Underwater Photos from the Island Nation of the Philippines

Heh... those are coral polyps opening up to feed right at dusk.

I'll keep shooting and posting, so that at least you can dive vicariously, Fletch.

Thanks for the compliment.

magz, you have it right. It actually gets even more diverse as you head south into the Visayas. I really want to do some diving off of Mindanao someday, perhaps when it's more stable down there. Tubbataha is also high on my list.

Thanks, A Mac!

I'm not the law around here anymore, but I'll offer some thoughts:

- in the past it's been acceptable to include tasteful links to your own site. The big no-no was seeding links driven primarily by the profit motive. We especially looked down on "link farms" - people who seeded tons of links and added very little or no original content, value or discussion to the community.

BTW, AtlasOmega is not a "commercial" site at this time.

Hey Augur!

Yes, I am very happy to see a concerted effort in the Philippines aimed at preserving their natural wonders. There's still a lot of work to be done though. There are so many islands that it's a near impossibility to keep track of what's going on everywhere. There are still some destructive fishing practices but hopefully if the good word spreads that preserving is ultimately more profitable than unsustainable harvesting, we'll get somewhere.

As far as the scuba rig - yes, my dive buddies call me the Darth Vader of the sea at times (my camera has been coined "the depth star"). In cold water I dive what's called a Closed Circuit Rebreather. It's a fancy way to re-use (or 'rebreathe') your breath, adding just enough O2 to metabolize and scrubbing out the CO2. It's an incredibly efficient apparatus that allows you to stay down for a very long time as compared to the traditional scuba set up. The other great advantage is that you don't exhale bubbles most of the time, and so the marine wildlife is not scared away by what is a pretty foreign disturbance in the water.

Cheers,

Calvin

Heh.... your comment brought a smile to my face, Augur.

Yes, an article on rebreather diving could be really interesting. Sometimes I forget just how specialized the equipment is that my dive buddies and I are using, because it's so commonplace in our little group. I'll chew on that.

I'm not sure which photo you're referring to but no, I don't think it's a propulsion vehicle you're seeing, though we do use those (they look like a torpedo with a handle near the back of it). I just let go of mine this past weekend, actually. It was becoming just too much to have the still camera and deal with the DPV (dive propulsion vehicle). Plus, the DPV scares everything away which negates one of the primary benefits of the rebreather.

Maybe you were noticing the floatation devices on my strobearms? They keep the camera just slightly negative underwater.

I'll think about some articles along the lines of what you suggested. It's SO helpful to have a little feedback from readers as to what would make for interesting reads. So, thank you!

Oh, I think you're talking about this photo (first one), right?

That silver tank underneath my arm is what we rebreather divers call "bailout". In other words, I need to bring enough gas with us so that if my rebreather (or my buddy's) were to fail at the most inopportune moment during the dive, then I'd have enough redundant gas to be able to make it back to the surface. The deeper and longer the dive, the more bailout one needs to bring. In that photo I actually have two bailout tanks - one as a "travel gas" (in that case, a trimix blend consisting of 16% oxygen and 50% helium with the balance being nitrogen) that I use to get from depth to where I can switch to my "decompression gas", which I believe was 40% nitrox.

Depending on the dive profile you can have even more cylinders in the mix. Maybe up to 4 cubic foot Aluminum 80s (a recreational scuba diver typically uses just one, as their primary tank) under the arms and then potentially more "stage bottles" which are set up on a safety line at predetermined depths along the way back up.

It all eventually gets pretty darn heavy!

Regarding your request for the article on rebreathers - it's being drafted right now by my very good friend, fellow rebreather diver and dive buddy Josh Smith.

We were actually just in the midst of discussing what would be the right piece for his first article published via AtlasOmega when you proposed the idea - and it was a perfect fit!

So, thank you :)

Never say never! Come on in, the water's great. I'll keep shooting in the meantime. :)