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before i took the trip to Mexico, i tossed around the idea of doing some scuba diving while i was going to be there.
you see, i am a scuba addict and i have a little adventurous side to me.
i'm not a rebel, i'm not some crazy party animal or drinker, and i'm afraid of heights, but i do have a little side to me that needs to get out once in a while.
that side of me craves the underwater world, and the wonders beneath the sea.
i decided to research the scuba diving opportunities in the area of Playa del Carmen, and i quickly realized that if i chose to dive a local reef, then i was going to be disappointed.
i have been spoiled by the spectacular reefs in Roatan, and i knew that the over-populated and strained coastline along the Mayan RIviera would not offer the experience or photo worthy reef i so longingly crave.
i knew that i had the option to travel to Cozumel for the day, but i actually didn't have the time to do an all day trip, and because of flying and diving restrictions, i couldn't leave such a trip until Friday.
i guess i could have chosen to do the bull shark dive with a local dive shop, but my sense of adventure doesn't include free swimming with some of the world's most aggressive sharks!!
(please don't get me wrong, i love diving with sharks and dive with them all the time, but bull sharks are just ANGRY sharks and i decided that i would be prudent)
on a side note..... i would like to do a cage dive with great white sharks one day. sharks are wonderful and misunderstood creatures.
anywhoooo...... i found out that the Maya Riviera has some cool diving spots called 'Cenotes' , which are actually underground, freshwater rivers that are accessed by sinkholes. they are rivers that the Mayan's used way back when, for freshwater.
there was one problem to my little plan.
i don't like caves and small places, and i don't like diving in the dark.
unfortunately, diving the cenotes requires being in the pitch black most of the time, as well as swimming through a few small spaces.
yep, i wasn't too sure about all of this!!
i'm not a big fan of Mexico, the way that big hotels & tourism has essentially destroyed everything beautiful and natural about such a wonderful coastline. i knew that i would probably not travel to Mexico on my own accord, ever again (unless it was for another rockin' wedding of course), so i just needed to suck it up and dive a crazy dark cave and get over myself!
go me, being all brave and everything.
i packed up all my dive gear, lugged it all the way to Mexico, and signed up for a cenote dive!!
it was an awesome adventure.
my dive guide was Tomas, he drove Yoaz (a student from Isreal) and i to the dive site on Wednesday morning, and i sucked it up and did my best to NOT have an anxiety attack underwater.
i took a nice bright light, had my underwater camera with me, and leapt into this little pool of water that soon opened up to caverns and underwater beauty.
full of stalagmites and rock formations, these underground, water filled caverns were something to behold.
even in the darkest dark, and through little spaces, i was calm and cool.
i am a pretty experienced diver now, and i know my limitations, i am confident in my abilities, and i felt that my dive guide (Tomas) was well-trained enough to keep me safe.
Chac-Mool (named for a Mayan god or something) was the location for our 2 dives, and everything about it was right up my alley. from the wild dogs to the little farm and shady snack hut, everything about my cenote adventure was 'me'.
i know this was a crazy long post about my little cavern diving adventure, but i just had to share my insanity with you all.
i am a firm believer that everything i am, and everything i'm passionate about, makes me the photographer and the person that i am.
so, here are a few photos from my little diving adventure...
the table where we get ready. i love getting ready for diving!!
the entry hole into the cenote. i wasn't too sure about this, and i almost backed out at one point!
not a great photo, but you can see that we weren't the only ones in the caverns
a dive group in another entrance to the cenote
a dive group just floating around at the surface
cool stalagmites
this is my favourite photo of the day. i love the way the light shines in from above, and the colours are just so beautiful!
we surfaced in an air pocket, which was totally dark except for our dive lights and camera flashes. this is a tree that i'm floating beside.
my view when i surfaced from my last dive. what a great ending to a great adventure!
one of the wild dogs. just a little puppy!!! too cute!
the shady hut where we ate our lunch! i was skeptical.
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151
when you're underwater, you see such a great variety of creatures and fish, that it's actually mind boggling sometimes! God has created so many weird and unusual life forms, and sometimes it's hard to even see their purpose at all. i love the diversity under the ocean, and i crave finding the weird, the cool and the rare.
