Shoot to thrill

With the dark clouds rolling in and the sea state starting to pick up, we foxtrot oscared up the coast at the crack of dawn to make the most of the diving before it got worse. With macro lens and a will to dive, we had a rare old time this morning.

A reluctant banded jawfish

 The reef and wall were awash with all the good small stuff and some of the good big stuff as well, so there was plenty to shoot and not another diver in site. Perfect.

A grumpy sailfin blenny complaining about the divers on his lawn.....

A saddled blenny basking inthe strobe light

 Blennies, gobies, and hermit crabs galore not to mention some nice squat anemone shrimp, but unfortunately these proved impossible to get a shot of as they were too far into their hole under some coral. Next time.....

A rough head blenny actually looking rough after a saturday night out on the lash.....

There were also quite a few spotted morays out cruising along the wall, one of which stopped to admire it's reflection in the lens port before getting to close and bumping it's schnozz off the lens. I gota point blank shot of it right up it's nose but unfortunately it's a little too blurry for my liking. 

So here's a non-blurry shot just before the moray/camera interaction. Thankfully no moray snot was needing to be cleaned off.

"Mmmm...what's that? Looks interesting, think I'll rub my nose over it......"

The hawksbills were out in force today as well, parading up and down the wall and reef with gay abandon, unfortunately large critters and macro lenses don't always mix for the best so I got one semi-average shot of a nice big specimen before it dived off into the deep. 

In all fairness the priority was macro work today so I can't really grumble about having the wrong lens on.  The trick is to plan before hand specifically what shots your going in for and focus on that. There's always other days to get the wide shots.

Yea, go on, swim past. You knew I had my macro lens on today, you selfish so and so.....

About 90 minutes in, we had a Northerly current picking up as well as heavier cloud cover affecting the lighting, so we decided to turn round and get our stops in. There were some very nice little stareye hermit crabs hiding amongst the hydroids and sea grass which was too good an opportunity to miss.

A stareye hermit crab, all starry eyed in front of the camera

It's nice to get back to some semblance of normality after some heavy duty liveaboard diving. It's also nice to have all your kit dry before putting it on as well, which can't be said for liveaboards as slipping into a soggy undersuit is never a good way to start the day.......

Parrotfish caught by surprise