Diving
Pictures
A peek into the underwater
world for divers and non divers alike.
I
will be updating this section whenever I put my camera under the waves.
My intentions are to provide
a visual description of the things I see underwater through my photos
and video, helping people to have a better understanding of what scuba
diving is all about, how diverse the sport is, the flora and fauna of
different bodies of water, as well as educating about the rich history
we have in our shipwrecks right here in the Great Lakes.
click
the images below to open that gallery.
If you don't
see text links on the left side of the page click
here!
GLSRF
Norlond Project, Summer of 2011 - 100 images
Summer of 2011 afforded
me 3 dives on the wreck of the Norlond, two of which were with Great
Lakes Shipwreck Research Foundation as a volunteer photographer. My
mission was to get shots of other volunteers working on their drawings,
measurements and so on when the vis was poor. When the vis was above
average I was charged with getting the best possible pics of a difficult
wreck due to it's location and normally turbid water. I was lucky enough
to be present on what was the night of the best vis on the Norlond I
have ever seen. 50 foot plus vis helped make for some great shots. I
would like to thank Kimm Stabelfeldt for the standing invitation every
week, and also thank you to all the volunteers I dove with, a pleasure
as always!
All images are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.
One week before Hurricane
Irene struck the East coast of the U.S., I traveled to Hatteras,
North Carolina with five friends for a week of sunny, prisitine
diving. They call the patch of Atlantic ocean off of the Outer Banks
"The Graveyard of the Atlantic". There are hundreds of shipwrecks
along this unassuming coast, many of which are war graves, having been
put on the bottom by German U-Boats. We did 10 dives in 5 days aboard
the incredible dive boat "Flying Fish", operated by Captain
Jonny Pieno. His lovely wife Amy runs the dive shop, "Outer Banks
Diving" in town. My friends and I can't say enough about the great
people we encountered on this trip. The wrecks are not as intact as
we are used to here in the Great Lakes, but instead have morphed into
vibrant healthy reefs, which made for great critter hunting and close-up
photography.
_________________________
February
12 -13th, 2011 - 4 images
Diving under the
ice of an inland lake can provide visibilities far greater than at any
other time of year, and it offers up stunning views of light patterns
and air pockets that block out light. It requires specific training
and some special gear to stay warm, but is well worth the effort. I
chose 4 stills excerpted from Hi-Definition video I shot in preparation
for a short documentary about ice diving, due mostly to the incredible
light show the snow covered ice, an open hole and a sunny day gave me.
Location was Lake Nagawicka, in Southern WI.
The 2010 diving season
was a great one with good weather and calm seas most of the time. Visibility
in the Milwaukee area was less than it has been in years past in my
opinion but the water temps seemed warmer than last season too so it
all evens out I guess. I have chosen 40 various images from 6 different
wrecks I visited on Southern Lake Michigan, ranging between Port
Washington to the north and Chicago to the south.
I've been wanting
to dive the Pacific Northwest for several years now, and this was the
year that I got to do it. Along with my dive buddy Tim Stilwell from
Iowa, I trekked two suitcases full of coldwater dive gear, and one 33
pound underwater camera system to the other side of the continent in
search of the "Emerald Sea". We would stay at a 'dive resort'
at the northern tip of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Browning Pass Hideaway is owned by John DeBoeck, a regional legend
who is widely know as the most knowlegeable sea captain and dive guide
on the western coast of Canada. His passion is putting divers in the
water at his favorite sites and doing it at excactly at the right time.
All of the diving in this region is subject to the tides. You can only
dive most of these sites at slack tide, the short window of opportunity
between flood tide and ebb tide. This is when the waters slow down enough
that divers (especially ones with cameras) can safely enjoy the dive.
On many of our dives the beginning of the dive we would be going North
on the ebb tide and halfway through our dive the drift would change
back to the South and the beginning of the flood tide would take us
back the way we had come. All the while John is on the surface watching
our bubbles, and diligantly keeping track of where everyone is like
a mother hen. When you are down to 7 or 8 hunderd pounds of air in your
bottle you head for the surface and begin your safety stop. If you are
at a site where you are near the Pacific Bull Kelp you can hang out
and look for little crabs or small Cross Jellyfish near the surface.
