Eddy's Scuba Blog

This is a review of Captain Don's Habitat in Bonaire, and Jack and Sue Drafahl's week-long Digital Photo Adventure. On our last day we had time for a last dive since most of us were flying next Saturday. The plan for the rest of the day was to spend time on land and a "Graduation Day" in which all of us in the program submit ten or twelve of our best pictures of the week.

Last Dive: Witches Hut

This was my last boat dive of the trip. I had purchased discounted boat trips (I believe 10 of them) for the whole week. The discounted price was very worth it: $10 vs. $30 per boat trip (if my memory serves me well). The shore dives were pretty good and sometimes better than some of the boat dives. But after a while you want to see some variety.

I had done this dive site previously on the trip and on that occasion the dive was pretty good. The coral tubes were very healthy and you would find the occasional moray eel or spotted drumfish. The site was situated along a wall, so I swam along it.

I was looking closely through the soft corals looking for creatures. This is when I noticed a flamingo tongue, a kind of sea snail with brown, yellow and black spots. I had never got a good picture of this guy before, so this was a good opportunity to practice. I used macro setting settings for this picture and tried to get as close as possible. The major challenge was to get the camera close enough because the soft coral was in the way. It was also challenging to position the strobe. All of this was happening in mid-water, since there was no place to hold on to, so good buoyancy was a must.

Flamingo Tongue. 1/500 at f8.0, ISO 100, 8mm focal length

Drumfish with Bottom Lighting. 1/400 at f6.3, ISO 100, 8mm focal length

Almost on the way back to the boat, I noticed a drumfish moving around. This was strange since drumfish tend to stay in their "homes". I followed it for a while until it finally settled inside its cave. This little cave had an unusual shape, I could not position my strobe on top of the fish, so I experimented with a different lighting effect. I put the strobe on top of the sand, aiming the fish completely sideways and from below. Some of the strobe light was reflected by the white sand. I call this a "hollywood" effect, as the lighting does not look natural at all. It looks quite good nonetheless.

Captain Don's Habitat: the Resort

Captain Don's was a mixed bag overall, with some negatives. While being there I heard the story that once Captain Don sold the resort to a third party, it hasn't been the same. The location of the resort is very convenient, very close to the airport.

The main building is clustered around the restaurant (Rum Runners) where all meals are served. Tables are outdoors with canopy ceilings on some tables. The restaurant sits on a small cliff overlooking the ocean. From there you can see the divers going out on the boat and shore dives.

Boat Dive Dock at Captain Don's

Shore Dive Dock at Captain Don's

On occasion, the resident iguana will bask in the sun trying to warm up. This makes a nice photo opportunity. The view from the restaurant is actually quite nice and you can pace yourself well as you can easily notice when it's time to dive. In the mornings, you have to watch for sea gulls stealing your breakfast from your plate! They've been (annoyingly) trained to be fed by humans. You can even throw food in the air and they will catch it.

The House Iguana at Captain Don's

Dinner time is also nice at the restaurant since you face West, so you can enjoy a evening with a backdrop of a sunset over the dive dock.

Sunset at Captain Don's

The restaurant is located next to the bar, front desk, the dive shop and the swimming pool. So everything is within few steps. I stayed at Ocean Villas side which were a little bit far away, but the rooms were nice. It was a two bedroom apartment with a bathroom on each bedroom. It had a living room with TV, a full kitchen with oven/range, fridge and dual kitchen sink. The sink is pretty convenient for soaking photo equipment. Next to the kitchen was a dinette table with stools. The Ocean Villa also had an outside dinner table with four chairs. This was nice to setup or dry equipment. There was also plenty of rails to hang wetsuits. Next to the entrance there was an outside sink with a bucket, very convenient to wash up gear.

Dive Ops

The dive operations had much to be desired at Captain Don's. Nitrox is brought in from another place every morning and there is always a mad rush to sign out tanks in the morning. So it is wise to reserve your tank ahead of time. The dive dock and the dive shop are on different floors, so you have to walk a flight of stairs carrying tanks.

