Which one?

Oshima's porcelain Crab






I love both of these photos, the crab was about 18mm across, the anenome was swaying in the small current so he quickly found himself protected but not before I managed to fire off a number of shots!

He's obviously moved from the edge of the anenome to the back - which one do you prefer?

Bali October 2007

Mixed emotions run through my head when wanting to describe Bali!

There is no doubt that some of the diving is absolutely superb and exactly what I needed to get into the groove with my underwater photography. In the first 3 days in Tulamben I took near on 300 photos! We experienced the famous Liberty wreck, muck diving in Sereya, a whale shark in 12m of water (guess who had a macro lense on ;o))and probably the most stunning coral gardens I've ever been lucky enough to dive. We all had a bit of a moan about the shore entry - over volcanic rocks it's not the easiest of ways to get in and out of the water whilst carrying scuba gear and an underwater camera set up but we were richly rewarded in the diving once in.

From Tulamben we moved down to Candi Dasa and a beautiful hotel to boat dive off Nusa Penida, the "gili"s and Blue lagoon. A stark contrast to Tulamben, we were regularly guided into fast and unpredictable currents, something none of us were happy with and resulted in many abandoned dives as we left the guides to do safe ascents. Manta Point was another diappointment with the camera, diving in 4m surge in about 5m viz - I ended up taken a maximum of 50 photos in the last 4 days compared to the previous location. Even in the Blue lagoon we experienced too much surge to spend any time composing shots comfortably.

Throughout the whole trip I was diving with Steve, a fantastic spotter and diver with the patience of a saint - I think I've identified all his critters correctly(Steve pioneered the new addition of bamboo pointing stick (satay stick!) and home made shaker (shampoo bottle that needs some more work!!)) Thanks Steve :o)

Big thanks to Rick from Yoyo Divers for organsing the trip - nice one dude! :o)


Striped Eel Catfish


Chromodoris Hintuanensis


Blue Ribbon Eel


Orange mouth thorny oyster


Cleaner shrimp


Eastern skunk anenome fish


Durban Hingebeak Shrimps


pink Squat lobster - not the kind you'd ever find on a menu, he's tiny!


Ornate ghost pipefish


Gorgonian fan with feather stars


Inside the Liberty wreck


Schooling jacks on the Liberty


Manta Point


Lionfish - look at his "skin", looks more like a snake!


Orange spearer mantis shrimp


Purple blotched smasher mantis shrimp


Orange spotted pipe fish?? Closest description I could find...


Phidiana Indica


Pink Leaf Scorpian fish


Pygmy Sea horse - not the best pic in the world but i had to include it given the teeny tiny size of these things!!


Risbecian Tryoni


Yello Striped Goat fish


I cannot find this anywhere - does anyone have any ideas? I've called it a Steve Shrimp cos he found it!!

Practise practise practise!

Unable to get into the water with a self imposed Dive ban to try and sort out my neck before I go to Bali, I took the camera out for some above water practise this afternoon.

A bright but cloudy day my theme was to be Autumn leaves - unfortunately many of the leaves wouldn't play and I ended up just playing around with anything that caught my eye!

Test upload

Am trying to see whether I have to get photos hosted before adding them to my blog

Any yey! You don't have to, can just upload from file :o)

200th Dive at Littlehampton

2 fantastic dives from Our Joy in Littlehampton yesterday. First dive was a 28m wreck the Ramsgarth which was stunning! I have never seen such large schools of bib before, shame I had the macro lens on!!

I've been having problems with the camera not being able to change F stops when in manual mode meaning I either had to shoot in AV mode and over here most of my shots were coming out blurred where the shutter speeds were too slow or shoot in manual on just one F stop setting (usually the wrong one too!) So last week I spent some time playing around with the camera and housing after getting some advice from various people and was fairly sure, as a result, that i'd sorted the selction process.

I wouldn't have usually taken the camera on a dive when diving as a buddy three but I was desperate to see if I'd sorted the problem so made a plan with my buddies to shoot only a couple of pics to see the results.

And I'm pleased to say I think I have sorted the problem which is really exciting! I only took 10 quick shots in total but am pretty pleased with the results :o) I can't wait to get back down to Swanage pier or another dive where I can mooch around to give some serious shots a go.

Second dive was a fairly rapid drift which I didn't have my camera for - typical, first time I saw mermaids purses, a couple of large dogfish and a beautiful undulate ray - awesome diving!

Anyway, please let me know what you think of the photos in "comments" :o)

Bank Holiday in Falmouth

We had a fantastic weekend's diving in Falmouth diving with Kate, Pete, Wal and Stu. It was great being back in the water with Kate who shares a very similar outlook to diving as me and is so laid back never uses air! We quickly tuned back into each others underwater signals and enjoyed the Mohegan down in the Manacles and a fantastic dive with Wal in the Narrows doing the three walls. Sunday saw us shore diving and Kate and I did two 60 minute dives - something I just didn't think I'd ever do in the UK. I saw not only my first ever cuttlefish (Kate wondering why I'm excitedly pointing at a large kelp leaf!) but 3 other cuttlefishes on the same dive - so they do exist! Finally we had one more dive on Wal's boat Monday morning and went east out of the channel. Another great dive to end the weekend, watching Wal's party tricks and seeing the largest ever urchins I've seen!! A fantastic weekend catching up with old friends and meeting new and some of the best UK diving I've done!

Unfortuantely I was struggling again with my camera, where I was getting so close to what I wanted to photograph (model student me!) my strobe was burning out most of the images. I need to learn where and when to position the strobe next... Never ending this photgraphy lark!

Some more wreck pics from the Red Sea

Diving the M2 Submarine

Excitement and anxiety were building in equal amounts as yet again I was travelling down to the south coast at some ungodly hour!

I would be diving with Rick and Nobby, 2 Yoyo Instructors and Kev another Yoyo DM so a well experienced team where I would be the least experienced! It's a rollercoaster this diving lark, yesterday I was the 2nd highest experienced helping Rick out on a number of AOW and speciality courses in and around Swanage and now back to the bottom of the pecking order!!

The M2 sits in about 35m of water and is completely intact, she was sunk during routeine exercises in 1932.

We descended right on top of the conning tower and started our dive. The plan was to rack up a small amount of deco (gas permitting) and do a full tour of the sub. From the conning tower we went towards the bow (do subs have bows?!) every hole we looked in there were either HUGE conger eels (and I mean Huge, eyes like tennis balls! Ok eyes like 10 p peices!!), big lobsters or blennies or gobies resting. The wreck is absolutely teeming with life, large schools of pollock hang off the sides and as we dropped down at the nose I saw the largest ever edible crab which must have been at least 30cm across and a couple of bass! You can always tell they're bass as Rick makes lip smacking signs underwater - I think he likes to eat them!!

Back towards the stern we came back up towards the aircraft hangers (where nobby was seen off by a blennie guarding his territory!!) and out down to the keel and rudders. There is a huge amount of anenome growth on the sub, in one square metre I counted about 5 different species alone!

Just as I clicked into 1 minute deco, I signalled I had 80 bar and we started our ascent.

A great 45 minute dive, thanks to Rick, Nobby and Kev!