The site has moved!
The site just had to change as my interests evolved.
I’ve expanded the scope of the site over the last few months. The direction has changed as my interests have expanded. To reflect this, I have officially changed my domain name from azure-snorkeling.com to azur-diving.com. The “azur” is the word “azure” in french, and diving, in this case, will cover both free diving and scuba diving.
Bear with me while I finish getting everything switched over. I have (I think) everything working, and I will be finishing it out over the weekend.
Welcome to the new site! Everything looks and works pretty much the same for now, but I have some navigation and category changes coming up. I still have a lot of transition work to do.
Let me know if you find any broken features or links.
Peace,
Ocean Quest and Frédéric Buyle
Free diver extraordinaire Frédéric Buyle. Photo by Zena Holloway.
Last week a friend sent me a video about an extraordinary free diver named Frédéric Buyle. The original video that he sent is located here.
It’s all in french, but worth watching even if you don’t speak french. This guy can hold his breath for over 4 minutes underwater, and he does a lot of photography and research work. In the film, you can see him aiding researchers in tagging sharks.
Anyways, I’ve been learning more about this gentleman, and in the course of my research I came across his work on the upcoming documentary “Ocean Quest”. The series is supposedly coming out late this year sometime, and if anyone finds a release date, please let me know, because I want to see it pretty bad!
Trailer:
The documentary site is here: http://www.ocean-quest.com
In the series, Buyle teams up with Christian Petron (who was involved in Luc Besson’s The Big Blue) in order to explore the vast underwater world without scuba gear. You see, bubbles disturb the marine life and scares many varieties of fish. This is an ambitious project, and I for one, am anxious to see the result.
Fish, Man’s Best Friend
This unique video, courtesy of Alexandre Boscari, was taken a little over a week ago while diving in Port-Cros. The fish in question is a Grouper or “mérou” in French. They are usually pretty tolerant of people, but this one is downright friendly.
Evidently, this fish is known by the locals as the “Mérou Calin”.When it sees divers, it approaches them slowly, and waits to be petted, just like a dog! Check out the video after the jump to check it out. Thanks again to Alex for this great footage.
In Bangkok, Ready to head to Koh Tao
We head out for Koh Tao tomorrow evening. Went through Amsterdam and took the Whirlwind tour on the way to Bangkok (or Bung-kaok as it is REALLY pronounced according to our very talkative cab driver). Bangkok is hyper-intense and fun, but I can’t wait to hit the water!
I learned that National Geographic rated the PADI instructors on Koh Tao island in the top 6 PADI schools in the world. Looks like we’ll be earning from the best! More updates as they come.
Wonderful Morning!
Grouper or mérou in French
Saw my first grouper (or mérou in french) in the bay this morning! In fact, I saw my first two grouper. Pretty big day, it was one of the only things I had never seen, and now I can leave for Thailand on a super good note.
Check out the pics here: http://www.azur-diving.com/Snorkeling9-09
The sea was calm and visibility was great, and I also saw two cuttlefish (or Seiche in french). In fact, I got some video of them spraying ink and scooting away super fast. I will post those some time after I get back from Thailand. I also saw a bunch of Scorpionfish (or Rascasse in French). Got some good pictures of those too.
Scorpionfish or Rascasse in French
This week has been super busy, so I didn’t get my Canon Powershot D10 review completed yet. Stay tuned. I will try to have it completed for when I get back from Thailand.
Talk to you all in a couple weeks!
Caught my first eel on camera this weekend
My first eel, caught on camera
Well, it’s been a busy week, I’ve been working on a couple articles, I have lots of content on the way, just none of it quite finished! I’m working on a marine bestiary with identifications and photos of everything I have on file. It seems that is what people generally want, so I am going to give it to them. I added about 40 new photos this week, so stop by the photo galleries to check them out.
Now on to the fun stuff. Snorkeling at the Cap de Nice this weekend, I spotted my first eel, or Murenne, in french. It was awesome. He was pretty far away, and on the move. I followed him and watched him for about 2 minutes. The coolest part was watching him attack a little fish at one point. The speed at which he moved was incredible. I snapped a bunch of pics, and while none of them turned out super spectacular, I was happy with catching him at all, considering the circumstances.
Anyways ,I’ll have more info and articles later this week.
