Wetpixel: Bahamas Sharks & Dolphins trip report. July 2008

amazing !!!!!!

me and my girlfriend really want to join one of these trips one day

"After dinner we motor back to Tiger Beach for a night dive"

even if you are a real man....isnt this alot of risk??

The trip was absolutely fantastic.

IF everyone did a trip like this there would be no danger of sharks becoming extinct.

I would like to publically thank Jim and the rest of crew (Racquel, John and Mike) for making the trip so special. Jim's enthusiasm and energy is infectious and never flags.

The night dive at tiger beach was great fun but no tigers this time - the lemon sharks are like a bunch of labradors milling round whereas someone on the trip famously referred to diving with the tigers as "being like a rottweiler sniffing your balls".

The weather conditions were mostly completely flat calm all week - the journey over to Bahamas was a bit choppier. The Shearwater isn't great in weather as its quite small.

A testament to the trip is that everyone on board said that they wanted to go back and do another Shearwater trip.

Mark

"being like a rottweiler sniffing your balls".

Mark

For two years I have been without a television. Last week I turned it back on because my girlfriend had foot surgery and I did not want her stuck home without the tube. So I watched shark week stuff on the discovery channel. What a freaking stupid program. They are constantly saying how dangerous the lemon sharks are and showing how "aggressive" the reef sharks are. Gosh, reef sharks are responsible for more attacks on humans than any other species! My goodness, lets through a 500 pound chumsicle in the water and see if they are as "aggressive" in the morning as they are at night. SHOCKER... if you are a chumsicle, there is no safe time to be in the water with reef sharks.

Forget it if you are in the water with a white shark.

They do their "pubic service" duty by putting in the commercials which provide a "reminder" that sharks have more to fear from us than we do of them, but they don't show any footage of the sharks that present them in this kind light. Instead, when the tiger bumps the camera, the cameraman "survived by defending himself". Sensationalist garbage. In sharkdiver magazine they write about photographers who have "too many" head shots of the tiger shark, and how to vary your portfolio by taking pictures of tails after the shark bumps your housing and turns around. Funny, they never mention that using your camera as a shield is a way to "survive" the encounter. Here I was left thinking that the shark was just curious and liked to bump things.

DAY 6 – Goodbye Tiger Beach. Hello dolphins and more dolphins

We decided to try for once last Emma encounter at Tiger Beach, but today for breakfast we were only joined by lemons. But we decided to stay for an hour or two anyway. I used this as a chance to shoot my alternative cameras, using both the Fuji F50 with Inon 165 fisheye and Nikon D80 on the lemon sharks. I soon learned that the underwater mode of my Fuji F50 is pretty useless. Even in only 4m of water at tiger beach the shots were all blue. Luckily being only 4m deep I zipped up to the boat, stuck a filter on and got some great shots. I think the only downside of the F50 at Tiger Beach is that it is so small! I’d rather have something bigger between me and a tiger.

It was glassy calm and great conditions for shooting the lemons up at the surface. Pedro got some very nice flying shark images. A few of us also did shots were you could see people on the boat above the sharks.

We took and early lunch and soon we were motoring up to White Sand Ridge in search of dolphins. We were targeting two species the more common and playful Atlantic spotted dolphins and the larger bottlenose dolphins. As soon as we reached the incredible turquoise waters of the ridge we had a mother and calf on the bow. The mother was very spotty, but the youngster hardly had a marking. A few of the group tried to swim with them, but these dolphins weren’t in the mood to play. So we motored on.

Soon we found a group of bottlenoses. We spent about 20 minutes shooting them from above the water – jumping, riding the bow and as wide angle shots of them swimming in the glassy ocean. The conditions really were perfect. Then we got in.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Jim had a secret weapon on this trip – Sea-Bob. This was a super powerful scooter that was capable of twelve knots and the dolphins loved it. Dolphins are naturally very curious about people. But their interest rarely lasts long because we just can’t swim fast enough to be interesting. Not so with the bob, that thing shifts. It is actually painful to use on full power, and if you don’t want to end up with arms like Mr Tickle (non-Brits may have to google that reference) it is best to set the scooter to less than half power. Although Jimmy likes to crank it up a bit, as he said “I’m not really a 40% kind of guy”. I think this refers to more than just the scooter.

The seabob, driven by Racquel (infinitely more photogenic than Jim), and the normal scooter made us pretty much irresistible to the bottlenoses and we enjoyed over two and a half hours in the water with them. In glassy calm conditions. Wow.

