Category: Underwater

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Underwater

A Life Underwater

A rogue with an eye for salvage – and the ladies – Ray: A Life Underwater is an affectionate portrait of one man’s deep sea diving career, told through his extraordinary collection of marine artefacts.

Like a modern-day pirate, 75-year-old Ray Ives has been scouring the seabed for treasure his whole life.

The former commercial diver has plundered the deep for over fifty years, bringing to the surface anything that glittered — even gold.

In a shipping container near the water, Ray tends his museum of cannon, bottles, bells, swords, portholes and diving gear.

He even still takes to the water in a 1900s diving suit.

Produced and Directed by Amanda Bluglass www.amandabluglass.co.uk
Editor and Director of Photography: Danny Cooke www.dannycooke.co.uk
Dive photography: Neil Hope www.divingimages.co.uk
Soundtrack: Tony Higgins www.tonyhiggins.org

The journey underwater reflects the awe of parallel worlds. When man looks to the stars, he sees a longing for his knowledge to fill the vacuum of space. If a man closes his eyes underwater, it is in all likelihood that this is the same feeling. Of weightlessness. Of conquering new frontiers. Of being where the human body was not built to be.

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Underwater

My DIY Solution to Buoyancy Arms for Underwater Strobe

INON Mega Float Arm (Medium) sale price PHP 3,300.00

DIY Kids R Us Floaters price ~ PHP 250.00

Small fad among my dive buddies. It just so happens that these foam funnels from Kids R’ Us (they’re everywhere!) have a perfectly sized donut hole that fits the standard size arms for underwater strobes. Yay, cheap!

Buoyancy arms are there to balance out the heavy weight of your underwater camera so that you have an easier time carrying it underwater. Mine’s made of foam.

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Underwater

Dive Fair 2011 in R.O.X. — Now is the Perfect Time to get SCUBA into your Bucket List!

Always been curious about SCUBA diving? Already diving but can’t seem to find a good deal on gear? Well, you’re in luck kind sir (or ma’am) — ROX in partnership with Mares will be showcasing the world of SCUBA diving to the public for the next two weeks starting this weekend.

If you’ve always been curious about one of the world’s most fascinating hobbies (which by the way is EPIC in the Philippines), do drop by the Dive Fair 2011 from August 20 to September 4 2011 at R.O.X Bonifacio High Street.

On a more personal note, I’ll be doing a short talk on basic underwater videography on one of the fair dates thanks to Gigi Santos. Our underwater photo club will also be showcasing a gallery of underwater photos throughout R.O.X.

So there you have it! If you’ve been putting off SCUBA for the longest time, this moment is opportune. This is the most convenient place to ask all the questions you ever wanted about SCUBA Diving.

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Underwater

When you dive in Basura, you find the oddest things

Smile! I’m a hairy frogfish

Whenever SCUBA is marketed to the public, the point of entry is always how pretty everything is underwater. Go to any SCUBA marketing collateral and you’re guaranteed a photo of healthy coral reefs with schools of red anthias and other fish swimming in nonchalance. Don’t forget the diver in the pink wetsuit and huge yellow mask. I spent more than a year diving reefs, going to average depths of about 60 ft and deeper to catch glimpses of the “busy” underwater life.

After a while though, you start wanting other things. Even if they’re less beautiful and more bizarre.

Continue reading “When you dive in Basura, you find the oddest things”
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Underwater

This Week is Shark Week. Here are photos I took diving with sharks.

This week is SHARK WEEK. We commemorate one whole week to the shepherds of the ocean. They keep the population of other fish in check, affect movement patterns of other fish and ensure that the groupers and other big reef fish do not explode in population and kill off reef life. Our lives are tied so closely to sharks, it is ironic we have created the biggest smear campaign against them.

I dive with sharks. Here are some photos I took of some of them. Some of these are 3 feet long. Others 6-10 ft long. There are a couple of sightings in Anilao and that’s a big deal. Diving Tubbataha, sharks are everywhere — in the hundreds. From the boat, you can see 80 ft down. They’re circling the chase boat welcoming you as you backroll into their domain. The most graceful are the thresher sharks that dive deep into the ocean and surface for food. Their whip-like tails stun their prey. The most peaceful are the whale sharks — the gentle giants, the labradors of the ocean with mouths that look like airconditioners sucking up all the plankton it can find.

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When you’re with them, you can’t help but feel a deep respect for these ocean shepherds, and they feel very disconnected from what Hollywood and the media show us on television.

The best moment of my life (so far) was caught on video with a whale shark making eye contact with me.