. They’re pretty scary-looking. 2. They’re easy to photograph. Groupers are relatively territorial and sedentary, and a fish that stays in one place is a fish that’s more likely to star in a “keeper” photo. The infamous fleeing “fish butt” photo is no fun at all. 3. [...]
On our descent into the Sea Viking/Mike’s Reef site in New Providence, Mat spotted this huge southern stingray, about 3-4′ across. I got right in its face with my fisheye lens. Feeling the need for a sense of scale, I motioned for him to come over into the frame… … but apparently [...]
The Steel Forest is a set of three wrecks that were scuttled between 1997 and 2002. They orient to form a triangle on the sandy bottom in 40-120′ of water, right on the edge of the Tongue of the Ocean, a 6000′-deep ocean trench. The “fake hand on/under a wreck” thing seems [...]
The Anthony Bell is an old Bahamian tugboat, about 90′ long and in about 50′ of water. Care must be taken to avoid not only rusting metal, but also some of the inhabitants of the artificial reef, such as the long-spined sea urchin… … And the lionfish. The Willaurie is a [...]
One of the first dive sites on our Nassau trip was called Twin Sisters. These two smallish oil tankers were donated by Shell and sunk in 2000 to create an artificial reef. They sit in about 80′ of water. We were the first off the dive boat, so we decided to get into the [...]
Just a little teaser from paradise! This is the view out the back door of our place in Nassau. It’s a 3-exposure handheld HDR. We’re diving for five days (including a couple of shark dives), so I’ll get some underwater photos up soon!
