I actually wanted to use “I Can See Clearly Now” as the title for my blog but Di quietly whispered that she had recently used that exact title for a recent blog. So, in my desperation, I reached out and grabbed the first idea that came to mind. Not sure if it’s the best title – in fact, I’m not sure if it was a great song in its day either but hey, I live on an island in the middle of nowhere so I’m sure the title will be fine.
Tourists that pass often comment that we live in paradise and that we’re living the dream. I guess if you took out the tourists and the large amount of plastic rubbish that floats past from time to time then, yes, I guess we’re living the dream. But even paradise has caveats. For us underwater photographers one of those caveats is clarity. Not clarity of mind, though that does help when you’re trying to justify what the hell we’re doing here, but visual clarity. The ability to see our underwater environment. I like taking photographs of big things. Probably because my eyesight is so bad. At least I can see what I am trying to photograph. Di, on the other hand, searches for small grains of sand that happen to move. Macro photographers, seriously. Because she has her head stuck in the sand most of the time, the clarity of the water isn’t so important to her – here are some of her recent shots with her new Olympus EM-10 Mark IV proving the point:
For me, the complication is that not only do I require good visibility, but I also prefer minimal current (try hanging on in 4 knots of current with a large camera rig!) and preferably sunshine and flat seas. Not too much to ask really. I’m not sure if it’s climate change or natural cycles but our weather this year has been very different from previous years. This makes it hard to plan trips to some of the better dive sites because you need stable weather, not wind blowing dogs off chains, and sea conditions that aren’t classified as a washing machine to be able to dive many of the sites. Not too far from where we live and within an hour’s boat ride, we can access some great dive sites where visibility sometimes exceeds 40 metres and usually sits around 30 metres. At home we generally only see somewhere between 5 – 10 metres with the odd 20-metre day. So, breaking out and diving in 30-40 metres is a big drawcard.
Recently, we had the great fortune to experience some sunny stable weather and glassed out seas for a couple of days so we jumped at the opportunity. As a result, I thought I’d load you up with some of my photos from our recent trips and show you how we waste our time here in paradise…
