his dive story / 43

13 March 2013

It’s me again after a couple of weeks off diving due to a flu and bad sea conditions. In fact, we still have not dived out in Grace Bay at all as the sea has been very rough coming from the north. The water temp has dropped to about 25c and I have been wearing my 7mm suit. I am starting to enjoy using my new camera gear setup and playing with the wide angle lens. I think I need to get the dome next! :)

These pics show the different types of sea creatures we have in abundance. I love the crab. The picture does not do any justice to the size of this crab as it was BIG and missing one giant claw! It was not shy at all and wasn’t bothered that I was trying to get a close up.

The blue and black fishes that you see are really pretty to look at and I have not seen them in a group like that before.

And then those baby blue parrot fishes are definitely feeding off the corals. They are so cool to watch when they swim together in a big group.

Enjoy and until next time, hopefully, we will get to dive Grace Bay again.

read more his dive story posts over here – james

ps – lion fish, an invasive species.

his dive story / 42

5 February 2013

1 Comment

his-dive-story-42-b This dive was in the channel. Somewhere between morthwest point and west caicos. The best time to dive the channel is when the tide is high as the reef wall is on a slippery slope so when the tide is receding the current will be unbearable, dragging you down towards the slope and the viz will be bad as all the silt will be kicked up.

Anyway on this dive we were told that this is usually where one would see gurnards, flying fishes but since last year’s hurricane they have seemed to have disappeared! Well guess what??? I found them on this dive as i went off alone as i usually do a deep profile dive and it was on my way up was when i found these two gurnards.

his-dive-story-42 Amazing looking especially when they open their wings and voila! The irresdescent blue spots are just so beautiful but one of them is missing part of its wing or else it was bitten off by another fish. Enjoy the video.

I used my new red filter on this video. Still testing and playing. I have now two INON macro lens that I stack and a new wide angle. Technique technique!!! Ciao and until next time – James

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his dive story / 41

3 January 2013

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Happy new year and hope you are off to a great start! Right before xmas, Joana and I booked a long weekend in Miami to quench our culinary cravings and to do some badly needed shopping. We also ordered loads of things online including my new underwater strobe package, lens adaptor, wet lens and filter. These guys (www.divervision.com) have everything and the prices are much less than in the US. They ship immediately with a choice of EMS or DHL.We shipped everything to our hotel and those guys were amazing in handling all those packages for us! All our packages were delivered to our room before we even checked in!

Anyway, enough of that. As with all new equipment, all my settings had to change and I had to do a lot of tests underwater as the INON S-2000 has a guide number of 20 which is more than double what I had before. I googled for tips and then tried them out underwater. I need to dive more now than ever! The strobe without a doubt is amazing and so compact for travel that I am amazed when my camera is next to others on the boat and it seems more like a toy! But hey, it is all about streamlining for me. Every gear I have is hooked on to my bcd. Check out some of the pics and hopefully in the near future, you can see how I am making progress. Maybe I will pick up an INON wide angle with a dome next! My 28mm Leica wide angle loses so much underwater and the wide angle wet lens would restore most if not more back.

– James

for more diving posts – CLICK HERE

his dive story / 40

11 December 2012

2 Comments

Well, the weather hasn’t been too cooperative lately and we’ve had high winds coming eastward which usually means the entire Providenciales island is washed out and this means there isn’t a good place to go diving except maybe French Cays which has not been a favorite spot for me.

This Sunday was the first really nice day that we had for almost two weeks and I was so excited to book my diving. The boat was still in the south side and we were headed for Northwest Point. On board were the usual suspects… Dave, our captain, Nikki, dive instructor, Don, who runs the TCI Reef Fund and Sarah, a former dive instructor and my recent dive buddy.

On this day, Don would be working on refitting the moorings at two dive sites at Northwest Point. The first site was Two Steps, which I love. The second site was Shark Hotel, which for whatever reason was my first time diving it and I really enjoyed it for its deep swim thru which would take you down to at least 40m. It is called Shark Hotel because at bottom of the swim thru there is a sandy ledge that the nurse sharks usually hang out and sleep there. But today, I only saw reef sharks. You will see on the video what I saw. It was really cool to see a turtle swimming next to a giant Nassau grouper and then followed by a shark then by me! Sarah was behind and probably took a picture of all of us!

shark-hotel by myseastory

The other video was towards the end of the dive where I saw a decent size school of fish which I know Joana would like. Enjoy the videos and next time, I will be using my new INON strobe with ULCS arms, red filter and a new INON macro lens! Can’t wait to splash with them.

see all my previous diving posts HERE – James