The lockers are in a state of neglect. The locker bins and tables are made of wood, making it easy for sea water to accumulate, thus causing bad smells. The floors on the locker area is rough cement and very uneven, so you see puddles of sea water which also contributes to the smell. There was only one bench to sit on; anyway, this would be the worse place to take off your wetsuit, as the floor does not look clean. I always walked with slippers in that area.

There were showers and dunk sinks next to the locker area. The cement on the shower areas was crumbling and the plumbing was rusting. There were not enough places to hang wetsuits. There was a precarious system of strings tied to the walls of the locker area. This was supposed to be the place to hang wetsuits.

Scuba Tanks

Dive Lockers

There were three boat dives daily going out: 8:30am, 11:30am and 2:00pm. If you try to do three boat dives in a day, the tightest one is between the 11:30 and 2:00 one. There is simple not enough time between those two dives. You come back from the 11:30 dive at about 12:30 or 12:45. So essentially you have one hour to wash up or prepare things and have lunch. I once had lunch at the restaurant and because the service is rather at "island speed", I ran out of time easily. Another bad thing about boat diving in Bonaire is that they don't allow you to do a two tank dive, so you waste a lot time coming back to the resort and unload/prep again for the next dive.

The divemasters were pretty good and the briefings were informative. They also were good at pointing out creatures for you. However, I never felt any personalized attention. Because of how the operation is run - you sign up on the boat dive you want on a whiteboard - you end up with potentially a new group of people every time. So there is no continuity with the dive personnel. It almost felt like an assembly line.

There was a dive store next to the dive shop. The stock was extremely poor and not even the t-shirts were well stocked. There was also a photo services shop, but there was usually nobody working there. The only plus side of the store was a vending machine with soda and beer that you can charge to room.

There was also a dive repair shop next to the store. The condition of the place looked poor. There were boxes of hoses and parts all over and it was dirty. I once had the unfortunate situation of having a leaky high pressure hose. Although the repair guy managed to fix it, I cringed when I looked at their workshop. It was messy and dirty, and the guy was smoking while he was fixing the hose.

Food and Parties

In general, the food at Captain Don's was ok to excellent, especially dinner.
Rum Runners is the house restaurant at Captain Don's and this is where all the meals were served. Breakfast was included with the room, but lunch and dinner are on a tab. This was annoying because on the first day you had to open a tab with your credit card, you couldn't just charge it to your room.

Breakfast was buffet style with an omellete station. There was a fresh orange squeezer for real orange juice, assorted juices, tea and coffee (served by waiter), fruits, cereal, cold cuts, and assorted bread. At the omellete station you could order on request your favorite style of egg. The attendant would take your room number as well.

Lunch was probably the meal that I enjoyed the least. The service was slow and there was no time in between dives. Later on, I learned to "pack my lunch" by making my own ham sandwiches during the breakfast buffet. Since I had a full kitchen, I would save my sandwiches in the fridge and heat them up for lunch and even enjoy them while watching TV.

Dinner was probably the best meals at Rum Runners. The dishes were close to "gourmet", very tasty and with great presentation. Usually at night there were guests not staying at the resort eating dinner. The desserts were great too. However, it was pricey, entrees were upwards of US$ 20.

Every week on Mondays there is a welcoming party. Rum punch is served and some vendors put out tables to sell their wares. Captain Don, who is still the figure-head, comes by at the party to greet guests.

With Captain Don

Barbeque at Welcoming Party

Captain Don is considered the pioneer that exposed scuba diving in Bonaire. He named many of the dive sites on the island and looks like old pirate. He even walks with a wooden leg.
One vendor offered a book of "old stories" of Captain Don, he is a legend in the island.

Dinner on welcoming day consists of a barbeque of different meats, including barracuda (!) and a dessert buffet. This is the only free meal that you would get during the week ;).

Sample Cuisine at Rum Runners (the house restaurant)

Dessert Buffet

Review of Jack and Sue Drafahl's Digital Photo Adventure

Overall the week with Jack and Sue was a great learning experience. If you take into account, the lecture time and individual instruction on and off the water, the Digital Photo Adventure week is a great value. In addition, Sue is a great host and makes things well organized. Jack is the goto guy for gadgets and Photoshop.

