15 posts tagged “diving”
Another short, photo and video-heavy post. Two dives today in Ishigaki, one off of popular Yonehara Beach (featuring some of the most impressive coral formations I've seen) and one off the aptly-named manta point. Even though it's the off-season (they're more plentiful in fall), I saw an easy half-dozen animals.
Check out the short video of the manta gliding right above my head. I was experiencing technical difficulties, so it's not longer, but I did get some photos, too.
Just north of Kadena Air Force Base's main gate is a spot called Mizugama ("Water town"). Americans call it The Pipelines because the coral crevasses resemble long, craggy trails for sea life. Bracketed by massive concrete sea walls -- the largest I've seen in Okinawa -- the spot attracts divers, snorkelers and the occasional surfer when the tide is ripping.
A friend of mine told me the spot was better for snorkeling than even crowded Sunabe, so I was anxious to check it out. Now that I've been three times, I'm regret that I haven't been here as long as my pal has. This spot must have been breathtaking at one point.
It's still beautiful, make no mistake. But there are too many vistas like this, which feature hauntingly beautiful, solitary coral heads looking out over ghostly rock faces. To the point: there is a lot of dead coral out here.
Here and there, you also see live coral stands that have been bleached by rising ocean temperatures:
This spot isn't as popular or as commercially developed as Sunabe, so there's comparatively little in the way of pollution. I did spot this old tire, though, raising copious questions about how it ended up there.
I just wrote an article for E: The Environmental Magazine about steps we might take to save the world's coral: I'll write about some of those steps in a subsequent post.
Tomorrow night, a dramatic minus tide will reveal parts of the beach that one normally can't see from shore. I'll walk along the coast with a prominent local biologist, inspecting sea life. This is a tremendous opportunity to document oceanic wildlife without even getting wet.
But that's tomorrow.
The gifts of modern technology enable us to get as close as we please to innumerable underwater species by strapping on a tank of compressed air. Today, I continued this habit, preparing for the land-based view by taking the low road. The low road in question: three dives in the Kerama islands, off the coast of Takashiki and Zamami.
The crew? My usual dive buddy, Otis, and my friend Jon, a Watson Fellow who is on the island studying baseball. Jon just became certified in Puerto Rico, and this would be his first series of open-water dives. The introduction was memorable.
Almost immediately after entering the water, we happened upon two hawksbill turtles. One swam off into the clear blue ocean; another remained to feed and seek shelter around fan coral.
Jon was thrilled to see such a magnificent creature so soon. The hawksbill was less thrilled to see him, and proved that he was swifter than the new diver.
Jon reacted thusly to his defeat in the race, available for your perusal in video format.
[Note: all of my diving videos are available down the left sidebar, but are also posted in higher quality at my YouTube page. If you want less pixelated videos, go there.]
We also found Nemo. Lots of Nemo.
Further wildlife harassment:
This was an inflated pufferfish. We passed him around like a very prickly volleyball before he swam off, flustered but unharmed.
Jon and Otis both juggled with three sea cucumbers, but it was this nose-balancing technique that most impressed me.
Maybe both of those statements are true, but I shy away from taste-based field research. That, and research that involves touching venomous sea vipers.
In the mood for a hamburger, cheeseburger or goyaburger? I've got you covered. Or rather, Jef has you covered. Jef Okinawa Co. is the local fast food restaurant, making sure McDonold's doesn't have a monopoly on fattening Ryukyuans and shortening the lifespan of the world's longevity champions.
Certain places have huge "Jef" red-and-yellow billboards, and of course, I've become used to these after several photos in front of each. But when I met up with a bunch of new friends tomorrow, I got a new insight into my name.
We were talking about scuba diving, a common subject. She was skeptical that I'd actually been certified since 1993. For proof, I offered up my certification card, and the courtesy was returned. I was surprised to see that my own name was emblazoned across the top in huge letters.
"Oh, that." she said. "I got certified through Jeff."
Yes, the Japanese Educational Facilities Federation offers scuba certification. And the cards have my name prominently in the logo, readily seen on that website. By the authority vested in me due to fortuitous naming circumstances, I dub thee a scuba diver. As if there were any doubt, this proves that I have the coolest English name available in Okinawa.
I used to think that "Dave" was the worst English name to have in Japan, since it usually transliterates as "Debu," meaning "fat." Now I know that honor belongs to "Ben," which is a medical term loosely akin to "stool."
Not everyone will make these connections, but now you will. As Perry Saturn might say, "you're welcome."
We were about to hop into the dive boat at Yomitan port when I made the connection.
