Marine life pages are updated!

I ran through and did a pretty thorough update on all of the Cote d’azur Marine Animal and Fish pages with a bunch of new photos, links and descriptions. I threw in everything I could identify, and even some I couldn’t! Some of the new additions include different shrimp, new anemones, chapon, needlefish, rays and a lot more.

Check it out.

Fish Page: http://www.azur-diving.com/cote-d%E2%80%99azur-marine-life-%E2%80%93-fish/

Marine Animal Page: http://www.azur-diving.com/cote-dazur-marine-life-marine-animals/

Small anemone crab

Edit: Some browsers might have issues with the photo enlarge and the video on the same page. For now, just scroll down the page when looking at the enlarged photos if you have them layered strangely. I am too tired at this point to deal with it, but will look at it another day.

I know it has been awhile since I have posted anything, but I have been laying low – taking a break from diving. I have been preparing for next spring, selling off most of my photo equipment, and saving up for a new, more professional rig. I am going with the Nikon D90 (yes, I switched teams), with an Ikelite case with 8″ dome and sigma 8-16 mm wide angle lens. My goal is around May to have everything in my possession.

I just got my case the other day, but have to save up a bit more to be able to afford the rest. Well either that, or actually sell my old equipment… I put it up on Ebay last week, but no bites yet.

I had a nice outing today, even though the current was high, and the conditions weren’t ideal. The weather was great. We have had an exceptionally nice winter over here, and it has been a great pleasure to get outdoors – even in January.

I think that my break from diving is a good thing. I have been doing a lot more photo work topside of late, and trying to improve my fundamentals, as well as my post-processing technique. I think it has made a huge difference in my photo work, and I hope we will see the results next summer.

Anyways, I took a short vid of an octopus that I harassed (seen below). Check it out, and enjoy the photos!

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I first learned about it several weeks ago, and I had wanted to find it, but logistics, vacation, and weather conditions had prevented it. This weekend was the first moment when everything was just right, and we set out to search for it. Due to the excellent visibility, we were able to locate it within about 15 minutes.

It is a beauty of a statue, and stirs the emotions to look at it. I won’t say too much more on the subject, but will let the photos speak for themselves. Enjoy the photos!

Meeting the Virgin

Deep in Prayer

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Aguillette, Needlefish, or Garfish

A few weeks ago, I went to visit the small town of St. Tropez. The town itself is rich and full of pomp. Huge yachts, fancy cars, lots of celebrities all about, and expensive designer shops. Not exactly my kind of place.

The town was nice enough, I enjoyed to architecture and the setting quite a bit. However, the highlight was the nearby beach of l’Escalet. What a jewel. Clear water, beautiful sands, and a healthy ecosystem as far as I could tell.

I have never seen as many fish anywhere in the Mediterranean as I saw there. Huge schools of sardines and saupe were everywhere, and at times, I could hardly fit even a small part of the schools into the view of my wide angle. I took a bunch of video, and condensed it down to around four minutes.

While editing the video, I realized I had over ten solid minutes of footage of huge schools of fish. School after school passed my angle of view, and it was honestly hard to cut it down.The end result is below. I just want to say that I accidentally grabbed my chipped wide angle dome on the way out the door (I bought another one after I chipped my first one, and kept it for spare parts). It is fine for photos – it rarely ever shows, but for video, it shows almost all the time. I also had something on my lens on the interior of my camera, but once I hit the water, there was nothing to be done about it. Sorry for that and I hope you can enjoy the vid just the same!

Sole (flounder) and a grande vive (greater weever)

To my absolute delight, I finally got close to a bunch of species that I had either very rarely seen from a distance, or never even knew existed in my area. These included the aguillette (needlefish, or garfish), rombou, petite sole jaune (both are varieties of flounders), grande vive (greater weever), and what I think is a dragonnet, but I have not been able to get a positive identification on it yet.

I got some decent photos of all of them, and then immediately began researching my new discoveries online the second I arrived at home. It turns out that the vive (or weever), has a vicious poisonous sting that can cause intensive pain for up to two weeks. It has dorsal fins with spines that if touched, will inject their venom and make the aggressor wish they had never gone near.

I also learned that the aguillette (or needlefish) has been known to be attracted to flashy objects, sometime propelling themselves towards the object while airborne. In other countries, these fish are a huge danger to fishermen while fishing at night. They will occasionally hurl themselves out of the water towards the light source, and stick their shark points into whatever they hit, including people. Their sharp beaks can pierce arteries, organs, and flesh. I even read one report of a young man in the Mediterranean who was pierced through his nose and out the side of his cheek. A little bit of surgery later, and he was good as new.

However, such attacks are rare in this area. But this leads me to a huge question; why do I always seem to learn these types of things AFTER I go chasing after something with my camera?

As always, enjoy the photos!

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Marker dedicated to Cyril Isoardi - free diver

In the waters just beyond the Cap de Nice at a depth of 27 meters (88 feet), there lies a large stone marker dedicated to a late 80′s and early 90′s freediving prodigy named Cyril Isoardi. A friend and I happened to stumble upon this marker by complete accident. Whereas my friend knew who it was, and was familiar with the story of the diver and the marker, it was completely new to me. It was a really special discovery, but at the same time, a sobering reminder of the dangers of freediving.