The lectures were kind of rehash of other lectures I have seen of them at Boston Sea Rovers or Beneath the Sea. However, they are good for review and some of the tips are very handy when you can practice them right away, like never leaving your camera in the sun without cover. It was challenging to stay awake after a full day of diving. So towards the end of the week, we concentrated on individual instruction, working towards our photo selection for Graduation Day, rather than lectures. I wished the lectures were tailored to the Bonaire sea life. One suggestion could be to make subjects "task" oriented like "how to photograph a trumpet fish" or "how to photograph a turtle". Each task then can include elements of composition, lighting and positioning.

Dee Scarr - Guest Speaker

Warning: Cameras Sunbathing

On one night (Monday) we had Dee Scarr as a guest lecturer. She is the local conservationist and member of the Women's Divers Hall of Fame. She gave a lecture titled "Touch the Sea", a more liberal view of interacting with the ocean without being paternalistic. Her philosophy emcompasses limited but careful interactions with creatures like tickling fish, befriending octopuses, being manicured by cleaner shrimp, etc. Dee was also responsible for the restoration of coral life at the Town Pier. In one of her slides she explained how she just tied up the fallen tube corals with nylon to the pylons. After some time they would attach!

On Graduation Day, Sue compiled a final presentation with the photo submissions of each of the participants. Each participant was presented and her/his individual pictures presented. Everybody at the resort was invited. After each participant's work was presented, Sue gave a certificate of "Graduation".

Jack and Sue were very knowledgeable, accessible and accommodating. I would not hesitate doing another trip with them. The next morning we got to see them again as we were taking the same flight to Houston. We got to hang out at the airport a bit. This is when I learned that Jack was working on scuba related sci-fi novel ... oops ... I might have spoiled the surprise. Jack is indeed a man of many talents.

With Jack and Sue Drafahl

Recommended Product: Olympus PT-030 Underwater Housing for SP-310/350

Today the plan was to have a full day of diving. In the past days, Sue Drafahl had arranged, for those of us interested, one of Bonaire's signature dives: a night dive at Town Pier. As its name suggests, it is the pier at the town's port. This dive site is only accessible with special permission and with a local guide.

In the morning, I skipped the first morning boat dive, which turned out to be an excellent dive, frog fish and squid were signed. Instead, I did a shore dive which was not too bad. I saw a spotted moray eel and practice numerous pictures on it. Also, I saw a drumfish with what appeared to be its baby drumfish; however, I could not get a clear picture because of the scatter. At the end of the dive, I ran into the familiar scorpion fish that we've seen in the last days. However, this time it was not sitting pretty on a barrel sponge (like yesterday), it was sitting on the boring sand.

In the afternoon, I did a boat dive to a site called Monk in Klein Bonaire. There were no major sightings, but I did ran into a nice surprise. Later that afternoon, I did another shore dive, but this time I went to the other direction (usually people go on the right side reef or North), the left side or South direction. I ran into a nice surprise as well.

The gem of the day, though, was on the night dive at the Town Pier. I got to see creatures that I would never thought I would get to see on 10 ft of water and inside an active port.

Floundering Flounder: Monk at Klein Bonaire

On my second morning (boat) dive of the day we headed to Monk in Klein Bonaire. I saw a number of nice vase corals and played with back-lighting. At one point, the divemaster pointed at something that I could not see from afar. He was pointing to a horned nudribranch that was smaller than a fingernail. I tried to take several pictures, but it was extremely difficult to focus on the tiny creature. I really needed a lens with more magnification to easily focus on the creature. After a couple pictures I gave up. The location was too hard to get a good picture.

We were swimming along a wall. I sighted a number of anemones as well. On the way back to the boat I noticed another diver (from our same group) taking a picture of something. At first I could not distinguish what. Surprisingly, it was a flounder sitting on top of a coral formation. A nice encounter in an unexpected place indeed. On previous dives, I had seen flounders on sandy bottoms. But then, it was extremely hard to get close, not get scatter from the sand and get a nice angle that highlights the head and have a contrasting background.