John picks you back up in the dive skiff wherever you may pop up once
you remember to give him the diver OK signal. Because all dives are
centered around slack tide, we generally will only do one dive from
the skiff, then go back to the Hideaway for a delicious homecooked meal.
Dives will typically have about 3 hours between them, and there is always
time to get some food or a nap before suiting back up and taking your
place on the skiff for another dive. We did 3 dives a day as a rule,
sometimes 4. Water temps ranged from low to mid 40's F.,and vis stayed
pretty steady around a hazy 25 ft. If you are shooting macro, none of
this really matters though. All the dives are a 'free ascent' meaning
that there is no anchor line to come up but you usually will have a
life encrusted wall to use as a visual reference if you need it and
often times the kelp serves as a line to hold onto if your buoancy is
not right or you don't want to drift in the current. Depths range from
surface to past 150 feet, (the pass is an average of 1300 feet deep)
but the best zones are between 50 and 90 as this is where the largest
variety of life can be found, as well as better vis below 40-50 feet.
I found it a good mix of benefits to keep my dives 50 to 80 feet to
conserve on gas and make the most of my all too short stay in this wildly
beautiful place. Rides to and from the sites are short as the Hideaway
is perfectly placed in a calm and protected bay on Nigei Island, just
minutes from all the best sites. While traveling to our sites we routinely
saw more than one American Bald Eagle, Sea lions, Kingfishers, and on
the last day the fluke of a mother Humpback Whale. One also needs to
keep an eye out for the ever possible Orca or Whitesided Dolphin sighting.
Under the water many of the dives are on immense vertical walls that
are covered in layer upon layer of every conceivable form of life. As
you slide by this kaleidoscope of life on the gentle slack current you
can look down and watch the wall fade away into the darkness. The water
is the most incredible green and it only takes one dive to see why the
region has been coined the "Emerald Sea". The proliferation
of life here is staggering, from the forests of giant Plumose Anemones
to the huge schools of Rockfish that play in the kelp. Decorator and
Hermit Crabs are everywhere, as are other larger creatures such as Ling
Cod, Puget Sound King Crabs, Octopuss, and Lions' Mane Jellyfish. Though
I did not get the chance to be greeted underwater by a Sea Lion, I did
manage to check off nearly all of the creatures on my 'need to see'
list, with the exception of the Wolf Eel, with the face only a mother
could love, but my dive buddy Tim did get to see one for me on one of
the many dives we unintentionally separated due to both of us being
so glued to our cameras' viewfinders.
In
summary, my nine day trip was really more an oddyssey than a trip. I
learned so much about the flora and fauna both above and below the water
from such incredibly nice local people who were only too willing to
enhance my visit to this diverse ecosystem with vivid stories and insightful
information about the things I was seeing through my lens. A stay at
the Hideaway is a life changing event for some I would think. It was
for me. I wanted to dive and what I got was simply the best diving the
BC area has to offer by perhaps the best guide to ever ply it's waters.
This is what was told to me by everybody that I met that was a local,
both in town and at the Hideaway. John, would never claim these things
though. I found him to be most humble, and patient. He is always at
a loss for words when a diver comes up from a great dive and says, "John,
that was incredible, thanks!" His position is this: "I didn't
carve out these underwater canyons and plant the anemones, I just nail
the slack occasionally".
I didn't have a single bad dive, and it was worth every penny. One word
sums it all up. Go.
I had an opportunity
to catch a ride on my favorite dive boat the Len-Der while it was 30
miles north of Milwaukee in Port Washington, WI, this past weekend
to go see the wreck of the Northerner. She sank in 1868, no lives
lost, foundering in a storm several miles southeast of Port Washinton,
WI. 81 feet in length, 18 foot beam. She was a wooden two masted lake
schooner used for transporting of goods, in the case of her final voyage
she was carrying cord wood. Still in incredible condition due to depth,
130 plus feet to the sand, which keeps storms from doing much damage.
