Tag: san diego

  • The Purple-Striped Jellyfish/Sea Nettle (Chrysaora colorata)

    The Purple-Striped Jellyfish/Sea Nettle (Chrysaora colorata)

    There were ripping currents on the deep wrecks this past weekend, and with the currents came a whole slew of jellyfish and tunicates. I’m mildly obsessive about the Black Sea Nettle bloom we sometimes get in San Diego in the summers, and I’m well-known as a nudibranch zealot, so it should come as no surprise…

  • Back to the Fuchsia

    Back to the Fuchsia

    Everything came together. I navigated through crappy visibility. I clambered around in surge that felt like the spin cycle. I stared at rocks until my vision focused on tiny fuchsia Spanish Shawls, my favorite nudibranch. I shed the responsibility of someone else’s good time, and all I had was my own.

  • Throwback Thursday: Dead Dolphins and Live Whale Sharks

    Throwback Thursday: Dead Dolphins and Live Whale Sharks

    It was with a smug superiority that I returned to vacation: living it up while climbing ruins, rafting rivers, and stalking whale sharks was the name of the game. To summarize: The Belizean landscape was raw and rife with exotic wildlife. The Mayan ruins were breathtaking and fabulous. The whale sharks were one of the…

  • Photo of the Week: The Hitchhiker

    Photo of the Week: The Hitchhiker

    If I’d had the ocular fortitude to spot the microscopic amphipod hitchhiking a ride on this nudibranch’s back, I would have spent all damn day shooting those two little guys. However, I never even saw it until I was home, my gear was rinsed and drying, and I was on the computer, heavily cropping this…

  • Back in Sun Diego: Solar-powered sea critters

    Back in Sun Diego: Solar-powered sea critters

    Yesterday, while enjoying the heat at the pool, I briefly considered the possibility that maybe I was actually solar-powered. I don’t need food anymore, I thought, All I need is warmth. This of course was incorrect, and I shuffled my flip-flops home almost immediately thereafter and ate some soup. But it reminded me of critters…

  • Go get the new issue of Scuba Diving Magazine now!

    Go get the new issue of Scuba Diving Magazine now!

    Hey everybody! My photo inside the HMCS Yukon was just published in the May 2014 issue of Scuba Diving Magazine. It’s on newsstands (and available digitally) now! Please go check it out! :)

  • How to Remove Backscatter: The Fastest Way to Improve Your Underwater Photos

    How to Remove Backscatter: The Fastest Way to Improve Your Underwater Photos

    Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking about technical diving and underwater photography to the Whalers Dive Club in Canoga Park, California. It was a great crowd, and the attendees were every speaker’s dream: they both laughed at my jokes and asked engaged, thoughtful questions! One of the questions that stood out, and that…

  • The Missile Tower Wreck (165′), San Diego

    The Missile Tower Wreck (165′), San Diego

    The Missile Tower in San Diego, formerly used by the U.S. Navy to test-launch Trident submarine missiles, now rests in 165 feet of water near the Mexican Border as an artificial reef.

  • Obligatory End-of-Year Post (A Summary of 2013)

    Obligatory End-of-Year Post (A Summary of 2013)

    Because (a) It’s pretty much in the rules of blogging to make an end-of-year summary post, and (b) 2013 was full of great diving and photo ops. From technical wrecks to nudibranchs: a photographic summary of my underwater exploits in 2013.

  • The Ruby E: One of San Diego’s Most Richly Historied Shipwrecks

    The Ruby E: One of San Diego’s Most Richly Historied Shipwrecks

    The Ruby E, one of San Diego’s premiere wrecks for divers, has a rich and colorful history. Although initially commissioned to intercept Prohibition-Era alcohol shipments on behalf of the United States Coast Guard, she also assisted in Bering Sea patrols, thwarted Japanese task forces in the Aleutian Islands during WWII, and worked as a commercial…