This time the chance was almost perfect. I had never seen a flounder on the coral before. The other diver that was there already taking pictures, was taking pictures from the tail end and from above. I made the same mistake and I got horrible results (see the first picture, "Flounder - Camouflaged and Unnoticeable"). You can barely see the flounder as it is camouflaged with the coral bottom. If you look carefully you could slightly see the blue dots of the flounder.

Then I noticed that in front of the flounder there was a small depression big enough to fit me. I proceeded to swim in the opposite direction and aim the camera from the head to the tail, instead of the other way around. Fortunately, the flounder did move at all, which was surprising to me. In the past, every time I've spotted a flounder, it's moving and most of my pictures of flounders have been from behind.

Flounder (Camouflaged and Unnoticeable). 1/250 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

Flounder (Wrong Lighting). 1/400 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

Voila! The head of the flounder was sitting on a ledge and I was able to position the camera below the mouth. The result was great, you could see the mouth, highlight the protruding eyes and get a contrasting background.

From that point, it was a matter of getting the lighting right. I turned down the shutter speed to 1/400 sec, so that the background would be darker. Finally, I played with the position of the strobe. I was trying to position it to minimize the shadows on the eyes.
I believe I had the strobe almost aiming from behind the eyes. When I positioned the strobe on the right and above side, I got my final satisfying picture. See the bigger and final picture below.

Flounder (Right Positioning and Lighting). 1/400 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

Schooled by a School of Fish

That afternoon I decided to venture on the left side (South) of the house reef of Captain Don's. The usual "route" has been going to the right side (North) and I had not explored this side before. This side is right in front of Buddy Dive Resort (next to Captain Don's) and I could notice some of their setup underwater. They had ropes on the bottom marking the direction to the reef. The dive was somewhat boring and did not notice any interesting creatures. And then suddenly I noticed a big cloud moving underwater. It was greyish cloud moving with great synchronization at about 20 or 30 feet of water on a sandy area right before the reef. It was a huge school of fish and I was only one enjoying the sight.

My first challenge was deciding on the settings to use. This was a wide angle subject, it was fast moving and on relatively shallow water. I started out with my regular wide angle setting (1/125, f5.6) but it turned out to be too bright. So I turned it down to 1/400 and f8.0. The fish were so close and shiny that this was almost like shooting with macro settings. The shine on fish really picked up the strobe even from a far distance.

I did not reach to a conclusive setting for this kind of situation. I did not try a higher ISO, the higher sensitivity would have picked more of the strobe. For the next time I run into this similar subject I would try 1/250, f8.0 and ISO 200.

Schools of Fish. 1/400 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

Finding Gems in the Dark: Town Pier

Tonight's dive was at Town Pier, one of Bonaire's signature dive. We had planned this dive several days before. You were required to fill out a form, and register with the local authorities. They keep track of an accurate schedule of people and times going on the dive. Obviously they have to make sure that no vessel is moving.

The Town Pier dive is offered at Captain Don's by special request. It is more convenient for those doing shore diving (with a pickup truck) as it requires you to carry all your equipment on your own to downtown. Fortunately, there were other divers in the resort going on the dive and had a pickup truck. So we had two trucks going and two divemasters from Captain Don's.

Our "slot" time for the dive was from 8:00 to 9:00pm. I looked at my log, and these are the exact times that were allowed on the pier. After dinner, we gathered by Captain Don's dive shop and load up our stuff onto the trucks. The ride to downtown took about 10 to 15 minutes. Before entering the water, our guide gave us the dive briefing and explained the layout of the pier. The entry was a beach entry on a (small) rocky beach. We had to take turns to enter the beach and put on our fins.

We proceeded to go down the pier and swim between the pylons. At first impression, I was really surprised to see the marine life in such an environment: shallow and possibly contaminated by oil or other waste at the pier. Apparently the authorities have done such a good job in keeping the place clean enough for tube corals to grow on the pylons!

Since we were in very shallow water (no more than 25 ft), the dive felt like very long dive. We had time to explore every corner. At first sight I noticed orange cup coral that was much bigger than the ones I've seen back at Captain Don's pier. This time I wanted to get the ocean as a background and get the contrasting orange with the black. I ended up with this nice silhouette picture of the coral.