My dive partner Adam and I were the first ones down the line and found
pretty good visibility for late afternoon under complete cloud cover
and 1-2 foot choppy waves. (very little natural light) Water temp at
bottom 38 F. Time alotted at depth 13 minutes. Visibility approx 50-65
feet. Camera- Canon T1-I Rebel, canon EF 18mm IS lens. ISO 800, 1/80
second shutter, f 3.5
This
is not the first time I have posted images of the Carferry SS Milwaukee,
but it is the first time I have good images to show you, thanks to my
new underwater camera setup which does much better with the low levels
of natural light in the Great Lakes. One dive on the stern and one on
the bow yielded some great shots of the pilot house that blew off during
sinking due to air pressure and finally came to rest on the lake bottom
about 80 feet away from the port bow as well as the stern with it's
famous bent seagate and large props.
A
400 mile drive southwest of Milwaukee will find you in Bonne Terre,
MO, about 60 miles south of St. Louis. A sleepy little town with
a big hidden treasure...the largest man made caverns in the world. These
mind bending underground spaces are courtesy of a now defunct lead mine.
What once was the largest lead mine in the world is now a mecca for
scuba divers. When shut down in 1962, EVERYTHING was left behind and
the pumps that had kept it dry for 100 years were turned off. Natural
ground water rose thereby creating a watery time capsule. Purchased
in the 1980's, it was turned into a divable lake. Guided trails start
at the water's surface more than 100 feet below ground. We did 3 dives
on Saturday, and 1 on Sunday morning before returning home from an incredible
weekend of underground cavern diving. This place has been dived and
filmed by Jaques Cousteau, and covered by various documentaries, most
recently the "Life After People" series. Bonne Terre has been
on my "dive radar" for nearly 10 years since I first read
about it in a scuba magazine but until now I never had a group to share
the experience with. If I had known how bizarr the mine was I would
have gotten there sooner. In the picture are my traveling companions
and fellow Buccaneers, Scott bruss, Brian Bockholt, Dirk Wilhelm, and
Dan Vandorf. Known as "Team Wilhelm" (Dirk was the first to
sign up and also the first to volunteer to drive) we met up with 7 other
friends from Milwaukee known as "Team Richter". One cannot
dive alone, nor can one dive trail 2 until they have dove trail 1and
so forth and so on. With trails 1-4 under our belts, we will come back
next year and move onward to the ever more challenging trails 5-8. There
are 24 trails at the mine, each one progressively becoming more challenging
from a technical standpoint, something like a video game.
I
apologize in advance for the lack of any really breathtaking underwater
images. I'm afraid my camera and I were outmatched in this very low
light level setting. Our eyes could register the faint light and enormous
vistas but our cameras were incapable of capturing the grandeur and
scope of this underwater time capsule. Perhaps next year I will be equipped
with better gear and up to the challenge of bringing back the images
we saw while diving Bonne Terre's Billion Gallon Lake.
November
9 th, 2009 - 27 images
5
days in Mexico's Yucatan penninsula just a few minutes north
of Playa Del Carmen provided me with the chance to do two dives in the
spectacular hidden sinkholes of the Mayans known as Cenotes.
Mario from "Dive Aventuras" in Puerto Aventuras,
was an incredible dive master making sure I was safe as well as having
a good time. It was just the two of us and several times he took my
camera from me at specific points along the route to take my pictrue
with the light streaming in from the surfaces where the caverns open
up to the jungle above. These underground caverns and caves are filled
with fresh water so clear you think you're diving in air. Visibility
can range from 75 to as much as 150 feet.
I dove two cenotes connected by a shared entrance know as "Little
Brother". Once you have walked down the steps into the small room
you ease into the water and can go to your right for Cenote Kukulcan,
or to your left for Cenote Chac Mool. Water temps were around 76 F in
the fresh and when below 40 feet or so the invading seawater was closer
to 80 F. Chac Mool has an impressive air dome with tree roots and stalagtites
hanging down into the water. Fossils could also be found embedded in
the limestone.
