Severe Storms

Souther coastal Mozambique can expect svere storms.

I made it!  I am actually in Mozambique as I write this.  Actually I have been here for almost a week.  I have been working on a website every day and I have not even been diving yet!  Its not for lack of time though. Its a matter of the weather.  Its been windy and rainy and its just not fun to go out and do research in that.  You have to do beach launches here and when the surf is up that is just too tall an order. I had thought that the dive operators here would go out come rain or shine but apparently that is not actually the case.  So nobody has been diving these days here.  Despite not diving I have been having a surprisingly good time.  I think its a good idea that I get accustomed to working again so that it is not such a complete shock when I return to work in the spring.  Working with Simon Pierce and Andrea Marshall has also been a complete joy!  Its been SO fun!  Here I am hanging out with the world’s leading experts on Manta Rays and Whale Sharks.  How freaking cool is that?  Very…to be exact.  I came here to see if this is something I really want to get more involved with in some capacity and so far I really like the idea even though I have not actually been tagging any animals yet.  Life devoted to the study of and preservation of the natural world may simply be something I have to do.

So…as much as I want to post some of my recent photos of London and Mozambique, i still have a backlog of images to post from Palau.  I had a blast on my last boat trip aboard the Palau Aggressor II with my friend Tim and Captain Mike and his wife Amanda.  They run a really top class operation and the boat was excellent.  Very roomy and all the Red Rooster beer I could drink!  Of course when you do 4 or 5 dives a day there is only so much beer you have time to drink so I actually did not end up drinking much which is a shame because the dark lager (or was it a stout?) was really really good.  So without further ado…its on to my last pictures from Palau.

This is a typical view from my cabin window.  There were Black Tip Reef Sharks that constantly circled our boat when it was moored.  I liked the idea of snapping a pic that was perfectly “framed”:

Mmmm....sharks....

An interesting feature of this boat was that it had a hydraulic lift on the back of it such that the diving skiff could be picked up and hauled around on the back of the main boat.  Very high tech if you ask me.  One day we were coming back from diving and there was a sea snake (sea crate as its called) climbing onto the boat and it was wrapping itself around all the machinery.  It was a baby but it was very cool.  Its apparently the most venemous snake in the world.  I am pretty sure its related to cobras as are coral snakes but I am not totally sure.

Mmmmm...sea snake....

Here is a shot of a sleeping Parrot Fish.  I have a cool video of one as well.  The cool thing about how they sleep is that they secrete a kind of membranous balloon from their mouth which envelopes their whole body.  They do this to mask their scent while they are sleeping.  If you look closely, you can actually see this membrane in this photo.  You see what looks like specs of dust just above the fish and this actually little bits of sand and silt that have gotten stuck in the membrane.  Its very weird looking when you see it.

Mmmm....sleeping Parrot Fish membrane sack thing.....

On one dive we saw Octopus which was very very cool.  It was trying to make itself look like coral and then it would pose a little.  I like this shot because its a little like portraiture although its technically not very good.  All you photo buffs just keep in mind that I am taking still photos with a video camera so I have no control over my aperture or shutter speed or any of that!:

Mmmm...cephalapods!

This is a really groovey Nudibranch I saw on a dusk dive.  I behaved badly though and lost my group while I was snapping away at this one.  Its also not a very good photo but it was a very cool creature!

Mmmm....sea slug.....

There were some very cool wrecks in Palau.  I wish I had explored them more.  We actually took a “wreck course” which turned out to be a bit underwhelming but I won’t go into that. This is the Jake Sea Plane, and its the most photographed wreck in Palau…or was is the world?  I can’t remember.  I have seen some cool photos of this plane with colored lights in the cock pit that were pretty groovey.  The cool thing about this dive was that there was a crocodile fish on the wing (the one pictured in one of my earlier posts)!

In the event of a water landing....

This was taken from a wreck called the Iro.  Some of these wrecks were just completely covered in crazy coral formations, sponges, clams, and everything you could imagine.  They tended to be in places where the visability was not that amazing though.

Mmmm.....corroding metal n'stuff....

There were TONS of turtles in Palau.  This is a Hawk’s Bill turtle that we followed for a long long time…or rather it was kind of following us…two of them to be exact.  Unfortunately my camera has terrible white balance capability so this is a REALLY green Hawks Bill.

Mmmm.....Hawk.....'s bill.....turtle.....

No self respecting underwater photographer can escape a dive trip to Palau without the obligatory Gorgonian Sea Fan silhouette with diver in background.

Mmmmmm......sea fan.....

One of the coolest dive sites in Palau is the Blue Holes.  There are five holes in the top of the reef that go down to about 130 ft or so and you get these gorgeous views of the holes from below.  There are some caves within these caverns that go really deep and both divers and turtles have met their fate in there.  Hence its called Temple of Doom.  One day I would like to do a tech dive in there with Tri-Mix and a reel (or two!) but that kind of diving is still out of my league.

Mmmm....Blue Hole.....

Outside the cave entrance is a really cool clam thing called a file shell I think it is.  It has these long orange tendrils as you can see and the blue part you see blinks and flashes like some kind of electrical filiament or something.  You can see this in the Planet Earth series too!  I love those moments where you are living some of the scenes from Planet Earth.  Priceless!

Disco...Disco....Clam.....I want to be...a Disco Clam....

Mmmm.....clown....fish.....

So thats it for my Palau pics!  At least thats it for the “good” ones.  Next post should be a relative short one about New Jersey and New York City I reckon.

This strip to Micronesia was truly one of the most awesome experiences I have had.  My crappy photos and my crappy videos can not begin to describe how cool the diving is there.  There is nothing like being down at 130 ft in the middle of a rushing bait ball with sharks, Napoleon Wrasse,  Trevali and Grouper swooping in all around you.  What was really cool was being able to hear the rush of the fish as they came at you.  Simpley amazing!

Ok thats all for now folks.  Be well!