Orange Cup Coral at Town Pier. 1/200 at f/8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

We swam to the farthest edge of the pier and went around several times. There were several other diver groups in the water, so in the end it was really confusing and could barely find the rest of my group. In one corner, among pier debris and otherwise healthy and big tube corals (up to 3 ft. long?), I found an adult drumfish!! Never before had I seen a drumfish in such a precarious and shallow environment.

Drumfish at Town Pier!! 1/200 at f8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

Also along the way I saw several anemone, a brittle worm and a sanddiver. This is the time when I reconnected with our guide again and she signaled me to start turning around. I was swimming between pylons when in the complete darkness I saw a red seahorse hanging on a branch of soft coral!! It was on less than 15 ft of water!

I got very excited and started to take tons of pictures. I had set my camera to 1/200 sec, f8.0 and ISO 50 for this night dive and it seemed to work well. Now I worked on positioning the strobe and on composition. A seahorse has a lot of texture and it's oddly shaped, so positioning the strobe was key to get a good picture. I wanted to make sure to highlight the eyes, the snout and the curly tail. I had my share of not so good shots. Here are some examples until I finally got a good one.

Seahorse (Wrong Angle - Aiming at its Back). 1/200 at f/8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

Seahorse (Too much Scatter). 1/200 at f/8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

On the first picture on the left (Seahorse - Wrong Angle), the angle was wrong. The camera was aimed from above at the seahorse back and captured the texture of the seahorse in an angle. Also there were some shadows on the back and tail. On the second picture on the right (Seahorse - Too much Scatter), I positioned the strobe too close to the lens and got too much scatter. Also the camera was still aiming from above, I had to lower the camera and shoot up.

Seahorse (Best Shot). 1/200 at f/8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

Finally I got a satisfying shot. The angle was much better and you could see detail around the eye and the snout. I spent a full seven minutes taking pictures of the seahorse and ended taking more than 20 pictures. I was happy that my settings had worked throughout this dive. I had spent so much time with the seahorse, that the divemaster had to come "rescue" me and tell to head back.

Once out of the water we marveled at the encounters that we had that night. It was truly an encounter in an unexpected place. But then, the divemaster retorted, "oh, that seahorse, it's always there".

Today, our luck with creatures turned on the bright side as we found one of a kind guys throughout the four dives I did. I even had nice surprises on the shore dives right in front of Captain Don's Habitat. Today I did two boat dives, and two shore dives, one of them a night dive. The first boat dive was a deep dive to the Hilma Hooker wreck. The second boat dive was a dive organized by Sue Drafahl: almost all the people in the class joined this dive to Sharon's Serenity on Klein Bonaire.

The Hilma Hooker Wreck

The Hilma Hooker is one of the few diveable wrecks in Bonaire. Captain Don, the founder of Captain Don's Habitat had a hand in having this wreck in Bonaire. According to the divemaster in our briefing, the Hilma Hooker, a cargo ship, was seized by the Bonaire government after discovering an illicit cargo of pot. Eventually the government took ownership of the ship and did not know what to do with it. At this point, Captain Don suggested to make the Hilma Hooker an artificial wreck. Months later when the ship was moved from one location to another, it mysteriously sank on 70 feet of water. The shallowest part of the wreck is at 50 ft of water. The ship lies upside down with its propeller side on the deeper side.

Since this was considered a deep dive (max 70 ft), it was our first dive of the day. We went down a mooring line, as there was some current. The visibility was poor compared to other dives we had so far. The visibility was about 40 ft or less, with a lot of silt in the water. Creature sightings were not many either, so this was a somewhat disappointing dive. But we did one of "must dives" in Bonaire. I was told that this wreck is even doable as a shore dive, a rarity for the size of the wreck.

This is a picture of the Hilma Hooker's propeller. A diver can be seen in the background, between the propeller blades. This was shot originally in color, it was later turned into gray scale with Photoshop.

