The term muck diving refers to diving in areas where the bottom is sandy, muddy, murky and/or littered with rubble, rocks, tires, old fishing equipment, discarded shoes and various other things. While you’re not apt to find a whale shark here, plenty of other fascinating creatures call this environment home. I shot the following pictures at Sand Castle in Gorontalo with my Olympus uT8000 in about 3 m of water.
A pair of Starry Moray Eels
Reef Stonefish
Juvenile Lionfish
Hermit Crab
Porcelain Crab on Anenome
A pair of Ambonian Shrimp
Sea Urchin
And here's one more shot from Shadowlands. This is a reef site, not a muck site, but it's where I saw my first boxer crab so I was pretty excited. These guys are so cute! Note the tufts of anenome he's clutching in his claws like boxing gloves.
Boxer Crab
Taking pictures underwater is a lot of fun but I feel very frustrated by the limitations of my camera. If any of you reading this are underwater photographers, can you please suggest a good quality diving camera for me? I don't want to invest in something super expensive, but I want a camera that's good enough to offer me a lot of creative flexibility. Hendra, my new photographer friend, recommends the Canon G11, which he considers to be a semi-pro camera. I'd love to hear some other recommendations as well.
Much less mucky than I had imagined. That you're taking photos at all underwater impresses me. It was something I wanted to do as a kid, but luckily I shared this idea with my parents before taking the Kodak Instamatic into the swimming pool. They explained that what Jacques Cousteau can do, lesser mortals ought not try.
ReplyDeleteThe porcelain crab is my favorite among these photos.
are all pictures you get by yourself? wowowowowowow
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