The continuing sagas of the Blue Heron Bridge

[Sully3]

aweosme shot of the jawfish with eggs!

 

[rhincodon]

Hi everyone,
I thought I would just check on this blog site. A friend of mine left her underwater light at the bridge on Mon 5/30. It's white, uses 4 D batteries (its not what it sound like lol). If anyone happened to find it I would appreciate it if you could contact me. She got it over seas and it has some sentimental value to her. My email is churchill68_2000@yahoo.com

 

[danvolker]

After watching Dan's video, it seems clear to me that the guy is belching. Come to think of it, that's also part of *my* feeding behavior.

Come to think of it, I've now finished the behavior book. I can never look at sex (and sexes) the same way again. I'll also be treating late afternoon dives differently.

Kevin

You mean the way female Frog fish will often try to "consume" their male partner after sex, and why the male frogfish will typically "haul ass" after the fun is over....

 

[luthierlady]

Dove the Bridge yesterday (Sunday June 5)
When I got there at 10am and saw the 9000 divers preparing to get in the water, I thought, "well this is going to be a goat scrum" But any day diving is better than no diving, even in a "traffic jam".

So I dutifully, suited up, crossed my fins and piled in with the rest of the heard. I figured maybe not many people would be out around the outer reaches of the fishing pier so that is where I headed.

When I got there, the only people swimming in the area were photographers. And as we all know, photogs HATE silting. I had picked the right place to be. Not great vis, but good enough for me.

I was trying out my new GoPro HD camera. For the first time using it (or any other video camera for that matter) underwater, the pictures came out pretty good. Going to have to work on a few things to make them look better, but overall was happy with the results. Definitely have to get the flat lens for it though.

I spent about 1 1/4 hrs just under the fishing bridge, then I moved on to the channel pilings to finish up. I was poking around the pilings next to the wall. That's when what looked like danvolker scootered right in front of me from between the pilings, as he was coming back from, well, where he had been. Didn't know it at the time, but I had geared up right next to he and his posse (i.e. the kayak and friends)


Dang, those scooter things look like they'd be REALLY cool ride behind!

Overall, a good dive. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Even got a good parking spot, twice, right next to where the Dive Club was having our picnic

One note to anyone who might have lost a dive knife, or know of someone who did. I found a nice one. The person's name on it is "ROOKER". If anyone here lost it, or know who this person might be, let me know. If you can describe the knife, I'll send it back to you.

Also, someone left a mask over close to where our Dive Club was having the picnic. I think it was probably someone in our group that left it, but if anyone lost a mask, we'll be able to get that back to you too.

 

[luthierlady]

Deleting duplicate post.

 

[Onewolf]

BTW, when there are 9000 divers having a Goat Scrum and the parking lot is completely full and there are cars parked in boat/trailer spots and there are 3-4 Riviera Beach cops writing tickets and wreckers towing cars, what is "Plan B" for parking?

 

[Onewolf]

I fear I'm doomed to never find that type of jawfish, much less *any* jawfish with a mouth full of eggs. :depressed: *So* dern cool.

I'd love to hear more about the differences you perceive in shooting with the 100 vs. the 60. I already have a dickens of a time finding my center red square that lights up when autofocusing - without which I'd have no clue where I was aimed. Assuming that you also utilize that gadget for aiming purposes, is it significantly different with the 100mm? Do you miss the different capabilities of the 60mm much when shooting with the 100?

With all these cool pics getting posted and with the east span apparently opening up and with the summer slow-down in the office, I'm very tempted to hop back in the car tomorrow afternoon and head south again. . .

Kevin

What kind of housing/viewfinder are you using? For this dive I was using the Nauticam 180 deg viewfinder which presents a much larger image than the 'stock' Canon T2i viewfinder. This makes it fairly easy to see exactly what's going on in the viewfinder. I love love love my Nauticam 180 deg viewfinder. I want to marry it and have it's children.

Last week I tried the Inon 45 deg viewfinder and there was definitely a steep learning curve (that I still need to work on) when using it with the 60mm macro (I didn't try the 100mm macro). I imagine the 100mm macro will be even more of a challenge with the 45 deg viewfinder because _my_ tendency was always to start aiming HIGH. The 45 deg viewfinder does not display nearly as large an image as the Nauticam 180 deg viewfinder. With the 100mm macro the field of view is much narrower so you need to be lined up almost perfectly to 'find' the subject initially. The 60mm works very well for small/medium sized fish portraits. So far it seems like the 100mm is probably not so good for med+ sized fish portraits (but I knew that already).

I ordered the Subsee +10 magnifier last week because I want to be able to take closeups of the larvae in the Jawfish's mouth.

I just started shooting the SLR UW late last year so I have a long way to go to become 'proficient'. The good news is we are going to Bonaire for a week in June and I'm doing the M/V Spree Nauticam/Reef Photo trip in August so I should get a lot of UW practice time in this summer.

 

[jet126]

BTW, when there are 9000 divers having a Goat Scrum and the parking lot is completely full and there are cars parked in boat/trailer spots and there are 3-4 Riviera Beach cops writing tickets and wreckers towing cars, what is "Plan B" for parking?

I have left my gear with a buddy, parked in Force E's lot and walked back.

 

[jet126]

I spent two hours exploring under the boats today. “The Man” cut my dive short. I had strayed into the boat channel. I knew this of course, and was trying to make my way back as efficiently as possible. I guess I strayed a little farther than I realized: I was pretty much headed to Peanut Island by the time I turned myself around.

Remember a few pages back when we discussed solo diving? We talked about the importance of excellent navigation skills? I would like to add, after today, that a compass is no good unless you actually use it.

Fortunately for me, I was contrite enough and mortified enough, and the officer was nice enough, that no citations were issued. I think it helped that I volunteered that I was an idiot before he had a chance to call me one. But I did have to endure the Walk of Shame back to my car.

I share this for two reasons: 1) Use your compass and 2) Not only is the boat channel super dangerous, diving there is against the law and they will come after you.

Still a beautiful dive! Water temp 81. It’s time to switch to my 3mm.

Here are a few pics from today.

 

[scubajim 1]

Poor Jet! She did the naughty!

It was a beautiful dive today water as warm as 82.4..viz between 25-35. There were lots of octos out again and all the wildlife seemed very mellow today. Even the garden eels stayed out of their holes.

Saw a brooding banded jawfish...anyone know how long he keeps those eggs in his mouth? He must get mighty hungry.
Also I'm posting a picture of two shrimplike critters I watched chase eachother all over a rock. Anyone have an ID for me?


You just gotta love the bridge...always something new and beautiful to see!