Tiny fish in Thailand

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  1 Response »
Jan 142013
 
Tiny fish in Thailand

About the dive This shot was taken during a liveaboard trip on the MV Giamani – you can see the slideshow of images from the trip in last week’s update. I was excited to be heading off to the tropics, and very excited to get in the water with my new toy, a Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens. While it did seem ironic to be swimming around in 40m vis surrounded by great scenery, I spent my first ever dives actively hunting for tiny things. About the critter I have no idea what fish this is. Big stuff has previously been my forte and I can identify weedy seadragons and green turtles at 40 paces. I suspect this is something [read more…]

Clownfish at Layang Layang

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  1 Response »
Dec 262011
 
Clownfish at Layang Layang

About the island Layang Layang is a small coral atoll located in the South China Sea, about 300km north west of Borneo. Officially part of Malaysia, the island houses a Malayasian Navy Base and the Layang Layang Island Resort. Available activities include diving on the coral wall that drops 2000m into the depths, and jogging up and down the airstrip (safe, as the plane only lands three mornings a week). Being so small, Layang Layang is a place you go for diving, eating and sleeping, and this is facilitated by the schedule. After a wake up call and first breakfast, the first dive is followed by second breakfast, the second dive, lunch, the third dive and then afternoon tea. A [read more…]

Diving the SS Yongala

 Ocean diving, Wrecks  No Responses »
Nov 142011
 
Diving the SS Yongala

About the site The SS Yongala is regularly touted as Australia’s best wreck dive, lying 12nm offshore in Far North Queensland. Given the task of driving over a tonne of dive gear 3,000km to Mt Hypipamee for the expedition, Nat Kenyon and I took a two day break from sitting behind the wheel for an inspection of the famous wreck. 2011 is the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Yongala, who went down on March 11th (close to midnight, so possibly on March 12th) 1911 in a tropical cyclone. 122 passengers on board perished, as well as an unknown number of children who were not recorded on passenger ships manifests in that era. The wreck was first dived [read more…]

Hammerhead Sharks at Layang Layang

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  1 Response »
Aug 292011
 
Hammerhead Sharks at Layang Layang

About the island As I’ve mentioned before, Layang Layang is a small coral atoll in the South China Sea, northwest off the coast of Malaysian Borneo. With 30 degree water, visibility in excess of 40m and a reef that drops 2000m into the blue depths, the diving is spectacular. One of the key drawcards for Layang Layang is that as an oceanic atoll, it sees a lot of big pelagic fish stopping by. Dogtooth tuna and several kinds of barracuda were common sightings. Trevally would shoot through the reef at high speed, scattering schools of tiny purple reef fish as they hunted. For me, the real attraction was the chance to see schools of scalloped hammerhead sharks. With shark populations [read more…]

Turtles in sunlight at Layang Layang

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  5 Responses »
Jul 252011
 
Turtles in sunlight at Layang Layang

About the island Layang Layang is a diver’s paradise, with huge walls dropping off the side of the reef into the blue ocean depths. The isolated location mean the fish life is prolific, with colourful reef fish hovering between the coral and pelagic fish shooting through at speed. Excellent visibility in the warm tropical waters and huge amounts of life led to a large number of photos over the 20 dives of our trip. I had a good time experimenting with a number of new techniques and other things I hadn’t consciously played with before. The advantage of a dive trip like this for me is that you can download and review your shots after each dive, note any difficulties [read more…]

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