Hi Everyone,

Well - people are starting to arrive for our trip on the Shearwater. I thought I'd start a thread for everyone to chime in about the trip, post photos, etc.

Today I dove the Blue Heron Bridge with trip participant Ron Watkins and a friend of Ron's from Miaimi (George) who dives here every weekend. We each made our Al80 last 120 minutes :-)

Right away, we were into it! We found octopus, a cooperative reef squid, and all sorts of critters just around the sailboat moorings. Then - a special treat! A pair of hairy frogfish - that just went right on fishing while we took their photograph. They didn't catch anything while we were watching though :-)

Here are a few of my photos from today's dive. We are going to dive the bridge tomorrow with a bigger group.

Cheers
James

Very cool. Looking forward to following your progress. Most jealous - love the July sharks and dolphins trips on the Shearwater.

Alex

Have a great trip James! Looking forward to the images.

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks Steve and Alex,

I'm just back home from a fantastic trip. So many images to go through!

We had great weather and great encounters - and I met some cool new folks. I think the longest traveler award went to Chris who flew in all the way from Melbourne for the trip - I don't think you can get any farther.

I'll post some images soon. I think I got pictures of just about everyone - in the water, either with sharks or dolphins :-)

Cheers
James

Surely you have some teasers that you processed on the crossing home! What kind of trip leader are you?

Hi Jeff,

Well - the crossing home was a wild ride. When we got about 20 miles from the Bahamas we crossed a front-line and things got kind of bumpy :-) - but fortunately it calmed down as quickly as it hit us.

Here are a few teasers from our first day with the dolphins. I have to say, the experience of floating in the Gulf Stream at night w/ nothing under you but a thousand feet of water, and speeding dolphins shooting past around like guided missiles was pretty intense. Mark Prior and I looked up at 11pm and noticed no one else was around - we'd been in the water for hours! :-)

Cheers
James

Based on those shots, it looks like those hours were very welll spent. Really love the third shot.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Great pictures !
Brings back memories...
Keep the good stuff coming...Can't wait to see more !

Thanks guys. As the other folks from the trip get home I'm sure they'll post some photos too. Some of them had a LONG haul to get home.

Cheers
James

Beautiful, James!

Why can't you get your pool models to swim as close to the surface without bubbles as that last shot?!

It really sounds like the only thing the trip was missing was.....well.....ME!

Wow, dolphins staying up late too! The 3rd is special, all very nice...

Thanks James, beautiful stuff. The night dolphin is seriously cool. When do we get a taste of the sharks? Please more dolphins too.

Cheers,
Steve

Absolutely beautiful, specially the dolphin shots and the last one is really awesome..thanks for sharing and please post some more. At least i can live the experience through the photo's

Cheers,

Diggy

Fantastic. I love Shear Water summer trips.

I second what Alex said. I really need to do another one very soon.

Cheers

Todd

All right - since everyone asked so nicely, here are a few more teasers. These are the reef sharks at Carcarius Cut - a fantastic dive site.

One thing that scared me was the HUGE number of lionfish I saw on the reefs. They don't have any predators and an abundant food supply and they seem to be multiplying like lemmings!

Cheers
James

Thanks for sharing all these great shots! Really nice work.
I would love to join this trip next year.

James,

Thanks for getting this thread started and leading such a wonderful trip. I enjoyed your company as well as the rest of the group. We had a nice diverse team and we all learned something from each other on photography, diving, marine life and life in general. My favorite water things on the trip were
- two nights and over 4 hours of snorkeling with the dolphins at night (and clearing the pool after spotting a large tiger circling below us)
- Daytime snorkeling with dolphins even though I need to buy some better fins and learn to hold my breadth like Lud and Cal
- Lemon Snaps and the many near misses
- shooting the lemons at dusk on the surface with the golden light
- Macro photography of the lemons with my 105mm
- my rare (at least on our trip) close encounters with tigers
- Time spent with James photographing before the trip and the Blue Heron Bridge (it really is our local lembeh).

The only bummer on the trip was that Jim Abernathy was not on board, but the crew of Brian, Mike, Grey and Ed were great and made sure we got put in the right sposts for the action and everyone came home with all of their body parts and well fed.

Here is a quick sampling of some of my favorite shots. I will divide them in a couple of posts because of the size limit:

Here are some Dolphins:
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Ron Watkins
Nikon D200/300 housed in S&S with S&S 110alpha strobes (used Tokina 10-17, 10.5, 12-24, 105 on this trip but most with 10-17 that James convinced me to buy the day before the trip)

Here are some of the sharks

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Some more macro sharks and the ever popular lemon snaps:
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The last two shots were shot with the 105 macro lens. Something different that Brian (captain) and James said to try on at least one dive and glad I did. Never would have thought to do macro sharks. All of the snaps were with the 10.5.

Ron Watkins

And finally a few shots from Blue Heron Bridge. A truly special muck dive in our backyard. I could dive that every day at high tide and never get bored. Very cool. James said to include pictures of the people on the trip and I realized I forgot to include one of our fearless leader. Comments on images are appreciated, especially the new species of tripus leadarious (aka James).

