Eddy's Scuba Blog

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".