Trip report, Diving with the ulimate dive partners

[gonetobaja]

I never thought Id be able to say this, but I got to dive with the Ocean Futures Society!!

We got to work with them on a project they were working on taking pictures of the most amazing things in the ocean (normal stuff for them)

We did some photo diving with the Giant Humboldt Squid. My job is protection diver and guide for the trip. Because it was a photo shoot underwater, we opted for an area where the squid are not very big or aggressive, but are curious. I had them forgo the full body armor because of the special location and situations. We headed out on our first day and put on our saftey cables. Even though they had on limited armor (the subject diver is wearing chain mail gloves under the cotton gloves) we all wore saftey cables to prevent any other types of dangers that occour with open blue water diving.



Somewhat into our first tank in came our first customer.



The small ones are great because they are so curious.

 

[gonetobaja]

On our second tank some other small ones came into play.

Here are some pics of a small one that would come in and then hover in front of the subject diver and flash from red to white. I got only a couple shots of him white the rest were red.






After he saw what he wanted to see he took off.

 

[gonetobaja]

It was hard to stay next to them, here is some shots of how we would follow them and swim next to them. Not every shot came out good. Im sure theirs where much better, mine were in between looking around for a shoal of 50 squid to come in.





We did end up seeing a pretty big shoal of about 40 squid on our last day. During that time I know they got some great shots of a big one real close to the subject diver. I was too worried about other things to even think about my camera. The big shoal was swimming around us in a big tornado. One of the curious little ones came in to look at the bottom of the boat. When its attention was averted a big one over 5 foot came out of nowhere and ate him. Hit tentacles wrapped around the entire body of the little one. I was regretting my decision to forgo the armor. I thought at that moment we were all going to start getting tested and probed (in a bad way). Just as I thought things were going to get out of control, the entire shoal just drifted down and away, out of sight.

That was the last time I ever went diving with Humboldt squid without armor on everyone. Nothing happened but it could have gone bad.

It was a total pleasure to work with the Ocean Futures Society. The divers were top notch, I didnt even feel like I was working. They were totaly self suffecient and the pictures they took are going to be the best of their kind in the world. I feel lucky to have gotten a chance to dive with these professionals and I hope to do it again someday (although I doubt that it will happen) They are on to other exotic places and other strange ocean animals. They were very respectfull of the animals on every dive. The subject diver even went as far as to put on cotton gloves so if she got a chance to touch one the armor would not scratch its skin.

this was one of the truly memorable experiences of my guide career.

GTB

 

[gonetobaja]

Here are some shots of the ocean life underwater in front of the resort where we stayed. It a perfect snorkel reef right in front of the hotel.


Tree of puffer fish


Pretty fisheys







The resort is cool its called www.innatloretobay.com they are promoting lots of eco friendly stuff in the area.

Cant wait for my next trip.

GTB

 

[dlndavid]

Nice pictures and report, love the deep blue diving.

 

[gonetobaja]

Nice pictures and report, love the deep blue diving.

Me too, I love to stare down into the deep and wait for stuff to show up.

GTB

www.squiddiving.com