I cannot stress enough what a fantastic dive guide Mario was. He is
a bit of a local legend, having sherpa'd for some very famous cave diving
explorers as a young child before being taken under their wing. He is
now a certified cave diving instructor as well as acomplished discoverer
of new cenotes in his own right, often diving whereno human has ever
been before. This is the man you want taking you in these potentially
dangerous areas if you are not cave certified yourself. He can be found here.
For
more information on the formation of cenotes and maps of the two I dove
click here.
October
13-15th, 2009 - 57 images
A
week in St.Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands yielded among other things,
8 dives and 2 very good snorkels with my wife. 6 of the dives were on
the West End (my favorite), and provided me with some really
great patch reefs, sloping reefs, wrecks and quite possibly the best
dive site in the Caribbean for macro opportunities, the world famous Fredreksted Pier. On the last day I did two dives on the north
coast, both just outside the harbor of Christiansted. All dives
were boat dives provided by S.C.U.B.A., I would like to say that
they are truly the friendliest dive shop, well equipped, and great to
dive with. Thanks to my dive masters Ross, Greg and especially John,
who without his expert eye, many of these macro shots would never have
happened because I would never have spotted the creatures on my own.
Hundreds of pictures were taken but I somehow narrowed it down to 57
for this website. Please don't forget to click on any image to see the
larger, higher resolution version.
September
5th, 2009 - 22 images
Two
really nice dives with Stuart Cove's out of Nassau, Bahamas over
the Labor Day Holiday weekend. First dive was to the 50 foot deep wreck
of the David Tucker, a 95 foot steel hulled Coast Guard Patrol
Boat built in Maryland in 1953, sold to the Bahamas in 1989 and consequently
struck and sunk. We started and ended our dive with this great wreck,
and in the middle managed to insert a nice vertical wall which was only
75 yards or so away, where we got down to about 75 feet. The second
dive was nearly an hour long in 25 feet of water where we saw many beautiful
patch reefs and the twin engined Cessna airplane that Michael Caine's
character crashed into the sea in the movie "Jaws 4". The
final day of our vacation was spent walking about on Ocean Drive in
South Beach, Miami where I was able to catch a nice pic or two of the
local architecture and a vintage Buick.
July
24th-25th, 2009 - 18 images
Two
incredible days of diving Southern California's kelp forests.
3 dives from The "Spectre" Dive boat at Anacapa Island and 2 shore dives at Casino Point Dive Park at Avalon, Catalina Island.
Vis 15-30 feet, heavy current and surge more often than not, and water
temps in the 60's. Depths 25-70 ft.
This
movie is a 25 minute documentary about diving the Kelp forests of Catalina and Anacapa Islands as seen through the eyes of two midwest wreck
divers. 100 still photos are used along with 20 minutes of video and
narration all put to an original soundtrack by Stingray Studios to chronicle
the 4 day whirlwind divetrip above and below the waves in Los Angeles taken by myself and my dive partner Rob in mid July of 2009.
July
4th, 2009 - 7 images
A
fantastic shore dive at Lake Michigan's Bender Park including
fish and crawfish. We were under for well over an hour in the shallow
water. Max depth about 20 feet, water temp 52 degrees F. Visibilty about
20 feet.
June
27th, 2009 - 5 images
Here are some stills
of Rob and Mark underwater scanning the bottom for bottles or anything
else interesting while shore diving at Golden Lake in the town of
Summit, WI. The last two pics are of some unknown (to me anyways)
biomass sitting on the bottom at about 34 feet down. I am thinking it
might be some sort of larval or egg deposit? If you know what it is
would you please drop me an email! calsworld@wi.rr.com
I also
shot some video on this dive and have put together a 6 minute video
so that non divers can see what it is like for us to dive in an inland
lake with sand, rocks, weeds, mud and muck.
May
23rd, 2009 - 26 images
The charter boat
"Len-Der" takes us out to the Carferry "Milwaukee",
sitting in about 125 feet of water several miles north of the harbor.
With decent vis, about 40', I was able to get some nice pics of the
bow. We also had very clear water at the surface, which was as smooth
as glass, making for some nice over-under shots.
