Rainy Day, Photos From May
The Comatule or Feather Star is an animal
Well, after a bunch of rain and a nice storm, I finally got caught up on all my photography. Today I am posting a melange of photos from the month of May.
I started scuba diving again, posting my 20th dive just yesterday. I also got my CMAS diving level one certification. I already had my PADI level one, but with a short set of exercises and 15 euros, I was able to qualify for my level one in France. That gives me some benefits, such as the ability to progress in the french system as well as the ability to dive autonomously to 12 meters in France. Plus, french divemasters seem to be suspicious of those who have PADI certificates, so I can put them at ease when diving in France. One of the guys who was in the office when we were finishing my paperwork for my new license joked that I was a real diver now! Somehow, I am pretty sure he was not joking.
Interesting Sponge
I had some cool experiences this month. We saw some more poisson lune this morning, and I got to swim with a large battery of barracuda. What an awesome experience! I was swimming at the beach, and I looked under me. There was a huge group of 30 or 40 barracuda in relatively shallow water, so I dove and swam with the group for several minutes (not all at once). They were so close to me, I could almost touch them, and it was a wonderful moment.
I also saw my first Comatule or Feather Star, which is an animal akin to a starfish. They are very hard to see, although I gather they are quite common. There were a few other neat discoveries as well, including a bizarre sponge I have never seen before. I am pretty happy with the photo I got from it. It looks surreal.
I’m going to take advantage of the rain and get a nice afternoon nap in. Enjoy the photos!
Dive 4-2-2011 – Spring Is Here!
The triptérygions changed their colors for spring
Spring is officially here in Nice. The sun was shining, the triptérygions changed their colors for spring, and the sun bathers reappeared this weekend. You can feel it in the air, happy times are here again.
It was a really good weekend for photos. For the first time, I feel like I am starting to get better at using my strobe light with my photography. This is especially evident with my macro work. My super macro shots came out extremely clean and crisp with colors that really pop. The only issue I am coming across is that I am getting many photos with details that are often washed out. This comes with me dumping so much light on the subject. Next up will be some research on how to avoid this.
Other than that, it was a fun dive this morning, with lot of strange critters about. There were some new ones that I have yet to identify, and there was another that can be seen quite often that exhibited some behavior I had never seen; it formed a giant rope-like colony with many individuals stuck together. It was something to see.
Hope it feels like spring wherever you are. Enjoy the shots.
Dive 3-27-2011 – Missing the Boat
I pulled out the old Inon Macro lenses this weekend.
So I wake up at 8:00 am on a Sunday, get everything together, and drag all my equipment down to the port to go diving with the CIPA. I arrive right on time, and lo and behold… The boat’s not there, and everyone is gone. Now anyone who knows me knows that 9:00 am is not my best hour of the day for higher level cognitive function, so I decided to sit and ponder my situation. About five minutes later, I get a text from my girl noting that it was daylight savings this weekend.
I forgot the change my clock forward and I literally missed the boat.
Having hauled all my gear down to the port, I decided to make the most of it and I went for a quick dive out at Coco Beach. It didn’t let me down. I ran into the same Doris Dalmatien that I ran into a few weeks ago. Only this time, he left his feeding tuft open long enough for me to get a really nice shot.
Other than that, I have a few nice macro shots (I worked heavily with my Inon Macro Lenses this weekend) from my afternoon at Cap D’Ai. I spent the day out there on Saturday, and boy was the weather nice.
I leave you all with a wonderful quote that I came across this week. These are supposedly the last words of Shakespearean actor John Barrymore (1882-1942). “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.” That guy sounds like he would be awesome to meet.
Possible Shark Sighting at the Promenade in Nice
Two days ago, the beaches along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France were evacuated due to what was a possible shark sighting. It was never confirmed whether this extremely rare sighting was indeed a shark. It was noted that it could be a mola molas (poisson lune) or a dolphin.
Below is a clip of the local TV report (french):
Later reports cast doubt on the theory of a shark in Nice waters, as it was discovered that a female dolphin was found dead today near the island of Saint-Honorat in Cannes. It apparently died after giving birth leading some to believe that this was what was seen in Nice two days ago.
Odds and Ends From Last Summer’s Adventures in Nice, France
I was playing around the other night, and I ended up throwing together a video compilation of odds and ends from various adventures in and out and near the Mediterranean last summer. It’s about 5 mins long, and I thought it was kind of fun. There is nothing spectacular, but you can see some free diving clips, and some of the local flora and fauna in and out of the water. Plus, toward the end, you can see some birds dive-bombing for fish in the sea. That was a pretty amazing spectacle. Enjoy!
Photo Gallery is Updated
Underwater Photo Gallery
I recently updated the photo gallery, and just wanted to get it out there that all my top shots are going to be found here: http://www.azur-diving.com/photo-gallery-2/. I will be updating it regularly with new entries, and I will post updates when I add a bunch of new ones.
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. 
