Part One of the series is here: Linkity Link Yo
After a long SI and healthy drift from the Eureka, we geared back up and it was time for dive two. The plan this time was to keep the depth a bit more modest (110-ish) and shoot hope the water was clear at that depth. I was skeptical, as the last dive got really clear from 120 to 130, but hope springs eternal, and with the shots from dive one, for me, the day was successful.
Dive #2
We were once again the first team in. We once again dropped on the west-ish side. Still the dark side, but the sun was higher. We got squared away and began our descent.
For the first 10 minutes of the dive we stayed on the west side and in the center of the rig. There are some more hanging ropes and things that I wanted to get shots of. Claudette scootered around them for a bit and I snapped some shots. The water wasn't great, so we decided to head down and east again to see what the water looked like - maybe we'd see more green water or something interesting.
As the photographer, I lead the dives. Its just better for us when I do, as I can signal that I'm stopping for a shot (as if dette, the tar buddy wouldn't see me... she's like 5 feet from me all the time, even in the clearest water.)
I'm putting us east at about 110 feet. Its kind of wacky, as the vis wasn't great - so you're literally flying in mid-water, flying on instruments (compass and depth) and just waiting for the crossbars to emerge from the murk a couple of hundred feet away. Its pretty cool.
I start to see the east side of the structure, and the bright green water again. But as we're getting closer, I'm seeing bubbles emerge. We're the only boat diving here, and Andrew (the only guy that could be below us) is on a 'breather - no way he'd get here this fast, and he's on CC.
The bubbles grow more intense as we get closer to the edge of the structure, and now there are these billowing clouds. Jaye calls them "Spielberg Clouds" after the clouds from Close Encounters. The water is boiling and billowing in front of us, with the sun shining behind it. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Completely surreal, and mostly silent. The small amount of noise was so disproportionate to the amount of hoopla in the water it was pretty spooky.
I look at dette and she knows what I want. I look at my gauge and sign to her "110 feet", and she's off. She takes a wide beam past the smoke and scoots right off the rig into the bright green water as I set up. She then made a U-turn and headed INTO the smoke and bubbles to come blasting through.
You need to appreciate this. She heads off into the bright water facing the sun, only to turn around and come through the ZERO viz smoke and emerge into the darkness of the rigs. Shes doing this at scooter speed, so there is no chance for her eyes to adjust. She's just putting it on 110 feet and pointing it in my general direction. I'm holding the deathstar with my left hand, firing shots with my right while sort of holding my 24W HID on my left pinky so when she comes out of the fog she has some kind of bearing.
On this first run she pin balled off one the pillars as she was trying to field-goal the narrow opening. She looked up, laughed, shook it off and continued towards me as I snapped away.
Her next couple of runs through the smoke and bubbles were off to one side, as she was being a little more cautious. After the third run, I'm motioning to her to get back into the center of the thing. She looks at me with puppy dog eyes, and I point a stern finger to the center (in a kidding, not kidding kind of way) and I see the explosion of bubbles. She knows what I'm looking for and she goes back in again.
By this forth run, the place is just boiling over with bubbles and thick smoke. She goes out again (through an opening in the bubbles) and comes back through the center of the cloud at full speed. This is good. I'm snapping pic after pic, and I see her hold up her left fist in the "stop" sign.
I come over, and she's reaching for her left fin. On this forth run, she again pin balled off one of the pillars, but it just grabbed the shackle of her left fin, and kind of lifted the spring strap off her ankle - leaving her fin in place.
The rig gave my buddy a flat tire.
We were laughing about it. We laughed so hard we almost cried. She's holding up the caution flag - the stop sign. She effectively yelled CUT, and I kept shooting. OMG, it was funny. I've animated this series, below.
I move back into position, and she looks at me with that look. We look over, and its boiling like crazy now. She skips off for a fifth run, and we get the shots of the trip. The cloud is now rolling down one of the angular braces and moving left to right. She get into the cloud and is a bit disoriented, she spots my light and turns about and heads right at me with a clean and perfect exit. I also animated this last sequence below so you can see her searching with her light, and see the huge cloud.
She motions me over. I hadn't been off the rig yet, and she's made five runs through this stuff. I come over and see the outside looking in, and its just as beautiful. I motion to her that I want her to improv in the smoke in the open ocean - outside of the rig. She enthusiastically obliges and we get a few fantastic shots, including one of my favs of the trip. Its like Dante's inferno... its a beautiful shot of her playing in the surreal scene.
Completely filled with adrenaline and flush with one of the moments of a lifetime (all five runs and the playtime took about 12 minutes) I called her over to see some of the shots. I point to the LCD on the camera. I point to myself. I extend both index fingers and clack them together, and then grab my heart. I signed to her, "see that? That's MY buddy, and I couldn't be more proud." Those 12 minutes will live on forever as one of the times of my life.