Here is Racquel, herding dolphins passed waiting photographers.

Then it was back on board and off in search of spotteds. We found a group of 3 pairs quite quickly, but with light beginning to ebb away they seemed keen to get to their destination. We jumped in a few times with them but only really got passes. Paul got a great shot of one with John and Pedro got a nice pose of a pair, but otherwise it was pretty frustrating photographically.

Instead we decided to shoot them topside. They seemed very keen to hitch a lift on the bow wave. It seemed like they were on the bow forever. We worked every angle we could think of. And in the end we all headed in for dinner leaving the dolphins riding happily on the bow.

By this stage we were all shattered. What a day. I had already shot over 1000 images. Tiger Beach and then encounters with spotted and bottlenose dolphins. The latter lasting for more than two hours is draining. We were all ready for bed, then Jim suggested heading out into open water for a night dolphin encounter.

The most amazing day of the trip. I shot about 1400 images on this day. Goodness knows how many Jim shot. Here is Jim shot out...

At night, drifting in the Gulf Stream with the lights turned on, the boat attracts flying fish and pelagic squid. These easy pickings then attract the dolphins. It is best to preset the focus. I find the white step on the back of Shear Water ideal. Then lock it on manual and zap as the dolphins speed past. Boy, can they shift when they are hunting. It is hard to keep up with them while panning. Chris got some stunning video of the dolphins in the dark. First you would hear the clicks, then the dolphin would burst into the frame. Wow.

It was another magical experience and I finally hauled myself out of the water just before midnight. I calculated I shot just under 1400 images since I had got up that morning. What a day.

DAY 7 – Bottlenoses forever, rarely spotted, night drift in the Gulf Stream

The day after the night before, I think we were all quite glad to have a slow morning. We were keen to find the pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins, but they were hard to find. The conditions couldn’t have been better for seeing dolphins, but the species we were after just couldn’t be spotted.

Chris and Mike searching for dolphins in challenging sea conditions.

After lunch we ran into the bottlenose dolphins again and seduced them into another amazing encounter with the super-scooter. Once again they played with us for a couple of hours, the pod slowly growing in size the longer we stayed in the water. The bottlenoses were hunting razorfish in the sand. From the surface we could hear their sonar clicks and watch them digging in the sand for the wrasse with their snouts and then play and photograph them when they came up for a breath, their sonar clicks changing to whistles. I was surprised how regularly they needed to breathe. Maybe they just liked playing.

There was also a large, but thin looking bull shark following the pod. Another shark species for the tally, although only a couple of us spotted him. Paul pointed him out to me, and I only say him at a distance. Initially I thought he was a large dusky shark.

After this fantastic encounter we once again went hunting for the spotteds. Really this was a chance for everyone to download their bloated memory cards. Bess, Chris, Paul and Robin wracked up the hours looking for signs. I have to admit that many of the rest of us stayed inside with Lightroom running on our laptops and movies playing in the Shear Water’s saloon. Everyone had great shots of each other with the dolphins, so as is traditional on Wetpixel trips there was lots of exchanging of RAW files. It is so nice to have pictures of yourself with dolphins.

We did find a few spotteds, but they were not in the mood to play so we just did topside shooting. I should mention that it is really worth bringing a second body, land flash and telephoto (like a 70-200mm) on a JASA trip.

Glorious conditions, gosh, it was a tough trip. Me on the bow.

After dark we decided to head out into the Gulf Stream again. At least we were having luck with the spotted dolphins at night. We were also keen to try some macro with subjects like pelagic squid and octopus, juvenile porcupine fish, flying fish and various other creatures drifting in the current. Because the boat is drifting in the current too you don’t have any sensation of being in a flow in the darkness. It is nice to be part of the plankton for once.

Pedro and I stayed on snorkel, while Mark, John, Robin and Jim strapped on tanks. We were more manoeuvrable, they were more stable. Both approaches have advantages. The spotted dolphins turned up again and it was another post mid-night finish. There was much snoring on board, that night.

DAY 8 – Reef sharks and plankton photography

For our final day we decided to revisit reef sharks. As we had done them on the first day, while everyone was getting up to speed, going again would allow us to improve our shots. We also hoped that we might attract a tiger in to the reef at Carcharias Cut and get the chance to photograph one in deeper water than at Tiger Beach.