Wilma Hooker Propeller. 1/125 at f/5.6, ISO 400, 8 mm focal length

Sharon's Serenity (Klein Bonaire)

Sue Drafahl organized an exclusive dive for the Digital Photo Adventure group. Essentially we had one of Captaind don's smaller boats to ourselves. Sue did some on-water tutoring on each of us: checking our buoyancy and underwater photography "manners". At this point of the week, the instruction turned more into reviewing our work and individual tutoring, and less formal lecturing.

Coincidentally, on this dive is when we saw one of the unique creatures found in Bonaire: frog fish. We were lucky to see two of them on this dive: a blue one and an orange one. We put in practice our "manners", that is we took our turns, took a couple of pictures and move "to the back of the line". In that way, we all had a chance to take a picture of this hard to find guy, as it takes the color and blends with its surroundings.

Blue Frog Fish. 1/320 at f/7.1, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

I was lucky to be right behind the divemaster when he discovered the frog fish, so I took the first turn to take pictures. However, that puts some pressure on you as you have to get the settings right and not take too much time because there is a line of other divers waiting in line. Unfortunately, for this next picture, my strobe was too close. You can see some blown areas on top of the fish.

Orange Frog Fish. 1/320 at f/7.1, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

After being done with the frog fish, I turned around and changed direction heading back to the boat. This is when Sue caught up with me and "audited" my photographing technique. I was lucky to run into this pair of golden moray eels. I have never seen then in a pair like this.

I took about eight pictures of these guys and Sue observed the whole episode and then gave me a sign of "approval" for this rare find. After I was done, we signaled the other divers so that they could take pictures too.

Pair or Golden Morey Eels. 1/500 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 18.7 mm focal length

More Surprises on our Backyard

In the afternoon, I paired up with Tom, a New Yorker in our group. We headed north (right side) from Captain Don's deck. On this dive I decided to practice my macro skills, shooting at feather dusters. I spent considerable time one feather duster after another, while Tom was taking pictures of a moray eel. I eventually ended up at this coral head by accident. It had a surprise host inside: a spiny head blenny.

Spiny Head Blenny Living among Feather Dusters. 1/800 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

The blenny comes out of its hole on occasion and then hides. This combined with delicate sensitivity of the feather dusters made it a test of endurance, patience and buoyancy control. A wrong move could cause the feather dusters to clamp down and the blenny to hide. My camera was only inches from the coral head. I was using the super macro feature of the SP-350. This setting allows you to be as close as 0.8 inches from your subject. The fast shutter speed (1/800 sec) makes the background really dark.

On the way back, Tom and I noticed a couple of divers pointing to a barrel sponge. What was so special about a barrel sponge? It turns out that they were looking at a scorpion fish comfortably sitting on the barrel sponge. In the past, I've only seen scorpion fish on sandy areas or holes where it was hard to photograph. This was indeed a lucky find. The scorpion fish was almost posing for us. We spent the next 15 minutes taking pictures of this scorpion fish from every angle.

Scorpion Fish from Above. 1/400 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

Scorpion Fish and Diver. 1/160 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

I wanted to highlight the eyes and the pectoral fins (as they are very colorful) of the scorpion fish, but it was hard to do. If I got the fins, the eye got kind of lost. While Tom and I were taking pictures, I also took one of him as a background, it turned out to be a nice picture.

Scorpion Fish Peaking from a Barrel Sponge. 1/320 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

After twenty-something pictures and trying a variety of settings, the last picture ended up being my favorite one. It really highlights the eye of the scorpion fish and you can see the tube sponges as the background and the barrel sponge as the "pedestal".

That night I went for a night dive with Jamie, one of the gals in our group. The dive itself was somewhat uneventful, but I noticed these orange cup corals near the dock stairs. They are fun to photograph as close-ups. Orange cup corals only open up during the night, so it can "eat". They remain close during the day.

Orange Cup Coral at Night. 1/250 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

The next couple of days were somewhat low-key, I did not have any rare encounters and in some respect it was somewhat disappointing. On the other hand, it was a good chance to hone in the skills and follow the advise that we were getting from the Drafahls.