This little hermit crab left his shell and took over this CRACK PIPE as a home. Just say no to CRACK my little friend! James found him and actually brought him over to me to see. When I set him down, a snapper could see him through the glass and would bite at him, but Mr crab was safe in his own little biosphere. Hillarious. Someone must have thrown the crack pipe over the bridge and didn't even know they were providing habiatat for this little guy.
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You are a Rock Star James!

Ron Watkins

The images really gave me an adrenalin rush! Well done to both James and Ron!

Karen

Wow, absolutely breathtaking shots.

Thanks for sharing

Cheers

Markus

Great, James.

What lens/es do you use for the sharks?

And how on earth do you get onto a Shearwater trip, as I'm having trouble getting an answer from JASA about next year?

Tim

Super stuff Ron,
Glad you had a great trip! Really love the shark in the sunball. Tough shot to get right.
Congrats!

Steve

Thanks Steve,
Just noticed you are in Tucson. I am up the road just outside of PHX. Hot enough for you. Sure makes me wish I was in those nice cool waters again.

You've got that right partner. The memories of that crystal blue Bahamaian water will have to hold us over for a while. By the way down here we don't use the H word. We just say it's warming up nicely.

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks for posting your photos Ron - a great collection. Hopefully we'll see more soon.

I've been working on a few more - it's slow going.

Here are a few more dolphin images:



Here's Ron swimming down:



And another gulf stream night-dive image:



Cheers
James

They are all great James but that last one is very special. The eye contact in that image, and it's at night, is ....... hard to put into words.

Truly wonderful,
Steve

Here are a few photos of our group. We had people from all over: the closest was Bess from Houston and the prize for traveling the farthest went to Chris who basically couldn't have flown any farther unless he'd wanted to go diving in Greenland.

The first one is everyone, and the second one, Stella went to get her sunglasses (it was too darned bright) :-)

From left to right (on the bow): James, Ron, Brian, Ed, Stella, Ludovic, Bess, Cal, Duncan, Chris, Mark, and Gray

Cheers
James

Dolphins looks really amazing...
From these pictures everything sound great about this trip!

Thank you jJames and all the Shear Water Crew for this fantastic trip.

You can see some pictures and a slide that I made on the following url : www.photosludovic-savariello.magix.net

I hope to see you one day in France or in Malte for tunas !

Cheers

Thank you for the compliment and for posting your photos Ludovic. I especially like the dolphins with sunburst - it's great.

I have posted a lot more photos - many including trip participants here:

http://reefpix.smugmug.com/gallery/9090093...605503268_SPrEP

Cheers,
James

Ludovic,

I couldn't wait to see you images especially of the dolphins because of your incredible free diving ability. Your presentation of the images with the two musical themes was enchanting and I thank you for sharing them with us and allowing me to daydream a little this morning about our trip together. You captured the essence of the trip and the fun we hade diving with the sharks and dolphins. Hope to run into you again on another trip in the future. Take care my firend.

Ron

Truly awesome shots thanks for sharing them with us

Here are some photos of trip participants - I've been meaning to share these:


Mark Swimming as fast as possible.


Stell and Chris w/ dolphin


Gray - shark wrangler extraordinaire


Ludovic - just plain showing off his tremendous free-diving skillz


Chef Mike - also showing off...


Mark and Ludovic again


Look at this dolphin posing for Cal!


Cheers
James

And more images to come - this is the first time I have ever exceeded the allowable # of images in one post :-)

Capt Brian w/ scooter and Ludo



Duncan - looks like he's WAAAAY down there



Mark and the only good tiger shark pass he got on the trip :-)



Mark and a biga$$ lemon shark



Cal + Lemon shark



Bess w/ Reef sharks - at least I think it's Bess - whoever it is is really wrapped up!



Cal w/ Night dolphin

It seems like an age since this trip came back now. Why is it work seems to be twice as busy when you get back !

Anyway, I wanted to publically thank James for doing a great job of leading the trip and all those on board for helping to contribute to a thoroughly enjoyable time.

I am struggling to go through all the pictures that I took but I do have a couple to show.








I hope to see everyone again at some point in the future.

Mark

WOW! to Mark's huge moray eel & shark! The photo is stunningly unreal! & James' "And another gulf stream night-dive image:"!

I have to add my own WOW !
Great pictures Mark

My WOW, too, guys!

Mark, I love the moray "looking up at" the shark - I expect to see that one published and/or as a contest winner somewhere! And Ludovic, I love both the sunball dolphins and the "kissing" dolphins. The latter will be a favorite everywhere you show it because it is so anthropomorphic (seems to capture a human emotion in the animals).

Fabulous work all of you! You seem to have had a lot of really talented photographers on this trip, James (yourself included, of course)!

Lots of great images, dolphins at night are amazing.
Yeah, that moray and shark shot is pretty cool! Sure it wasn't photoshopped.
I know just sour grapes that I did not get that shot.

Mark,

Thanks for sharing and I know you have a lot mre great shots. I remember when I saw that shark/moray shot right after you downloaded and it looked just that good so I can confirm that very little if any was done to it. You posistioned yourself patiently there and waited for sharks to come by. The shark swimming through the school is also a great one. Next time I will take more time and be a little patient to set up shots like these. Your results are stunning. Your sense of humor, laugh and conversation really added to the trip. Hope to see you again on a trip. Keep me posted.

Ron