I was in group two, so I spend the first hour of the morning improving Jim’s plankton net, which was made from a lady’s stocking (well I hope it was a lady’s). I used to work on plankton so with help from Paul I added a nose-cone, fins and a drogue to the net – made from discarded milk and bleach cartons! Much to my surprise the net work brilliantly. It hung perfectly in the current filtering out copepods, radiolarians, amphipods, euphausiids and cyanobacterial colonies.

For plankton photography we used Jim’s setup with a pair of lens, the shorter focal length lens reversed to give extra magnification. We didn’t actually have the correct double filter thread to screw them together, so we just used back gaffer tape. (As I am sure you know, gaffer tape is like The Force: it have a light side and a dark side and it binds the universe together). Jim was most upset I put my Nikon flash on his Canon body – but it worked perfectly. I think he disinfected it afterwards. Despite the rather Heath Robinson setup the images were pretty decent. I’ll post some at some point – I think the best shots were of a cyclopoid copepod – probably Oithona species.

This is a radiolarian, I think:

The main mistake I made was nearly putting the jar of plankton in the fridge – a hang up from my years working in the cold waters of the Iceland Basin! Fortunately I remembered these were tropical species.

Laz Ruda has been producing some stunning plankton images using a similar system. Not that our shots reached his quality, but the potential was there. I definitely plan to try this again at home.

Ok, back to the sharks. The reef is very pretty at Carcharias Cut and is an ideal location for shooting reef + shark images. We had a nice bit of current running, which made it much easier to line up the sharks and really nail the shots. We just went in an out all day.

A medium sized tiger made a few passes mid afternoon, but it was not until 16:45, 15 minutes before we were due to leave, that a large tiger showed up. Only Mark was in the water at the time and certainly got a close encounter as a result. He was particularly relieved to see Jim appear. Maybe Mark will elaborate on this one for us.

Then we set sail for home. The end of a fabulous trip.

That's the end of the report, but I have some amusing images of the group on board to post.

Hi, guys

not many more to be added to this comprehensive report. An incredible experience highly advisable for others!!!

Thumbs up for Jim and his amazing crew too. Without them nothing would have been possible!

And thank you too to Alex for his advice and patiente with me while together

Most important of all, the opportunity to meet such a group of photo freaks!!!: Marc, John, Paul, Chris, Bess & Robin. Ya´ miss you, guys...

I am still working in my web page, but in the meantime you can see some of my keepers in the spanish forum I do participate in:

Cover Shot: http://www.forobuceo.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46709

Lemmon Sharks in Tiger Beach: http://www.forobuceo.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46718

Dolphins: http://www.forobuceo.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46749

Night dives in the Golf current: http://www.forobuceo.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46751

Regards.

Alex, Pedro, it's like WOW, WOW, WOW.

I'm short of breath just reading this stuff and looking at the pictures and the conditions, remembering what it's like chasing those dolphins. I swallowed so much salt water in those two hour stints I threw up a couple of times. I already have one JASA trip booked next year, I might have to make it at least two.

Alex. Thanks for the wonderful trip report. I'm so happy to hear Emma is alive and well. I was at UNEXSO a week after the Tiger slaying and everybody was quite worried it might be her. Hopefully she will stay too smart for the sport fishermen.

I'm still downloading images and doing laundry, but I wanted to take a moment to thank Jim and the crew for the most amazing week of my life. The incredible macro dive at Blue Heron bridge, the beautiful reef settings, hours spent playing with dolphins, the shower of phosphorescence coming from the dolphins riding the bow below us and a view of the Milky Way above (a rare treat for us city dwellers), and of course Emma, who stole everyone's heart! Jim's enthusiasm and energy really are contagious. Thanks to him and all the other great photographers on the trip who were always willing to share their knowledge and their extra gear.

I can't wait to do this trip again!

It was the last day of the trip and I had timed everything perfectly to get my last dive in and over before the cutoff of 5pm when we had to leave. This left me in the water on my own for most of the dive.

After about 20 minutes I noticed a Tiger shark at the edges of viz just patrolling up and down and over the course of the dive she came closer and closer until (at this seems to be always the way) I was almost out of No-Deco time and then -

She munched the bait crate and then turned her attentions to me:

After a short spell mouthing my camera and slightly scaring the wetsuit off me, Jim arrived like a night in shining armour (well a yellow rash vest anyway) and she made a bee line for him.

Of course she wasn't really trying to hurt me and was just curious but I can tell you my hands were shaking on my deco stop !