During the next two days we visited the following dive sites by boat: Coral Garden, Andrea II, Sampler (Klein), Point Vierkant and Knife (Klein). In addition, I made three shore dives, two of which were night dives. The night dives were somewhat disappointing, we did not have any interesting sightings. However, I did perfect my settings for night dives, which will come handy later.

This posting is about how I applied some of the lessons that I had learned in the classroom, in the "field".

Adjusting and Positioning Lighting: Sanddivers

Sanddivers, as their name suggests, sit on the sand. In terms of focusing and framing, they are easy to deal with: they don't move, as long as you don't any sudden moves. The challenge with photographing these guys is the possible reflection from the sand as they like to sit on sandy areas. So, lighting is most challenging aspect in photographing a sanddiver. In this particular picture, I wanted to focus on the eyes and the little teeth. It took me about 10 pictures to get this right. I was moving my strobe around to get the lighting on the eyes. On a couple of pictures, I was getting a lot of reflection from the sand. At the time, I was using ISO 200, in retrospect, I should have tried a lower ISO like 100 or 50.

This is also a case where a second strobe could have come handy. No matter where you put the strobe, you were going to get a shadow somewhere because the subject is right on top of the background (the sand).

Sanddiver. 1/125 at f/8, ISO 200, 24 mm focal length.

Spotting Behavior: Trunkfish

In the past I've found that trunkfish were usually hard to photograph because they moved a lot. Most of my pictures of trunkfish have been from behind, and at best from the side as a result of a long chase. In turns out this time at site called Sampler in Klein Bonaire, this threesome of trunkfish were "hanging out" around a soft coral. They were swimming around and chasing each other. It could have been a mating ritual.

Trunkfish Pair. 1/125 at f/7.1, ISO 200, 24 mm focal length.

For whatever reason, the trunkfish allowed me to get very close and they were also curious. This allowed me to take pictures from the front. Since they moved around a lot you had to be ready with the shot. In this picture, I was no farther than two feet from the trunkfish.

Trunkfish Close-up. 1/125 at f/7.1, ISO 200, 24 mm focal length.

Behavior and Focus: Juvenile Drumfish

I have made several pictures of drumfish and I knew how they moved. They usually swim left to right and right to left and stay around a crevice, or a hole in the coral. One of the most challenging things about photographing a drumfish is getting the camera in focus. Since this guy moves rather fast, it is sometimes hard to for the auto-focus to lock in, especially on point & shoots that have shutter lag. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to either use manual focus or lock the distance with a half press of the shutter button. In this picture, the focus was on the coral behind, but the fish was close enough that made the focus good enough.

Juvenile Drumfish. 1/125 at f/5.6, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length.

Waiting for the Right Moment: Ribbon Nudibranch

One good thing about nudibrachs is that they move really ... really slow. This gives you time to adjust your settings. However, one bad thing about nudibranchs is that they move really ... really slow. So, if you find them on a background that is not appealing or difficult to shoot, you have to be patient and wait until they move. In this picture, I shot the ribbon nudibranch from above. It would have been nice to photograph one coming off on a ledge, but waiting for the right moment on nudibranchs requires a lot of patience ... and air.

Ribbon Nudibranch. 1/125 at f/5.6, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length.

Looking for a Unique Composition: Soldier Fish

One advise about composition that has been stuck in my head-either by one of the lectures by Jack Drafahl or Marty Snyderman-is that two of anything always makes good composition. Soldier fish are common in the Caribbean and you find them everywhere. However, this was a good chance to practice with them. Their bright red color, which is usually lost in the depth, usually makes an excellent contrast to its surroundings. This is a fortuitous shot of getting a pair of soldiers each looking in the opposite direction.

Two Soldier Fish in Opposite Direction. 1/125 at f/5.6, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length.

On Thursday, Dave (the group leader) arranged to do three dives as opposed to the regular one boat dive site, one drop off dive and another boat dive. That day we did 3 boat dives to three different sites in a row. The dive sites were: Calvin's Crack, 40ft Point and Golden Chain. As this was not part of the regular package, we gave the captain and the divemaster a little bit extra tip.