Darryl and i have been to Roatan five times, and we always stay at the same resort ,every time. we love the people, we love the resort, and we just feel like we've arrived at home every time we step off the boat.
the first year that we went to Cocoview Resort, i learned the skill of underwater photography, but at the same time, it was my very first on a reef and in the caribbean!! i was enthralled by all the fish, and i thought every one of them were cool, awesome, and photo worthy!! i took pictures of EVERYTHING!!!! it was actually quite ridiculous. i think i averaged about 1000+ photos a day, and i couldn't get enough of it.
unfortunately, i don't get quite as excited about parrot fish as i used to, and i don't even take photos of damsel fish anymore. i know, it's so sad.
i crave the small, i crave the unique, i crave the rare.
now, i do have to say that it's pushing it so show me MICROSCOPIC!!! please Kirk, put away your magnifying glass and stop finding stuff that makes my eyes cross just trying to see what the crap you're showing me!!!
a nudibranch is like a slug, and they are not very common along the reef. well, they're probably more common than i think, but they're nearly impossible to see because they blend into the reef so well.
Kirk (our awesome dive master) kept telling me that he was going to find me a lettuce leaf sea slug ( and i told him that was his goal for the week), but every we went to a dive site, we came up empty handed!! i didn't even know what to look for to find one of these things!!!
after a few days, i was ready to give up on finding one.
one afternoon, i was diving along Cocoview Wall with the hubby, and we were going so slowly along the reef that we were almost going backwards! in my head, i was talking to myself about the sea slug problem, and i was just REALLY wanting to find one!!!
all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, i see something fall from a coral head.
it was white, about 2 inches long, and it caught my attention.
i stopped, swam over to see what fell, and saw a little white thing. i thought it might be a piece of coral that had just fallen from a reef head down to another piece of coral.
well, slowly this little white thing moved, started righting itself, and KAPOW, it was a LETTUCE LEAF SEA SLUG (or nudibranch)!!
can you believe it?
God gave me a lettuce leaf sea slug at the very same second that i asked for it! LOL!
i should have asked to see a million dollars, since i've never seen that either.
ahhhhhhh.... the little miracles that make me smile.
here it is (oh, and you'll see why they're hard to find. they look like the reef!!)
there are fish in the caribbean, called 'blennies' . they are usually very small, and i seem to have an incurable addiction to photographing them. most of them are 1 inch long, teeny tiny, and super fast and hard to photograph. you'd think i'd give up on trying to get photos of them, but nope. the challenge just makes me want to photograph them even more!!! LOL!
my old underwater camera, couldn't really take photos of blennies, since they were too small. i wanted to beat my camera up.
Darryl bought me a new underwater camera for Christmas, and it was the maiden voyage of my Canon G11 last week. i found out that it does a decent job on the macro stuff.
good times!!
ok, back to the blenny story.
Darryl and i were going along Cocoview Wall again, and i was photographing some little blenny on a sponge, and he summoned me over to photograph something else. i swam over, and found the weirdest looking fish staring back at me. it was about 3 inches long, brown, and it was butting it's head against the coral in front of it.
i took a bunch of photos of it, and then swam away.
up on land, we tried to figure out what the heck this fish was!
nobody knew.
NOBODY!!!!!
it wasn't until the next day, that we found a dive master that knew what the heck it was. Kirk told me that it was a 'Goatee Blenny', and that he's only ever seen ONE in his entire life! when a dive master says he's only seen something once, it's a big deal , since he does thousands of dives!!
when i say that i've only seen something once, it's not big deal, since we've only done just over 200 dives in the last few years, and some of those are fresh water dives when zebra mussels are the most exciting thing you ever see. i did dive in the Detroit River once , and that was just disgusting!!!
ok, so without further ado, here is the GOATEE BLENNY!
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149
things have been quiet around the blog, and for good reason.
i was away.
away away away.
there is a place that pulls my heartstrings, and those of my hubby. this place is secluded and beautiful, raw and poor.
Roatan Honduras is this special place.
our 5th trip to this unique island, now sits on the top of all the previous trips. we were spoiled with the most fabulous weather EVER, and stellar diving conditions. it was awesome, amazing and wickedly cool, all rolled into one OFF THE CHARTS trip!!!
Darryl and i are a super happy married couple. we are both business owners and the busy parents of 3 teens.
life doesn't lend itself to much free time these days, and it's our regular trips to Roatan that keep us sane. it's so important to spend some quality time with your hubby, and we have a unique way of doing just that.
