Coral Reef Photos » Sharks + Rays

Nurse Sharks, Superior Producer, Eastpoint Diving

barry — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:27:32 +0000

Good morning from Curacao, I went to bed at 7:00 last after spending all day at the Superior Producer. There is a film company here making a big promotional commercial about Curacao that will be broadcast in the States and Canada only. They got my name by calling the Dolphin Academy and asked if I was interested in doing all the underwater filming and of course I said yes! The first thing I told them was I have never shot video and only do photos but they assured me this would not be a problem. I met them at Ocean Encounters where they hired a private dive boat and by 9:00 we were on our way to the sunken ship called the Superior Producer. It was a beautiful morning and after an hour of teaching me how to use a Canon EOS 5D in video mode we were off. We had models in the water, a director who was constantly behind me looking over my shoulder and a support crew floating above. With an all around OK given in hand signals we all went under and I started filming but the camera had a problem and would not record, it was on but once we got below four meters it would stop recording and we all had to re-surface. I gave the camera to the support crew and he immediately tried it and it did the same thing, folks this is was a $3000 camera in a $4000 custom made housing that they rented in Miami can you imagine the frustration?? This happened over and over and we spent the next hour and a half back on board talking to people in the States and trying to Google this problem but no answer was found. Finally one of the technicians just pulled some buttons off from the inside and said lets try this so back in we jumped. I quickly tried it and it seemed to be working so again everyone geared up and jumped in and off we went. This time it seemed to be working, we first filmed two dives out in just blue water and then headed down 100 feet to the ship. Once on the ship the director stood behind me and with an OK our two models headed my way “acting like” they just discovered a sunken ship and we shot that scene three times! Our last shot was me high above the ship with the two divers exploring so I shot away and moments later we all “abandoned ship” as our time was up, remember this is a deep dive. So back on the ship the director is looking thru what I shot and finds out that the auto focus was not working on half the shots and says we have to go back and do it again! Well the boat we are on has to go back so the plan is now to come back and do a shore dive later in the afternoon. At 2:30 I met them again and they said “they took the housing apart and found all kinds of problems but now it’s working”. I said great lets go! The plan this time was a bit different, I was to go down and sit on the sand while the divers explored the ship. So down I went and rested on the sand at 110 feet with the ship right in front of me and moments later we were filming or at least I thought we were. I pressed the button to record and nothing happened and as I was trying to get the camera to work to giant Barracudas slowly passed right in front of the camera, I almost cried and wanted to kill this camera! I signaled to the director that it’s not working again and rose up off the sand and went to show him when all of a sudden it stated recording on it’s own!? I got everyone’s attention and said “Action” and again we were under way. To make a long story a bit shorter, the camera ended up only recorded a small amount of what was needed, it just wasn’t recording? So yep you guessed it we will probably have to do it again this week or next. I came home so tired from after being in the sun, on the water in a rocking boat, underwater, messing with dive gear and cameras, and being on two deep dives that I crashed super early last night! What a day!

Here’s a beautiful nurse shark from my dive to the Eastpoint a few weeks ago, I have been wanting to go back every day since. Nurse sharks are nocturnal animals, spending the day in large inactive groups of up to 40 individuals. Hidden under submerged ledges or in crevices within the reef, the nurse sharks seem to prefer specific resting sites and will return to them each day after the night’s hunting. By night, the sharks are largely solitary; they spend most of their time rifling through the bottom sediments in search of food. Their diet consists primarily of crustaceans, mollusks, tunicates, sea snakes, and other fish particularly stingrays.

I have such a busy day ahead, Aimee will be here tonight! Gotta go, Barry

Southern Stingrays

barry — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:08:09 +0000

Southern Stingrays

Good evening friends, boy did we ever have a busy day at Dolphin Academy!! Today was as busy as it gets, we were pretty much fully booked on all swims and encounters all day. The hardest part of the day was dealing with the gale force winds and monster waves that rolled in every second of the day, it made taking pictures very entertaining! I always get a big kick out of watching our guests jump into the lagoons for a dolphin swim with the waves crashing over the rocks, the rocks stop the waves but it’s still pretty rough in there, they were real troopers today!!

Here’s some more Stingrays for you all this evening, something I get a lot of requests for but never seem to take the time to shoot. There are four Southern Stingrays in this photo. One is at the bottom of the photo buried under the sand, the other three are swimming around. Remember a few weeks back I sent you a photo of just the eye of a stingray? Well the one buried in the sand was my model, he figured he was well enough hidden that I couldn’t see him, boy was he wrong! These big rays love to cover themselves in sand and sometimes the only thing showing is their eyes, its really cool. This was shot inside our one and only Animal Encounters at the Curacao Sea Aquarium, you can also see the big antique ships anchor laying in the sand in the background and we also have old canons as well.

Aimee and I are both off tomorrow but I have to work Christmas and the day after, yes it kind of stinks but they give us extra pay for working holidays. That’s it for my day, I hear South Dakota is bracing itself for a big winter storm, send us photos!! Be back tomorrow, Barry

Macro View of Southern Stingrays Eye

barry — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:56:55 +0000

Stingray Eye

Good evening friends, you probably noticed right off that tonight there is a different copyright stamp on the photo and the reason for that is my “Photoshop Batch” program is for some strange reason not working?? I shot this yesterday for you all, this is a close-up view of the eye of a big Southern Stingray. I found this guy buried in the sand with only his eyes poking out at the one and only “Animal Encounters” located at the Curacao Sea Aquarium. This ray was probably six feet long with his tail and to my surprise let me get very close for this shot, usually they swim away. I think he thought he was well hidden under all that sand and that no one could see him, little does he know the outline of his body stood out like a sore thumb!!

As of this morning our car is down again!! Aimee came home from walking the dogs at 7:00 and said, “I think the clutch just went out” and boy was she ever right. With the help of our friend Michelle we were able to get it a to a nearby garage but it will have to just sit there until Monday morning as everything is closed on the weekends here! I tell you, broken camera, broken computer, now the car, geez where will it end, this is killing us!! Our car has been great but I think it’s starting to go down hill fast, the motor is still nice but everything else is falling victim to our fast paced Caribbean lifestyle and the good o’l salt air! Tonight we had to ride our bikes to the store to get some groceries and not sure yet how I am going to get the dogs to the trail tomorrow.

Hope everyone is getting the most out of your weekend, you’ve waited all week for these two days so live it up!! I smell dinner, talk to you soon, Barry

Southern or Caribbean Stingrays in Curacao

barry — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:52:08 +0000

Caribbean Stingray

Good evening from the ABC islands!! Over the past year many have requested a Stingray photo and by golly I found a few this week in my old stock of photos. This is the Southern Stingray or also called the Caribbean Stingray and is the most common ray found in the Caribbean. These were shot right in our own backyard at the Curacao Sea Aquarium in Animal Encounters. Here you can pay to swim with the rays and other fish in a giant lagoon and feed them at the same time, it’s quite the adventure just ask our guests who have done it, right Nancy!! I can still remember the look on our friend Bernard’s face when he went in with me for the first time. Once they found out he had food it was every ray for himself and seconds later he was completely covered in rays, one was even resting on his head! We do see these out diving on the reef but I think mostly they are laying in sand somewhere completely covered and we probably swim right over them.

Aimee was off all day, I worked and it was busy again, it sure makes the day go by fast. We are doing a little family adventure tomorrow morning to a new place that Aimee found today, I’ll send a photo. I’m out, have a great evening, Barry

28-10-2009