40-ft Point
40ft Point was the second morning dive of the day. The site was located just in front of Fantasy Island, right next to CocoView. It turned out to be one of the best dives of the trip. The site was abundant of fish and creatures. On the way to the bottom, we saw a school of Atlantic spadefish in a cool formation.

Atlantic Spadefish

We also saw a green moray eel, Nassau groupers, black groupers and lots of chubs and jacks. I was saying to myself, why we waited until the end of the trip to go to one of the best sites so far and it was really close to CocoView as well. The dive got even better when the divemaster Mel found a yellow sea horse on the reef wall.

Yellow Seahorse on Branch

This was the first time I had seen a yellow sea horse. I have seen red ones before. I got so excited that I committed the crime of hogging the time with the sea horse. Part of my problem was that I was not having good results with my camera. The strobe was not firing correctly, the pictures were coming up too dark and they were out of focus.

Yellow Seahorse curled on Coral

I later learned my lesson to set the sensitivity to ISO 100 or higher, and perhaps use manual focus. If I had my settings ready, I wouldn't have hog the time with the sea horse too much. When we go back to the boat I was guilty as charged for hogging the time with the sea horse.

Golden Chain
After lunch, our next boat dive was to Golden Chain. A shallow dive site with a sea bed full of staghorn coral. I had never seen something like it at other places in the Caribbean. It was really a forest of staghorn of coral, the same type of coral all over.

Staghorn Coral Forest

CocoView Happy Hour
That night we relaxed a bit and decided not do a night dive. Also, we wanted to celebrate Dave's 700th dive with a dawn dive the next morning. We spent the night at the outdoors dining area right next to the bar.

Fantastic Endeavors Group at Happy Hour. Front row, left to right: Carol, Chris, Christina and Craig. Standing up from left to right: Cindy, Dave, Eddy and Dina

This is a night picture of the main building at CocoView. The left side is where the outdoors dining area is, conveniently located next to the bar.

CocoView Bar at Night

That night we headed to bed relatively early, as we had planned to meet at 6:00am for Dave's 700th dawn dive.

Last Day of Diving and Last Good Picture
On Friday, our last day of diving we woke up to meet at the dive lockers at 6:00am for our only dawn dive of the trip. I had never done a dawn dive before, mainly because it was hard to wake up and even harder to make a dive buddy wake up. This group, on the other hand, was very motivated. It has been one of the best groups I've dived with.

That morning we did Newman's Wall. I was still having problems with my camera as the pictures were coming dark and the strobe was not firing. Afterwards, I had concluded that there were several factors that contributed to my not getting good pictures in this trip:

1. TTL connector got flooded (on the camera side). One of the pins got corroded and was making a bad connection. This caused the strobe to not fire.


2. Used new rechargeable batteries that were not "broken in". This caused the strobe to stop working after a few shots and make the camera believe it had no strobe, thus firing its internal flash.


3. My Mode #1 was set with a film sensitivity of ISO 50, only able to detect very strong lighting. This was causing my pictures to come out dark.

After the dawn dive, we had breakfast and was ready to "start" the regular day. However, Dave, again, arranged for us to stray away from the ordinary. Intead of doing one boat dive and a drop-off dive, we did two boat dives: one at French Bay Cut and another at Menagerie.

At French Bay, I managed to get this picture of a gray angel fish munching on the coral. Again I was still having problems with my camera, but this one was the exception. The strobe fired correctly and the exposure was right.

Grey Angelfish munching on Coral

The dive site was pretty good. There was a lot of fish following us. For a change Captain Osman went diving with us instead of our DM Mel. There was a reason the fish was following us, Osman was feeding them bread.

Our last dive of the trip was at a site called Menagerie. This site was really good as well. I saw more than one spotted drum fish. However none of my pictures came out well. We also saw Nassau groupers, schools of chubs and jacks, and big mutton snapper that was following us towards the end of the dive. Again Capt. Osman was feeding the fish and looked like a bait ball. I also experimented a bit and brought a piece of bread. The fish started to "attack" me, so I had to cover myself with my camera and two arms, it made it a fun last dive though.