Just two days before, I knew, commercial fishermen had netted a pregnant female great white off Okinawa's coast. Off the coast of Yomitan, actually. Near the port. The port from whence we were about to depart.
From a rational perspective, this meant nothing. It was the first great white seen near Yomitan in 10 years. White sharks don't commonly come this far north, so they're rarely seen around Okinawa's main island. Still, I was suddenly glad someone had taught me the Japanese term for gooseflesh, torihada ga tatsu, because I certainly had that going on as I thought about the 16-foot-long creature that had been in this water.
Shudder-wise, you can talk all day about the statistics, about how only four or five people die a year on average from shark attacks, about how you're more likely to be hit by lightning, or be crushed by a vending machine (especially here, where coin-dispensed refreshment is ubiquitous). There's still that tingly sensation of primal fright. At least for me.
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book about the origins of conflict postulating that our genetic memory as humans contains a fear response from the time when we were prey for animals, not predators. In less flowery language, we're all afraid of being killed and eaten. I buy this, and I'm comfortable with my current spot on the food chain. While other divers actively seek out these admittedly magnificent animals, I'll take my chances with the sharks at the poker table, thanks.
And they are magnificent. Admiration from afar is still admiration, mind. You'd have to be incapable of awe to not be impressed by that mass of muscle and sinew, that perfect eating machine.
Awe isn't always productive. Famously, Peter Benchley's book and film Jaws painted the great white as a deadly man-eater. Overfishing -- for sport, out of fear, or for trade in valuable teeth and fins -- depleted populations worldwide. The shark was added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species' list of endangered animals in 2004.
Though the pregnant female shark caught here died, her seven offspring were brought to Churaumi aquarium in an effort to save them. Okinawa's aquarium actually indirectly assisted with great white research before, when their tank design inspired a facility in California to make some shark-friendly adjustments.
White sharks have had a tough time surviving in captivity, for some of the same reasons they're flagging in the wild. We just don't know as much about them, or how they fit into the ecosystem, as we should. That's changing. As Peter Benchley himself realized, humans are more of a threat to the shark than vice versa, and increasing our base of knowledge is essential to undoing the damage.
Last week, another white shark was found off the coast of Ishigaki, about 275 miles south of here. They're more common in the southern islands than they are where I live.
Only one person has been killed by a shark in Okinawa since the island's reversion to Japanese control in 1972. That was in 1996, more than 10 years ago, when a Miyako resident (scroll down) was bitten during a coral reef survey.
The great white that bit this unfortunate gentleman was similar in size to our pregnant beastie -- five meters in length, about 16.5 feet long. For a more poignant comparison, the smaller of the two whale sharks I swam with last week was four meters. Watch those YouTube videos and imagine a great white shark about three-and-a-half feet longer than the little one.
Usually, I try to share pictures of the incredible creatures I encounter while diving. Intellectually, I understand that I'll probably never see a great white in the wild, and if I were to see one of these toothy monsters, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Fundamentally, though, I hope the only great white pictures you see here are from a Google Image search. I always want the great white to roam the ocean's depths. I'd prefer if its journeys kept it a healthy distance from me.
When I saw the great fish's tail headed for my midsection, I was glad for the absence of thinking time. With a little more of a chance to ponder the possibilities, I might have gotten the deep fear over my pending trip to broken rib city. I'm not sure how much of its 14-ton girth was contained in that tail, and it was probably for the best I didn't have time to wonder about that, either.
The whale shark is a shark, not a whale, though its size and lack of imposing teeth make the name seem appropriate. The world's largest fish can grow significantly larger than the eight meter model I got up close and personal with, but reports differ on precisely how big the biggest are. They're called "fish stories" for a reason.
My trip to swim with whale sharks off the coast of Yomitan in Okinawa, though, was not a fish story. It was as real as the impact from that tail.
In an enormous open-water net just offshore, the vegetarian giants are confined by the Okinawan company that captured them. The company captures and prepares the sharks for eventual rotation into the tanks at Churaumi aquarium. In Taiwan, fishermen also capture the creature they know as the "tofu shark," but as you'd expect from the name, the fate of those fish is the dinner plate.
Here, the dive guide told us, when an aquarium fish becomes too stressed out from being paraded about in front of tourists, it is brought back to the ocean net for a little R + R. For a fee, they'll let divers come out and swim around in the net when the feedings happen. So it was that me, my pal Otis and a newly-Scuba-certified couple (T.H. and Yuuka) came to our expedition.
