This was our first dive trip with an underwater camera (many, many thanks to Amanda and Reuben!!) and I learned several things about underwater photography: [All these pictures are ours (!!) except the one of Kyle; our divebuddy Anna took that one.]

1. It is hard to keep still underwater. [Crazy-colored giant clam]

 2. It is hard to focus if you're not keeping still. [fishes on the reef and rooting around in the sand]


3. Hard corals are way easier to photograph than fish, turtles, soft corals, sharks, each other, etc. Mostly because they keep still. [nice, still hard coral]


4. Bubbles get in the way, but sometimes they're pretty. [pretty]



5. Everything is blue. Everything. You lose color underwater and the deeper you get, the bluer it is. [Kyle swimming over the reef with hundreds of tiny fishes]


6. If you see a shark, you'll be too deep to get a good picture. But you totally still saw sharks!! [White-tipped reef shark!!]

7. There's just no way your pictures are going to do it justice. [Loggerhead, I think, and a really giant giant clam. I could have easily put my hand in that hole.]



Seen but not pictured:
  • a 150-year-old turtle that was as big as our kitchen table. No lie. We saw "Brian" on a night dive (hence, no pictures) when he was hanging out in his cave watching us
  • a very poisonous lionfish
  • a lobster (only seen by Kyle)
  • a school of maybe 20-30 bumphead parrotfish all swimming in formation and then hiding behind a coral bommie
  • a sucker fish that really wanted to attach itself to Kyle leg, but that kind of freaked me out so I shooed it away
  • lots of other pretty fishes that were too fast or too deep for my underwater photography skills