Tago pictures

[Geoff_H]

Another Sunday's diving in beautiful sunny weather - October and Novemeber are great months for divers. Today we went to Tago on the west side of Izu penisular for two boat dives. We were blessed with 25m+ visibiilty and 23 degrees Centigrade water temperature.

First dive was around a rocky island, and extremely gentle and pleasant. Some photos...

The 10 minute ride out on glassy seas.

Jumping in and immediately stunned by the viz

Steve explores

Now for some critters.. a thorny-back cowfish and a big nudi - 80mm worth of Dermatobranchus Orantus.

So, onto the second dive and something more challenging... as the first dive was almost perfect and enjoyed by all we decided to go to a completely different point with "courant très fort". Not many photos from this one as they all tended to have motion blur......

Nicholas decided to protect Linda on the safety stop - what a gentleman! Look hard and count the fins.......

Another one from the same stop, check out the bubbles on this one for an indication of the current (and finally Linda managed to free herself!)

Now a caption competition.......... any suggestions?

We capped off a great day with a great sunset, an outdoor onsen on the way back (sitting in the hot springs, listening to the babbbling brook and looking at the stars...) Days like this are why I'm staying in Japan....

 

[yukilaw1012]

Great pictures.

 

[The Mushroom King]

I almost teared up when I saw the pictures....:116:
On saturday I was enjoying 2 meter viz in atami :116: (yes thats 2, not 20)

what op did you use in Tago, I've been to Komomi and have been trying to get to Tago one of these days....it looks nice :sigh_2:

BTW what camera set up are you using?

 

[Geoff_H]

We used Diver's Hut - Akihiro Tosaka is the owner... the phone number is 0558 53 1906 or www.tago-marine.com Two boat dives were about 12k, and they were pretty acommodating, would definitely go back with them.

My camera is a PnS Canon Ixy 8.... no manual focus or aperature/shutter priority which is pretty frustrating.... especially for macro as it's almost impossible to get it to focus where I want. I have taken photos of those little red shrimps you find between rocks on the last 10 or 15 dives and never got one sharp yet! Also makes arty shots with non-standard composition pretty almost entirely luck based.

Glad we made the call to skip Atami!! I'm off to Palau next weekend so no more diving in Izu until December... probably Osezaki on Dec 1st.

 

[The Mushroom King]

Thanks for the dive op info.

these little shimps? Im using a Canon 640 - not too bad!

p.s. I'll likely be in ose on the 1st as well.

 

[Geoff_H]

Them's the ones - I simply can't make my camera focus... and if I try to use pan focus (i.e. half depress shutter and move camera so the shrimp is in focus) then the movement scares them back into their rock.

 

[nori1841]

Hi Geoff, very nice pics, especially nudi's
BTW, I have had good dives in Palau in the last month. Hope you take good pics as well in there.

 

[emanuelw]

Whoa, I have never seen this kind of viz around Izu. I've been to Atami, Futo and Ozesaki, but your dives look tropical while mine felt a bit like back in Sweden but more fish. Why is that?

 

[Geoff_H]

I dunno! I generally experience better viz on the away from the east coast - so Tago, Kumoni, Mikimoto etc... sometimes "over the hill" in Ozesaki has 25m+ viz too.

I'll be in Ozesaki this Saturday, getting the two dives needed to get into triple figures for 2007..... if I don't die from hypothermia after dive #1.... if I get any good photos then I'll post them up.

 

[The Mushroom King]

I was in Osezaki on on Saturday (the 1st) and it was amazing! blue water and 20+ viz
That was soto-umi mind you..... not the bay ;-)