Big Sur by Night

Weeks of foggy mornings and overcast nights gave way to a clear evening; perfect opportunity with a late moonrise to try shooting the Milky Way.  Tried out a couple new spots I’d had in the back of my mind (and managed not to get blown off the cliffs by the 30kt winds!)

 

Murky Diving at Lobos

Had a couple days off around the 4th and planned a couple dives to some of our favorite Yankee Point deep spots, ones we've been unable to get to so far this year because of bad weather.  As usual, no good plan survives contact with the water - Day 1 we managed to get in a good dive in at Birthday Wall, but the 300' exposure caused a minor flood in my camera.  Day 2, we got beat back off of Point Lobos by the wind, and tucked in at Deep E3.  Got in some slug-hunting in the 10-15' murk.

 

Couple Critters from a Cold Dark Dive

It's been a terrible run heavy winds, but we got a tiny break (if you can call 10-20kts a break) and managed to sneak one it at the Mile Buoy - a couple macro critters...

 

Fog and Wind over Memorial Day

Took a few days off around the long weekend and had high hopes of getting in a couple days of whale-watching, diving, and was hoping to shoot some new sunset coastlines.  And then reality (fog and wind) set in.  Still managed to get out for a couple bumpy boat rides and a quick dip in the harbor - no keepers, but a few interesting shots.  The last couple show a sequence of the carnivorous sea slug Navanax inermis chowing down on a poor little Flabellina trilineata.

Sunset Jaunt

Took a quick walk out to the ocean today, hoping for some sunset colors.  Was hoping that the haze would make for some nice purples, but it never quite materialized.   In any case, here the couple I ended up with, as well as a shot of me almost falling off of the rocks :-)

 

A few from Bermuda

Had the pleasure of visiting Bermuda for a few days this week, and managed to squeezed in a few dives with Dive Bermuda while I was here.  I was pleasantly surprised by how healthy the reef was - lots of healthy corals and gorgonians.  And the wrecks were pretty cool to see as well.

 

Packing up for a trip...

I get questions from time to time about what gear I normally shoot with.  I'm a Nikon shooter, and most of my underwater shots are with the D200 or D800, and topside with the D800 or D850 more recently.  

I'm packing up some stuff for a quick trip next week, so I figured I'd post a few shots of what this all looks like on land, and in-the-water.

Up Close and Personal with Orcas

After weeks of being sidelined with travel and bad weather, we managed to squeeze in a quick trip out in between early morning fog and afternoon winds.  Was a pleasant surprise to run into a large pod of transient Orcas apparently feeding on a grey whale kill - the pod stayed for hours swimming around while feeding, and coming up to each of the boats to check things out.

Ospreys

Spent a couple hours on the way home visiting the Osprey nest - luckily caught the Ospreys mating, followed by seeing the male go off fishing and come back with dinner.

Cold Water Snapshots

Winter usually means 2 things for diving - crappy weather and cold, clean water.  I've been able to sneak in a few dives over the last couple of wks in between storms and managed to get a few shots.