Shark Scare in Nice… Oh, was only a Mola Mola or Poisson Lune
What locals suspected as being a shark turned out to be far less dangerous. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
We were talking to one of the marine guides down at the port the other day, and the guide recounted the story of a fin sighting in the Port de Nice a few weeks back. People got pretty nervous because they thought it was a shark at first (which is extremely rare to see in this area, there are close to no sharks here), but it turns out that it was just a Poisson Lune, or Mola Mola. Mola Molas are pretty rare to see here too, and are completely harmless except when eaten. Their flesh can be quite poisonous.
According to fishbase.org:
They occur naturally in warm and temperate zones of all oceans.The Eastern Pacific from British Columbia, Canada to Peru and Chile. The Eastern Atlantic from Scandinavia to South Africa (occasionally western Baltic, Mediterranean). And the Western Atlantic from Newfoundland, Canada to Argentina. The fish is found on slopes adjacent to deep water. The fish comes in for shelter and for seeking cleaner fishes. The fish is usually shy. However, it may become familiar with divers in some locations. The species often drifts at the surface while lying on its side. It swims upright and close to the surface. The dorsal fin often protrudes above the water. The species has been filmed in 480 m depth with the help of a camera equipped with baits. The species eats fishes, mollusks, zooplankton, jellyfish, crustaceans and brittle stars.
Updated About Page as promised!
I made updates to the “About” page as promised. Check it out: http://www.azur-diving.com/about/. I’m off to Port-Cros, an island in southern France for a weekend of snorkeling and diving. Check out this video of what I might see this weekend. Pics when I get back.
Site Updates, Dolphins, Criminal Jellyfish, and So Forth.
Jellyfish (or Meduse in French) taken while skin diving in St. Jean Cap-Ferrat. This is the culprit of the alleged assault.
I’ve been a busy boy since my first post. I got my new site tweaked and (almost) ready to go. There are a lot of things beyond setting up the site I had to take care of, setting up website tracking analytics, converting my WordPress feed to a Feedburner feed for easier syndication, setting up and configuring my flickr feed (which I still need to format and finish), and getting my ads rolling. I am about done. Of course I want to fix up my picture pages, and make a few tweaks here and there, but things are generally in place. Google already picked me up (which is awesome in less than a week), I come up third for the search term “snorkeling in cote d’azur“ I should be getting more content up in the next week. I’ve got a lot of ideas for articles and content, but I can only write one at a time. Some of my ideas include: An interactive map of the area with lists of spots to go to with GPS locations, and loads of pictures with marine life identifications. I would like to write articles on; Snorkeling basics, Skin Diving, Underwater Photography Basics, Snorkeling equipment, what to know about the Mediterranean Sea, getting around and more…
Speaking of content, I mentioned in my first post that I had been stung by my first jellyfish. Well, I have included a photo of the perpetrator, and if any of you should see him (he fled the scene), I want to know because justice needs to be served!
Another thing that I forgot to mention regarding my trip to St. Jean Cap-Ferrat last week, was that just before we arrived, less than 30 minutes before, I guess a group of dolphins passed, which is a none-too-common occurrence around here. I guess we missed the boat on that one.
Missing the Boat, Dolphins passed us by
That’s it for today. I’ll have more later this week.
Rolled out of bed this morning and…
Me, snorkeling near Cap de Nice
So I woke up this morning with no ambitions at all. The only things I were considering at the time were POSSIBLY cleaning up the house just a bit, and MAYBE going snorkeling in Nice, France, where I live. Then I got to thinking… I have a few spots that I go to pretty regularly, and I wanted to try something a bit new. Well, one thing led to another, and next thing I know I was registering a new domain name and setting up a new site! You see, I’ve learned everything I know about snorkeling and diving in Nice and the Côte d’Azur from personal and anecdotal experience. I could never really find good information in English online, so I just decided to compile and share it myself.
Azure-snorkeling is just my latest brain child, and I have a lot if ideas ideas on where it will go, but no real precise idea of exactly where it will end up. At this point, I do know that I want to put up a whole bunch of pics, lots information about snorkeling in Nice, some maps of where to go, and lots of info about the flora and fauna, but that’s about it for now, I’m still trying to figure out a solid plan.
This project is now about 14 hours old, and it’s started taking a life of it’s own already. Stay tuned, there will be lots more to come.
Oh yeah, and just in case I look back at this first post some years later in a nostalgic mood, I’d like to remind myself that today was the day I got my first jellyfish sting. 
