Remote islands, dive master training, I can’t ask for much more
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
This will be my last post for several weeks. I’m powering down the blog temporarily, as today I head to India’s far-off Andaman and Nicobar Islands again for professional dive training there. I’ll be interning at a dive shop and completing the PADI Divemaster program during the next three weeks.
And, of course, I’m doing it where I started diving little more than a year ago.
Since I took my first breath of compressed air in December 2009, I’ve logged 95 dives across India, Thailand, the U.S. and Ecuador (both the coast the Galapagos Islands). I’ve posted numerous underwater photos on this blog. I’m a certified Rescue Diver with Deep Speciality. I have big dreams of diving the Maldives, Indonesia, the Read Sea, the U.K. coast, Vietnam and more.
This is more than just hardcore goofing off (though there’s that, too). As I prepare for graduate studies in international environmental policy and/or development this fall, I’m intentionally adding divemaster training to my educational background. The goal will be to use my love of diving at least some once I return to work, ideally as a researcher/advisor/documentarian focused on conservation, sustainable resource management and economic development.
But since the Andamans (specifically Havelock Island where I’ll be camped in a bamboo hut) aren’t exactly close to anywhere — and since I’ll be working full-time during the day and frequently studying at night — I will likely see little of the Internet. As such, I will halt updates to the blog until I return to Delhi on 8 February.
Of course, when I’m back, there will be plenty of new underwater photos — and possible HD video — as I’ve got a new underwater camera and housing.
Hallelujah for the good times ahead. More when I get back safely.
Tags: andaman and nicobar, conservation, divemaster training, havelock, india, ocean, padi, scuba diving
The most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Mantarraya gigante
The Giant Manta Ray. This one — and a couple others — cruised past Daphne on my last day of diving in the Galapagos Islands. A fitting final dive.
These guys are near threatened according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, making them actually one of the less endangered of the charismatic mega fauna of the sea. That said, they face serious pressure from overfishing and destructive catch tactics and are often killed as incidental bycatch. I’ve seen juveniles, which are less able to avoid nets, tossed dead in the back of trucks beach side to be sold as “trash fish.”
But having dived with these giants — the largest one on record was more than 25 feet across and weighed two and a half tons — I now plead: Please source your seafood.
The photos (above and below) are in black and white, because of the poor color reproduction. Between the distance, the grain of low-light and the poor underwater visibility, the camera captured little more than wondrous shadows. Continue reading this entry » » »
Tags: bycatch, conservation, daphne, ecuador, galapagos, giant manta ray, mantarraya gigante, ocean, photography, scuba diving, wildlife
Ghosts of hammerheads
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Shadows
Scalloped hammerheads off Kicker Rock, San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands.
With low light, poor visibility and nothing but blue sea beyond, they were little more than ghosts as they slipped by us on a dive site. I’ve reproduced in black and white to maintain image quality.
Tags: ecuador, galapagos, hammerhead, kicker rock, ocean, photography, san cristobal, scalloped hammerhead, scuba diving, shark, wildlife
Happy napping sea lion
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Sloth defined
Sea lions will nap just about anywhere. This one chose a ledge just above the surf on Kicker Rock off San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands.
Tags: ecuador, galapagos, kicker rock, ocean, photography, san cristobal, scuba diving, sea lion, wildlife
An underwater rocket of blubber and teeth
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Fire!
A sea lion off Kicker Rock shoots past me on a dive near San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands.
Tags: ecuador, galapagos, kicker rock, ocean, photography, san cristobal, scuba diving, sea lion, wildlife
King of angels
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Angel King
Hello, King Angelfish. More properly known as the Passer Angelfish. They grow more than 15 inches long and are ubiquitous at dive sites in the Galapagos Islands. This one comes from Gordon Rocks, during a dive that was otherwise interrupted by the presence of thousands of little jellyfish.
Tags: ecuador, fish, galapagos, gordon rocks, king angelfish, ocean, passer angelfish, photography, scuba diving, wildlife
Kickin’ rocks
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Kicker rock
The Kicker Rock dive site, also known as Leon Dormido, off San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands.
Probably the single best site of my Galapagos adventures. We dropped into the channel between the two pinnacles and — after a bit of trouble with another diver’s weight — we swam beneath a school of about 40 juvenile Galapagos sharks.
We circled the smaller pinnacle for a bit; I ended up finishing the dive “alone” as I was the only tourist left with air. For the record, diving alone is incredibly unsafe. I wasn’t really; I was only down about six meters, with the divemaster on the surface above me, keeping an eye on both the spent divers and me.
(That’s still not the best way to go, but everyone else had burned their tanks just 30 minutes in. I’m a bit better on air and wanted to enjoy. Plus, six meters is a depth from which I could easily ascend on a single breath if need be.)
Tags: ecuador, kicker rock, leon dormido, ocean, san cristobal, scuba diving
Cave sharks
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Napping sharks
As soon as we dropped down in some choppy water off Daphne, Galapagos Islands, we found this cave with three resting white tip reef sharks. Absolutely arresting.
The photo is black and white because in addition to shooting blind, I was in low-light, so the colors don’t reproduce so well.
Tags: daphne, ecuador, galapagos, ocean, photography, scuba diving, shark, white tip reef shark, wildlife
These guys will grow up to be trouble
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Squishy
My last dive at the celebrated Gordon Rocks site in the Galapagos Islands was hijacked by thousands of these little bastards.
Juvenile jellyfish (or so I’m told). Not much sting to them, unless they hit really soft skin on the face, but they were enough to drive away almost all other sea creatures.
A combination of very weird currents (and, I should say, weird for Gordon Rocks, which always had interesting currents that shift by the hour) created something of a dead zone in the middle of the site, which is a collapsed volcano cone. The result was a limbo that was hospitable to these tiny jellyfish, which were no bigger than half my thumb.
Tags: ecuador, galapagos, gordon rocks, jellyfish, ocean, photography, scuba diving, tiny, wildlife
Tales of shark tails
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador
Not for consumption
A hiding white tip reef shark leaves its tail exposed for all of us to gawk at. Found off Daphne, Galapagos Islands.
Tags: daphne, ecuador, galapagos, ocean, photography, scuba diving, shark, white tip reef shark, wildlife