We picked a dive spot at random and started exploring. After a couple dives to about 17 meters or so, my partner noted that he thought he saw a stone marker at depth. I dove in the same area and confirmed that there was a statue there. By my estimate, I thought it was at about 20 meters, so we prepped to dive a bit deeper. When I dove again, I pressed to the bottom, and began taking photos. I noted that there didn’t seem to be much light, and glanced down at my watch and saw that I was at 27 meters! After realizing how deep I was, I booked it to the surface. At about 12 meters, my partner met me to escort me to the surface. The whole thing passed without event, but I was certainly glad to have a.) a good partner and b.) oxygen in my lungs.

Cyril Isoardi was well recognized as an up-an-coming force in the free diving world, and had made over 50 dives to depths of 100 (330 feet) meters or more using the free diving No-Limits Technique. The story goes that he began training intensively, and in the ten days before his death had made rapid progress with numerous dives. It was in this span that he progressed from about 112 meters max to 122 meters. Then, on March 29th, 1994, he took his sled down to 128 meters. Several minutes later the sled resurfaced, but he did not. His body was never recovered. No one knows what happened to him, and why he never resurfaced. He was 24 years old. According to what I have heard, his death (as well as the death of a notable Italian free diver at about the same time) sent a lot of waves across the free diving world and raised many questions about safety and security within the discipline.

Some time after his death, the stone marked was sunk near the place where he lost his life. I never met him, but I am grateful I got to discover his legacy – especially in the way I did. I can’t think of anything more fitting.

Free diver with Castagnoles

Marker dedicated to Cyril Isoardi - free diver

Some bottle divers swimming above

Waving hello

EDIT: I added a geotag in Flickr so those who want to locate this marker can use the map as a guide. View it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/azur-diving/6113627158/map/

I originally  took my cameras with me simply to do some comparisons between the wide angle capabilities of the two. If you are curious, I got a much wider field of view with my Canon G9 than my D10 with the same wide angle dome (the D10 wide angle dome mount is a bayonet-style mount that I modded myself).

Long story short, I had a blast at the pool and I learned that my girlfriend’s niece is a total ham for the camera. Enjoy the shots.

Close encounters of the silly kind

Making a splash - and bubbles!

Goofiness rules beneath the surface

Learning to swim

My best shot in a while.

I just had to post this shot from the weekend. It was a chance shot I got of a young boy – 14 or 15 years old diving off the rocks in Cap du Dramont near St. Raphael. I have more shots to post at some point, nice ones to boot, but I’ll post some of those another day. Right now, I have to get some stuff done around the house!

For the fashion-conscious eel, shrimp hats are totally in this season.

Not much to say except that I’vebeen quite busy with summer, diving and photo work. Even though I am missing my “real” dive camera, I’ve discovered that my Canon D10 is a nice temporary substitute. I’ve been really having a lot of fun with it. I have fully tested it out with my dual stacked Inon macro lenses and my wide angle, and I have had some wonderful results. I even made a life hack (anyone not familair with the term “life hack should Google it) to be able to use my external flash with it. It is a wonder what a sheet of neoprene and some velcro can do!

It is a little frustrating that I have a ton less control, but the sheer speed, accuracy, and small size have all combined to make my photo work a ton of fun. My biggest complaint is the depth limit. I ended up taking it just to the limit of its depth rating at 10 meters (33 feet) yesterday. I have to be very careful to watch it, unlike my G9 (which I should have back from Canon in two weeks or so).

I have shot a ton more shots of late than what is shown here, and I will be posting them next week. For now, enjoy the shots!

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Working in monotone and black and white can liven up a composition

I don’t usually do a lot of work in black and white, but I decided to give it a shot. I always tend to think of black and white and monotone photography as a last resort for photos that don’t work in color, but the truth is that they can really make a composition sing. Some of the photos below have already been on the site in color, and some are completely new.

In other news, I had a run of rather bad luck in the last few weeks… My Canon G9 bit the dust last week, and my main hard drive on my server failed as well. The good new is that I sent the camera off to Canon to get repaired, and I expect it to be a relatively simple and inexpensive fix based on the research I conducted (fingers are crossed). As for my hard drive, I replaced it and got it back up and running within 36 hours. The bad news is that I hadn’t really counted on spending all that money, and it looks like I will be without my G9 for up to two months!

Luckily, I have my Canon Powershot D10 as a backup camera. It is much more limited than my G9 in that it is more of a point-and-shoot affair with much less manual control, and I am limited to 10 meters (about 33 feet) in depth. While I won’t be able to take it very deep, I have already heavily modified my rig to work with my D10, allowing me to use my strobe, my stacked Inon macro lenses, and my wide angle dome. All my alterations are completely home-made, and it even looks pretty cool. I spent all last week tweaking the setup and perfecting it. My initial tested are pretty good, and I just have a few minor light leakage issues when using the wide angle lens to patch up. I even hacked the camera with the use of the CHDK custom firmware in order to utilize RAW format. With that last touch, I can last a few months and keep shooting without missing a beat while waiting for my baby to get repaired. I think I will post pictures and details on how I set up my Canon D10. Some people might find it useful, and it might even spur on some further ideas on making the D10 a legitimate shallow dive camera.

I have a bunch more photos coming this week. I’ve been doing a lot of shooting these last few weeks, and a deluge of photos is coming your way soon! Enjoy the photos.

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