Togalive
Contributor
Well, I personally find it sad that it has taken me so long to post up some of my photos from my August-Sep trip to Bonaire, but with all the moving into college and being crushed by the workload, I have barely had enough time to even sleep. Anyways, the story behind the photos is that on the plane rides to Bonaire I actually was getting pretty depressed. I mean here I am, going on this incredible trip with my father (we both got certified during summer for it) before I move off to college, and I would have no way of memorializing my experience beneath the surface. So needless to say, I was pretty ecstatic when my father handed me the owners manuel to a SeaLife DC1200 on the flight to Curacao! And so, my first experience doing underwater photography took shape. In all I took over 4 gigabytes of photos, over the course of 5 days and 26 dives (bringing my total to 35 upon arriving home), but I am limited to what I can upload, so I've picked through them, and grabbed a mix of what I believe to be representative of my first trip to Bonaire, it certainly wont be my last! 
Here you go!
At the moment none of them have captions, mainly because I have to write a paper, but I figured I would post them up anyways I will continue to post up more when I can, but for now the captions of the videos will suffice.
As far as the videos go:
One is of my second dive to the Hilma Hooker, max depth was a new record at 100ft while sitting on the sandy bottom by the mast. (Apologize for the shaky video, I was just holding the tiny little camera with one hand.)
Another is a fairly long video featuring several different schools of fish while we dove "Red Slave". The water was very choppy up top, but it was beautiful below with a slight current. (Again, apologize for the shaky video at times)
Another, is from my very first (non check out) dive on Bonaire, at Vista Blue, where I got to swim fin to fin with this baby turtle (His/Her shell was about 1.5 ft in diameter)
The moderately shaky, and slightly blurry video is one of my doing the entry to Oil Slick Leap, unfortunately some of the video's quality has been lost, but it still brings back happy memories of watching my father plop in
Yet another is of a pretty close encounter we had with a Barracuda. Initially I spotted him swimming right at us, and he made a pretty close pass while my father panicked a bit to get out of its way (he was pretty nervous because we had heard from some other divers of Barracuda in the area, in all honesty thats why I wanted to dive there). So it dissapeared behind us, and a few minutes later I was taking a photo of a black durgon when I turned to my right and saw it heading straight towards us from behind. I improvised a kind of "Turn around, but please dont panick. Breathe normally" signal to my father, and he turned around just as I pulled up the camera to take some video. The barracuda passed within about a foot of my head, close enough to bring the video out of focus as you'll see, but it was an awesome experience!
As for the video of the spotted eagle ray. Throughout the whole trip I had been looking for a ray, and we had not seen one. Then on one of our final dives I spotted a large yellow stingray in the distance, and wanted to pursue it, but opted out in an effort to not leave my buddy behind. Needless to say I was pretty bummed I never got a good photo of it. So, on our way in, were in about 15-20 ft of water or so when I see this Spotted Eagle Ray directly ahead gliding over the sandy bottom. So I tell my father, and we both dropped down and hovered nearby while we watch it go by. Due to the conditions I couldn't get a clear photo, but I am happy with the photos I got, and the video I took on my way back up.
P.S: I apologize if some of the photos appear dark, I tried to do my best without flash (I didnt have an external, and I opted out of using the regular flash with the exception of my night dive). Also, by uploading the photos to photobucket many of the photos have been resized, and have lost some quality, they are originally 12mp and quite nice to look at at full size
I am happy to say however that absolutely no coral was damaged/touched in the taking of any of my photos
Looking forward to hearing your opinions!
TogaLive
Here you go!
At the moment none of them have captions, mainly because I have to write a paper, but I figured I would post them up anyways
I will continue to post up more when I can, but for now the captions of the videos will suffice. As far as the videos go:
One is of my second dive to the Hilma Hooker, max depth was a new record at 100ft while sitting on the sandy bottom by the mast. (Apologize for the shaky video, I was just holding the tiny little camera with one hand.)
Another is a fairly long video featuring several different schools of fish while we dove "Red Slave". The water was very choppy up top, but it was beautiful below with a slight current. (Again, apologize for the shaky video at times)
Another, is from my very first (non check out) dive on Bonaire, at Vista Blue, where I got to swim fin to fin with this baby turtle
(His/Her shell was about 1.5 ft in diameter) The moderately shaky, and slightly blurry video is one of my doing the entry to Oil Slick Leap, unfortunately some of the video's quality has been lost, but it still brings back happy memories of watching my father plop in
Yet another is of a pretty close encounter we had with a Barracuda. Initially I spotted him swimming right at us, and he made a pretty close pass while my father panicked a bit to get out of its way (he was pretty nervous because we had heard from some other divers of Barracuda in the area, in all honesty thats why I wanted to dive there
). So it dissapeared behind us, and a few minutes later I was taking a photo of a black durgon when I turned to my right and saw it heading straight towards us from behind. I improvised a kind of "Turn around, but please dont panick. Breathe normally" signal to my father, and he turned around just as I pulled up the camera to take some video. The barracuda passed within about a foot of my head, close enough to bring the video out of focus as you'll see, but it was an awesome experience! As for the video of the spotted eagle ray. Throughout the whole trip I had been looking for a ray, and we had not seen one. Then on one of our final dives I spotted a large yellow stingray in the distance, and wanted to pursue it, but opted out in an effort to not leave my buddy behind. Needless to say I was pretty bummed I never got a good photo of it. So, on our way in, were in about 15-20 ft of water or so when I see this Spotted Eagle Ray directly ahead gliding over the sandy bottom. So I tell my father, and we both dropped down and hovered nearby while we watch it go by. Due to the conditions I couldn't get a clear photo, but I am happy with the photos I got, and the video I took on my way back up.
P.S: I apologize if some of the photos appear dark, I tried to do my best without flash (I didnt have an external, and I opted out of using the regular flash with the exception of my night dive). Also, by uploading the photos to photobucket many of the photos have been resized, and have lost some quality, they are originally 12mp and quite nice to look at at full size
I am happy to say however that absolutely no coral was damaged/touched in the taking of any of my photos
Looking forward to hearing your opinions!
TogaLive
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