We played some more. Took some more shots, but after about 8 shots I just collapsed the rig. There is no other shots I needed to take on Dive 2.
Claudette - you are courageous. You are fit, you are positive and you have mad skills underwater. You are more fun than any 10 people, you match me energy for energy and you are the apex buddy. There is nobody else I can imagine sharing Dive 2 with.
Enjoy the shots and the animation.
Full rigs gallery here: Linkah
---
Ken
==================================
PING!!!!!!!! This is from the first run. This is Chica pin balling off the pillar as she tries to field-goal the things.
Inventory time - everything in place? Two arms? Two legs? All good. I like that her head is down as she;s checking everything out. See the bubbles as she's laughing this off? The next frame has her looking right at me in this huge smile. You can't see it in these small shots, but I can see it in the full size TIFF.
Flat tire time out! This is from the fourth run, when another pillar kind of grabbed her foot. Check the shrapnel at her feet. I love that she kind of tossed the scoot to take a quick inventory. What a subject!
This is MY buddy, going back into the fire to make another couple of runs so I can get the shots. How lucky am I???? I love this shot because its so disorienting. I wanted to have her in correct orientation, as she blasted over be to go back again. That meant tipping the camera and in doing so I removed the familiar vertical orientation of the pillars. Remember - she's on a scoot, so her bubbles aren't going straight up vertical. That's a bubble trail, adding to the disorientation of the shot. I like this one a lot, as it captures the spirit of fun we were having at 110 in the fog and bubbles.
Emerging from the Cloud - this is from the fifth series. Here are four shots that really deliver the idea of what we were in down there.
Outside the rig, playing in the smoke. This is what is looked like from the outside. I'm in the thick of it, but only on the edge of it. You can see how the strobes just lit the stuff up.
I love this one. This is Chica saying goodbye to the fun zone. But it looks like she's looking into another world. Look at those billowing clouds. I have no idea what they were doing on the rig that day, but right below us it sure kicked up an exciting 12 minutes!
Here's animation of the first series, with Chica going PING off the pillar.
Here's animation of the fourth series, when Chica gets a flat tire and throws up the caution flag.
Here's the fifth and final set in animation. Note the search light at the beginning, then she spots my HID and gets her bearings and heads out of the cloud.
.
.
.
.
.
Part One here: Link
.
.
.
.
.
After a long SI and healthy drift from the Eureka, we geared back up and it was time for dive two. The plan this time was to keep the depth a bit more modest (110-ish) and shoot hope the water was clear at that depth. I was skeptical, as the last dive got really clear from 120 to 130, but hope springs eternal, and with the shots from dive one, for me, the day was successful.
Dive #2
We were once again the first team in. We once again dropped on the west-ish side. Still the dark side, but the sun was higher. We got squared away and began our descent.
For the first 10 minutes of the dive we stayed on the west side and in the center of the rig. There are some more hanging ropes and things that I wanted to get shots of. Claudette scootered around them for a bit and I snapped some shots. The water wasn't great, so we decided to head down and east again to see what the water looked like - maybe we'd see more green water or something interesting.
As the photographer, I lead the dives. Its just better for us when I do, as I can signal that I'm stopping for a shot (as if dette, the tar buddy wouldn't see me... she's like 5 feet from me all the time, even in the clearest water.)
I'm putting us east at about 110 feet. Its kind of wacky, as the vis wasn't great - so you're literally flying in mid-water, flying on instruments (compass and depth) and just waiting for the crossbars to emerge from the murk a couple of hundred feet away. Its pretty cool.
I start to see the east side of the structure, and the bright green water again. But as we're getting closer, I'm seeing bubbles emerge. We're the only boat diving here, and Andrew (the only guy that could be below us) is on a 'breather - no way he'd get here this fast, and he's on CC.
The bubbles grow more intense as we get closer to the edge of the structure, and now there are these billowing clouds. Jaye calls them "Spielberg Clouds" after the clouds from Close Encounters. The water is boiling and billowing in front of us, with the sun shining behind it. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Completely surreal, and mostly silent. The small amount of noise was so disproportionate to the amount of hoopla in the water it was pretty spooky.
I look at dette and she knows what I want. I look at my gauge and sign to her "110 feet", and she's off. She takes a wide beam past the smoke and scoots right off the rig into the bright green water as I set up. She then made a U-turn and headed INTO the smoke and bubbles to come blasting through.
You need to appreciate this. She heads off into the bright water facing the sun, only to turn around and come through the ZERO viz smoke and emerge into the darkness of the rigs. Shes doing this at scooter speed, so there is no chance for her eyes to adjust. She's just putting it on 110 feet and pointing it in my general direction. I'm holding the deathstar with my left hand, firing shots with my right while sort of holding my 24W HID on my left pinky so when she comes out of the fog she has some kind of bearing.