It is worth of course pointing out that these beautiful sharks are not the man eaters everyone thinks they are but you must never forget that they are wild animals and they need to be afforded an immense amount of respect.

Jim later told me that I was in the wrong place on the reef so it was all my own fault but I have learnt when you are on your own and within feet of a 13 foot tiger shark that cool logical thinking is quite difficutl !

Anyway what an experience and I can't wait to do another trip with Jim and I hope to see Denise (the tiger in the pictures) again.

Mark

Wow. So what does it mean to be in the wrong place on the reef? Too close to the chum?

After reading some of the above, I asked my girlfriend, "Would you want to do a night dive with tiger sharks that are 12-15 feet long?"

Her response?

"Yes, they will be easier to see at night if they are big!"

Diving at night with sharks has no allure for me. Seems harder to get a picture and I don't know that I could shake that feeling of being watched by something I can't see, which is bigger and hungrier than me.

Diving at night with sharks has no allure for me. Seems harder to get a picture and I don't know that I could shake that feeling of being watched by something I can't see, which is bigger and hungrier than me.

Sorry David but you need to do the trip - there was no drama at night and nor should there be if all play the game properly - and to be honest that is the only way Jim knows how to play ( that and with the throttle at 100% ).

Paul C

By the way Mark - I hadn't seen the last shot - nice - think you might have waited a little longer before pushing the shutter release though

Paul C ( still pissed cos I was in the water and missed Denise... )

Alex, great to see your still pushing boundaries out there. can't wait to get ya to some of my fave spots in Irian Jaya next year!

Here you have more photos:

-General "diving with tigers" photos: http://www.forobuceo.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46825

- Emma´s photos: http://www.forobuceo.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46826

Hope you like them!!!

you guys are killing me with the pics/report! I have rechecked the holidays I have left, JASA´s schedule and airplane tickets several times now

keep the pictures coming!

Loftus: When are going next year?

Senor, you need to quit your job.... first you want to go for 3 weeks on the Ocean Safari then 1 week on JASA.

DAY 8 – Reef sharks and plankton photography

 

For our final day we decided to revisit reef sharks. As we had done them on the first day, while everyone was getting up to speed, going again would allow us to improve our shots. We also hoped that we might attract a tiger in to the reef at Carcharias Cut and get the chance to photograph one in deeper water than at Tiger Beach.

 

I was in group two, so I spend the first hour of the morning improving Jim’s plankton net, which was made from a lady’s stocking (well I hope it was a lady’s). I used to work on plankton so with help from Paul I added a nose-cone, fins and a drogue to the net – made from discarded milk and bleach cartons! Much to my surprise the net work brilliantly. It hung perfectly in the current filtering out copepods, radiolarians, amphipods, euphausiids and cyanobacterial colonies.

 

 

For plankton photography we used Jim’s setup with a pair of lens, the shorter focal length lens reversed to give extra magnification. We didn’t actually have the correct double filter thread to screw them together, so we just used back gaffer tape. (As I am sure you know, gaffer tape is like The Force: it have a light side and a dark side and it binds the universe together). Jim was most upset I put my Nikon flash on his Canon body – but it worked perfectly. I think he disinfected it afterwards. Despite the rather Heath Robinson setup the images were pretty decent. I’ll post some at some point – I think the best shots were of a cyclopoid copepod – probably Oithona species.

 

This is a radiolarian, I think:

 

 

The main mistake I made was nearly putting the jar of plankton in the fridge – a hang up from my years working in the cold waters of the Iceland Basin! Fortunately I remembered these were tropical species.

 

Laz Ruda has been producing some stunning plankton images using a similar system. Not that our shots reached his quality, but the potential was there. I definitely plan to try this again at home.

 

Ok, back to the sharks. The reef is very pretty at Carcharias Cut and is an ideal location for shooting reef + shark images. We had a nice bit of current running, which made it much easier to line up the sharks and really nail the shots. We just went in an out all day.

 

A medium sized tiger made a few passes mid afternoon, but it was not until 16:45, 15 minutes before we were due to leave, that a large tiger showed up. Only Mark was in the water at the time and certainly got a close encounter as a result. He was particularly relieved to see Jim appear. Maybe Mark will elaborate on this one for us.

 

Then we set sail for home. The end of a fabulous trip.

 

That's the end of the report, but I have some amusing images of the group on board to post.

Were these done in situ?

I'd like to see more!

Excellent!