Darryl and i are avid scuba divers. if we actually had a mass of disposable income, we'd be on live-aboards in the Galapagos, diving with hammerheads at Cocos Island, and scouring the South Pacific for the most remote and secluded dive destinations.
the more sharks the better.
just sayin'.
for now, we spend our vacation time and money, on a little off the charts dive resort called Cocoview, located on a private cay that can only be reached by boat. it's our home away from home.
last week, we packed up all our dive gear, and travelled to our little slice of heaven.
when you get off the Cocoview boat, and the dock staff see you, get all excited, and run over to hug you, then you know that you are staying at the the best place EVER!!!
we've been to Cocoview five times now, so the staff know us by name and hug us all week! it's awesome!!!
i know that i am a wedding photographer, but deep down inside, i wish that i could be a full-time underwater photographer for National Geographic or something like that. i have the patience of a saint, and i can out-wait any fish, and my love of all things aquatic just keep me wanting more. my friends and family know this about me, but my leap into wedding photography was spurred by my adoration and addiction to underwater photography and because i bought a DSLR with the hopes of taking the ocean by storm! well, i didn't quite take the ocean by storm, but i quickly fell in love with documenting weddings and other than being a world-renown underwater photographer, i can't imagine doing anything else.
we live in the Windsor area, which is not really known for its oceans and spectacular reefs, but more for its murky lake and the Detroit river. when i get the chance to see all of God's awesomeness and get to visit the turquoise waters of the caribbean, then i'm like a kid in a candy store!!!
i would like to share a few photos with you, so that maybe you can get a sense of the beauty that i got to participate in. i am truly blessed .
(oh, and i got to use my new Canon G11 for the first time, and after a few rough days of figuring out how to use it, i quickly started loving it)
one more thing....
the majority of the photos that i took, are of creatures that are teeny tiny (under 1 inch long). i love to find all the macro life, and my Canon camera rose to the challenge and i was able to capture quite a few blennies (which a adorable little fish). anyone can get a photo of a damsel or parrot fish, since they are ALL over the reef and easy to see. i crave finding the small, the unique, and the rare. i was lucky enough to find lots of rare creatures. i guess i get caught up in the thrill of the hunt or something.
this photo is of some shrimp and a cryptic teardrop crab in a sponge along Cocoview Wall. this crab looks brown underwater, since you lose colour under the sea, and it's only about 1 inch in diameter.
this is a Sailfin Blenny. he's about 1.5 inches long, and this is his fighting stance. he saw his reflection in my camera and thought it was another male blenny. he came out of his hole to fight!
this little guy is a Flamingo Tongue, which is like a slug/snail thing. he's about 1 inch long, and they are almost always found on these types of coral/gorgonias.
this is a decorator crab. they are pretty small, and they are camouflaged like a growth that normally grows on this type of coral.
this is a lionfish. i had always wanted to see one, but not here. these guys are uninvited visitors and they are not welcome in the caribbean. they are native to the south pacific, and here they don't have any predators! they are now being hunted and killed by all dive masters.
we also ate some lionfish one day, and it was YUMMY!
this is a lettuce leaf sea slug (or nudibranch). i had never seen one before, and i was blessed to find two of them this week!! they are about 2 inches long, and move slowly along the reef. i LOVE them!
this is a green moray eel. i found it along Cocoview Wall, and it was about 4 feet long. people think that eels are scary and fierce, but they really aren't. they look fierce because they have to open their mouths to breathe, not because they are attacking or anything. i love finding eels!
here's another eel. he's just a little guy. i love finding this eel, because they are just so sweet looking !! i think they're called Goldentail Eels, but i might be mistaken.
this little brown seahorse was found on the wreck (the Prince Albert) which is located right outside the resort that we stay at. i was pretty happy with my find, since seahorses are actually pretty hard to find.
here's a little juvenile blenny that i found on a sponge. i am always happy to find a blenny!
this is a Christmas Tree worm. they are about 1 inch tall, and they are found all over coral heads, and in every colour imaginable. i just like photographing these little guys, since they are a pretty and they are all unique. lovely little things.
can you believe this cutie? this guy is like a box that floats around with his cute little fins. i am in LOVE with his colouring!!! he's a Cow Fish, just in case you were wondering.
this is my hubby, and the bestest diving buddy ever!!! i love scuba diving with the man i love.
this is a tiny find, called an Arrow Blenny. he's about 1.5 inches long, and it's only a few millimeters thick. they float in the water and have weird, jerky movements. strange fish.
ok, that's enough for the today. i'll post a few more tomorrow, and tell you the miracle of the sea slog find, and our rarest upon rare fish find!! exciting stuff!
amy:
you got some amazing shots!! that flamingo tongue one is my fav i think. glad you had a good time!!
