Dive Photography 101

(written on 03/09/09, posted on 13/10/09)

So I’m onto my fifth day of diving in a row. I’ve been assigned A as he’s the only one I’ve not been diving with so far. I’m doing the deep dives again today as I need (of course) to test out the new dive computer. For extra fun, well this is the end of my travels and we’re strictly into fun time now I know I have a VSO placement, I hire a camera.

A camera was a good move as on the first dive A takes a picture of me hovering above the sunken ship’s toilets. Well, it had to be done. I’m disappointed I didn’t catch the Cleaner fish who nibbled one side then the other. It looked like the fish had gone in one side then out the other when he turned his head. Throughout the day he seemed to have an uncanny ability to draw fish towards him so we named him the Mr Magoo of the fish world. On the second dive, we see a rare Bamboo Shark. A had to hang on to my tank so I could get close enough to get a great picture of it asleep inside a reef. It was only the third time he’d seen one in two years of diving here so it was a great spot. On the third dive we saw a weird slug thing, he’d also never seen before. I got more pics of the old common-by-now Leopard Shark and pretty fish. Then the end dive of the three was pretty hairy due to a very strong current. As I coped and erm...coped well I felt pretty proud of myself.

Another great day and I decide to go out on a high. I settle my dive bill which nearly makes me faint and grab my CD of diving pics. I go to the viewpoint to watch the sunset. There is a photo of the island from the same viewpoint just after the tsunami and it’s shocking to see the difference. After a bit of contemplation I head back to the guesthouse and book a ferry to Ao Nang for tomorrow and a horse riding trip for the day after. That’ll take me up nicely to the time I need to be back in Bangkok for my flight home.