Up North to Bligh Water…

This morning we awoke to another perfect day and after a smooth, peaceful ride the night before we found ourselves in the middle of Vatu-i-ru Channel motoring our way up to ‘E6′. According to Marnie, both ‘E6′ and ‘HI8′ are basically enormous sea mounts which sit in the middle of the channel, therefore you never know what might turn up or fly by while diving here. The sites are well known for their dramatic walls, caverns and swim-thru’s. The sight was most stunning from the surface and got even better once we were in the water!

Sunrise – looking off the stern of the Fiji Aggressor II

Our first dive on ‘E6′ turned up a Turtle, several Lion Fish, some Nudibranchs and even a White Tip Shark! We also saw Pipefish, schools of Barracuda and large Jacks, Puffer Fish and tons of different species of Anemone Fish. Our second dive on this site was a mirror image of the first; we just drifted to the right side of the sea mount this time instead of the left!
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Afternoon Dive’s at Makogai…

Later in the evening after dinner, I had a chance to look through the photos I had taken for the day and decided to make some adjustments to my underwater camera system. The lens and port combination I’d been using just wasn’t quite working for me and it seemed as though I was missing a lot of shots because I wasn’t using a macro setup. On the other hand I knew that if I put a macro lens and port on my camera I would probably be chased around the whole dive by a Whale Shark. The problem with a digital SLR rig is that you can’t change lenses underwater, so what you jump in with is what you have for the entire dive, like it or not! The solution… well there really isn’t one. I decided to go with a Nikkor 18-70mm Zoom Lens with a +4 close-up adaptor to sharpen the edges of the image. This would allow me the ability of wide angle if I needed it and would also let me get close-ups of the small stuff. Stay tuned for the results tomorrow!

Here are some photos for ‘Christines’ and ‘Half Pipe’… Enjoy!

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Diving Off Wakaya Island!

This morning we awoke to find ourselves in the beautiful calm waters just off the island of Wakaya. The clear blue skies and picture perfect sunrise were a welcomed sight at 7am as we gathered on the dive deck for our first dive briefing. We started the week with one of the crew’s favorite dive sites known as ‘Blue Ribbon Eel Wall’. This turned out to be a beautiful dive with a verity of both hard and soft corals. There was a light current and the visibility was a bit low, but we made due. The marine life on the wall was incredible with fish and sea creatures of every classification you could imagine. I was using a super wide angle lens, so I couldn’t take advantage of all the macro stuff and the two Blue Ribbon Eels that were sharing the same ledge on the wall. There were also a couple of very photogenic Lion Fish on the corner of the wall and someone said they saw a large Sea Turtle swim past. There were even a couple of White Tip Sharks that swam by, but the visibility and distance to them would not allow for a good photograph.

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Off to Wakaya!

Once on board the Fiji Aggressor II we were shown to our cabin and given about a half hour to settle in before being summed to the dinning area for a safety briefing and to go over the itinerary for the upcoming week. We were told that the weather last week had been quite sever and now that the storms had past the radar was showing favorable conditions for at least the next 5 to 7 days. As a result, the Captain and crew had voted to take us up North to Bligh Waters to dive on two of Fiji’s best known photographic dive sites ‘E6′ and ‘HI8′. These two dive sites are actually enormous sea mounts right in the middle of Vatu-i-ru Channel that come up from the sea floor (3000+ feet below) to within 10 feet of the surface at low tide.

A view from the Aggressor as were leaving Suva Harbour

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The Road to Suva

Here are some more pictures of our road trip from Nadi to Suva… Enjoy!

A large outdoor market somewhere between Nadi and Suva

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Getting To Fiji…

I will say one thing for people who live on the west coast… they have it made when it comes to traveling to the South Pacific! All they have to do is show up at the airport before bedtime, board a big 747 jumbo jet, grab a pillow and go to sleep for 10 hours. When they awake its early morning and there in paradise! For those of us who live on the east coast it’s a little different story… (you can consider this the beginning of my ‘Fiji trip report’ even though it sounds more like a rant!)

Fiji’s Main International Airport – Nadi, Fiji

It’s the layovers that really get you… here, let me lay out our travel schedule for you so you can better understand. The whole trip started when we left for the airport around 11 o’clock Thursday morning. Our 5 hour and 47 minute flight to LAX wasn’t to depart Dulles International until 2:30 pm EST, but we wanted to get there early just in case United Airlines tried canceling the flight again (which they did 2 weeks earlier without bothering to notify anyone!)
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Some Turtle Pictures..

At the Super Bowl party this past weekend, Julie and I spent a little time with our close friends Chris and Valerie discussing travel plans for our upcoming trip to the Cayman Islands in June.

While we were talking, Valerie mentioned that she had a thing for ‘sea turtles’ and asked if I could get some good pictures for her while in Fiji. Well of course that is always the plan… to take as many good pictures of everything I see as I can, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to talk a turtle into stopping and posing for me in order to capture the exact photo you’re looking for. After all, they do have a mind of their own. Here are some turtle photos from a trip I took to the Cayman Islands back in July of 2005, I hope you enjoy them…
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Upcoming Fiji Trip!!

We leave for a two week excursion to the Fiji Islands this coming Thursday. Our hopes are for some outstanding weather so that we can bring back some beautiful photo’s of the islands for our new Websites.

Our first week will be spent shooting underwater photography while on the live-aboard dive vessel ‘Fiji Aggressor II’ and then the following week we will be on one of Fiji’s small outer islands in the Mamanuca Group known as ‘Castaway Island’. This will be our first trip to the South Pacific and we plan on making the best of it both above and below the ocean. If we have access to the internet during our stay in Fiji, we will try to upload some images or even a slideshow along with some trip reports to keep everyone interested until we can get back and have a chance to edit all the photographs from the trip.

Stay tuned… updates to follow!!

Packing For Fiji Trip!

Julie and I are currently trying to pack for our Fiji dive trip which is coming up in less than one week! The whole concept of just throwing some shorts, tee shirts and stuff like that into a bag just doesn’t work for us. With both of us being underwater photographers, we have to dedicate one ‘checked bag’ each to just our underwater photography equipment. That only leaves each of us one more bag for our scuba equipment, cloths, etc.

This one case is ‘just’ underwater photography equipment!

In the past, I’ve never really been too concerned with the weight of my checked luggage. If one bag was a little heavy I would just shift things around or at worst case pay the excessive weight charge on the heavy bag. But lately I’ve read several online articles about how touchy the airlines have become with regard to weight restrictions, and this has caused me to rethink the way I pack for a dive trip. As soon as we get to Fiji we will be boarding a dive boat for a week at sea. This means that any luggage that doesn’t make our flight with us (due to an over weight aircraft) won’t be getting on the boat with us. Being on a dive boat for a week in Fiji with no underwater camera equipment would suck… Big Time!!!!
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