On this first run she pin balled off one the pillars as she was trying to field-goal the narrow opening. She looked up, laughed, shook it off and continued towards me as I snapped away.
Her next couple of runs through the smoke and bubbles were off to one side, as she was being a little more cautious. After the third run, I'm motioning to her to get back into the center of the thing. She looks at me with puppy dog eyes, and I point a stern finger to the center (in a kidding, not kidding kind of way) and I see the explosion of bubbles. She knows what I'm looking for and she goes back in again.
By this forth run, the place is just boiling over with bubbles and thick smoke. She goes out again (through an opening in the bubbles) and comes back through the center of the cloud at full speed. This is good. I'm snapping pic after pic, and I see her hold up her left fist in the "stop" sign.
I come over, and she's reaching for her left fin. On this forth run, she again pin balled off one of the pillars, but it just grabbed the shackle of her left fin, and kind of lifted the spring strap off her ankle - leaving her fin in place.
The rig gave my buddy a flat tire.
We were laughing about it. We laughed so hard we almost cried. She's holding up the caution flag - the stop sign. She effectively yelled CUT, and I kept shooting. OMG, it was funny. I've animated this series, below.
I move back into position, and she looks at me with that look. We look over, and its boiling like crazy now. She skips off for a fifth run, and we get the shots of the trip. The cloud is now rolling down one of the angular braces and moving left to right. She get into the cloud and is a bit disoriented, she spots my light and turns about and heads right at me with a clean and perfect exit. I also animated this last sequence below so you can see her searching with her light, and see the huge cloud.
She motions me over. I hadn't been off the rig yet, and she's made five runs through this stuff. I come over and see the outside looking in, and its just as beautiful. I motion to her that I want her to improv in the smoke in the open ocean - outside of the rig. She enthusiastically obliges and we get a few fantastic shots, including one of my favs of the trip. Its like Dante's inferno... its a beautiful shot of her playing in the surreal scene.
Completely filled with adrenaline and flush with one of the moments of a lifetime (all five runs and the playtime took about 12 minutes) I called her over to see some of the shots. I point to the LCD on the camera. I point to myself. I extend both index fingers and clack them together, and then grab my heart. I signed to her, "see that? That's MY buddy, and I couldn't be more proud." Those 12 minutes will live on forever as one of the times of my life.
We played some more. Took some more shots, but after about 8 shots I just collapsed the rig. There is no other shots I needed to take on Dive 2.
Claudette - you are courageous. You are fit, you are positive and you have mad skills underwater. You are more fun than any 10 people, you match me energy for energy and you are the apex buddy. There is nobody else I can imagine sharing Dive 2 with.
Enjoy the shots and the animation.
Full rigs gallery here: Linkah
---
Ken
==================================
PING!!!!!!!! This is from the first run. This is Chica pin balling off the pillar as she tries to field-goal the things.
Inventory time - everything in place? Two arms? Two legs? All good. I like that her head is down as she;s checking everything out. See the bubbles as she's laughing this off? The next frame has her looking right at me in this huge smile. You can't see it in these small shots, but I can see it in the full size TIFF.
Flat tire time out! This is from the fourth run, when another pillar kind of grabbed her foot. Check the shrapnel at her feet. I love that she kind of tossed the scoot to take a quick inventory. What a subject!
This is MY buddy, going back into the fire to make another couple of runs so I can get the shots. How lucky am I???? I love this shot because its so disorienting. I wanted to have her in correct orientation, as she blasted over be to go back again. That meant tipping the camera and in doing so I removed the familiar vertical orientation of the pillars. Remember - she's on a scoot, so her bubbles aren't going straight up vertical. That's a bubble trail, adding to the disorientation of the shot. I like this one a lot, as it captures the spirit of fun we were having at 110 in the fog and bubbles.
Emerging from the Cloud - this is from the fifth series. Here are four shots that really deliver the idea of what we were in down there.
Outside the rig, playing in the smoke. This is what is looked like from the outside. I'm in the thick of it, but only on the edge of it. You can see how the strobes just lit the stuff up.
I love this one. This is Chica saying goodbye to the fun zone. But it looks like she's looking into another world. Look at those billowing clouds. I have no idea what they were doing on the rig that day, but right below us it sure kicked up an exciting 12 minutes!
Here's animation of the first series, with Chica going PING off the pillar.
Here's animation of the fourth series, when Chica gets a flat tire and throws up the caution flag.
Here's the fifth and final set in animation. Note the search light at the beginning, then she spots my HID and gets her bearings and heads out of the cloud.
.
.
.
.
.
Part One here: Link
.
.
.
.
.