(05.11.10)
Carmen Hess:
Thanks for sharing! My family and I leave for CCV in 10 days and we will be coconuts this time as well. We will be staying for 2 weeks again....It's just too hard to leave after one week. Several of our dive buddies from Timmons Ontario will also be there.
(05.12.10)
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i realized, when i posted my last few photos, that many of my new blog readers wouldn't have ever read my old blog. my old blog is where i posted TONS of underwater photos, but now i post mainly wedding photos. i'm not saying that being a wedding photographer here in the good ole city of Windsor isn't fun or exciting, it's just not underwater.
i wanted to just follow up with last week's blog post, and post a few more underwater goodies.
i do have a wedding to blog about, but you'll just have to wait till tomorrow to read about Laura-Beth and Rob's beautiful wedding day.
All of these photos were shot in Roatan Honduras, in the warm and tropical waters that surround the island.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....
Eliud Matos:
Michele, these are fantastic! Love them all, but the squid one is super cool.
(10.16.09)
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110
there are many people that ask me, about how i got into wedding photography, and i think that my answer surprises them.
i wasn't born with a camera in my hand, i wasn't mentored and inspired by my grandfather (even though that would have been awesome), i wasn't a photographer for the school newspaper, and i didn't get my degree in photography from a wonderful college or fine arts program.
these would have all been exciting and wonderful ways to learn the craft, but my way was much different than anyone i know.
it was fish.
yep, fish.
as a scuba diver, i was sucked into the world of underwater photography a few years ago. darryl was the one who wanted to learn to take underwater photos, and i actually didn't want anything to do with it!
i took photos of my kids, but that was it. i didn't want to learn a complicated camera (yeah, and i thought my Olympus C5060 point and shoot was complicated), and i just wanted to scuba dive.
we found out pretty quickly that Darryl HATED taking underwater photos, but i became addicted to it.
trust me when i say that, if i was younger and didn't have kids, i would have probably pursued a career with National Geographic or some other publication, so that i could take underwater photos for a living.
fish and i just get along well i guess, and i have the patience of a saint!
i can out-wait any fish that comes my way, and i could just lay on the bottom of the ocean all day and wait for something cool to swim by.
unfortunately, Windsor doesn't have many fish.
funny story......
darryl and i dove in Lake Erie a few years ago, and the visibility was so bad, that i actually swam head first right into the wreck we were diving! HAHAHA!!!
i lost darryl in the murkiness, and bumped my head right into a piece of wood.
even if there were fish in the lake, i don't think i would have seen them at all, since i couldn't see 3 inches in front of me.
there are no fish in Windsor, but there are weddings!!
i grew to love photography like crazy, and weddings are my new fish.
i just can't wait to get to the next one and see what new thing i can photograph.
i guess fish are on my mind, because Darryl and i just booked a trip to Roatan Honduras in May, and that's where i can lay on the bottom of the warm ocean, and wait for something cool to swim by.
on our trip to Roatan this past Christmas, i spent a 1/2 an hour, waiting for the perfect time to photograph this awesome, banded jaw-fish and its mouthful of eggs.
i also found a nudibranch for the first time, and a really cool blennie (a pretty rare one) too!
i figured it was fitting to post a few underwater photos again, since it's been too long.
John Chan:
Ah, there's that fish with the mouthful of eggs! That's wild.
(10.08.09)
St. Louis Wedding Photography<:
Michelle, these are great photographs! Yes, it is a bummer to live in cold places like we do (St. Louis for me). Thankfully we can travel to warmer climes : ) We will have to get together for some diving someday, I am always on the lookout for new dive Buddies! Are you going to be at the DWF convention this year? I'll be there, would be cool to meet you!
(11.03.09)
Stephanie Mailloux:
Seriously, those eel wormy things gave me shivers down my spine looking at the picture... how in the world did you swim in water with them, Hope it was good zooming on your camera's part... very cool pics though!
(11.12.09)
Carmen:
I have been to Roatan and Utila several times. Where did you stay in Roatan?
(01.16.10)
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