This was their ninth dive. I buddied up with T.H. and joked with him that they were starting pretty close the top, here in one of the most coral-heavy and biodiverse places on earth. We descended together to the top of the net, five meters below, and waited for a professional diver to open up and let us in.
Fish exist in abundance around the net, attracted by the mass quantities of plankton whale sharks require to survive. Immediately we were practically surrounded by a school of batfish, and from his wide eyes, I could see that my dive buddy was just as excited as I was. After I began snapping pictures of the school, T.H. waved at me frantically. I figured the new diver had spotted another type of colorful aquarium fodder.
Nope. He'd seen a whale shark coming into view perhaps 10 meters beneath us in the net. This was enough to make one forget the schooling batfish. We gawked, and I worried that my jaw dropping open would cause my regulator to drop from my mouth entirely.
It was four meters long, about 13 feet. It weighed perhaps seven tons. It was the small one.
Apart from the size, the grace of the animals is what hits you first. (Then, the tail hits you, if you aren't paying attention.) Unlike many sharks, the whale shark uses its entire body to swim, making it slower and more inefficient at propulsion, but adding an eerie beauty to every movement.
From field reports about wild encounters, we learn that whale sharks are neither shy nor aggressive. While swimming with them in a controlled environment such as this one, these tendencies are accentuated. When one of us would hang on by the edge of the net to observe, the fish would swim right up for a closer look. When we'd step away and swim into open water, they'd loop around and swim past us. My suspicion is that daily experience has taught these sharks to identify each diver with the bag of food the professionals bring in twice a day.
It might just be curiosity. Each animal seemed to slow down as its massive eye passed me, although that may have just been because it was anticipating a handout. And plankton-eater or no, seeing a 25-foot animal swim directly toward you with a gaping maw open instills just a bit of primal fear, even if you've seen that said mouth is aimed at microorganisms.
Of course, we're practically microorganisms when compared to the whale shark. The tail-whip experience taught me that.
Upon first entering the net, my plan was to suspend myself right next to the mesh and take some video. I didn't have to wait long for the chance, as the larger animal did an immediate fly-by. In disbelief over my luck, I focused on taking video. Wow, look at the size of that fluke! Wow, look how close it's coming! It's almost close enough to ...
Dive masks cut off one's peripheral vision, but I was still able to catch the tail coming out of the corner of my eye. It was too late to do anything --mercifully, also too late to worry -- and frankly, with my back up against the net, there wasn't anywhere to go anyway.
The impact was surprisingly gentle. It didn't hurt, although I knew I'd been nudged, and I wonder whether the shark eased off or not. It would surprise me, if anything in this world continued to surprise me. There is more in heaven and the sea, Horatio, than is dreamt of in my philosophy. Heaven and the sea might well be one and the same, anyway.
Wild animals aren't the only ones having problems. One of the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium (the only such animals in an aquarium outside of Asia), "Ralph," died this month and no one's sure quite why. Plans exist to breed the animals in captivity, but that's a long way down the road, and whether it will work is uncertain. Georgia's aquarium has sexually immature animals; Okinawa's aquarium has had whale sharks for 10 years with no breeding success.
Getting photographs that really show the scale of these massive animals is difficult. In the interests of science, I handed my camera to T.H. so he could get a shot of me in the company of whale sharks. You know, for size comparison purposes.
Videos are more helpful for showing just how large and majestic the whale shark is. In the videos I took, you can see professional divers feeding the animals (watching that huge filter-feeder mouth open is striking in person), me reaching out to touch the critters, and other dramatic moments. For some reason, the videos pixelate on Vox, even though they don't when displayed much larger on my monitor. Otis (new blog for Otis here) took the smarter step of putting his video on YouTube, so the quality is higher.
Science is still learning about the whale shark. A study showed last year that the animals dive much deeper in search of food than was previously known, which explains why animals in tropical waters still have a whale-like layer of protective fat.
I'm not a scientist, though, and the type of knowledge I seek is more experiential. After finding that neither whale shark minded being touched on their surprisingly smooth skin, I decided to hitch a brief ride.So when the larger one's tail came by again, I got a firm grasp on the tip and took off. What ensued was probably the closest thing to actual flight that I will experience, and however brief, it was exhilarating.
It was almost enough to make a guy feel guilty. After taking two batches of visitors snorkeling under sub-optimal weather and tide circumstances, today the skies cleared and the currents cooperated. Perfection for snorkeling, and I had the beach all to myself.
Yeah, I felt guilt. Not enough to keep me dry, though.
The sun was shining. Almost no wind. The tide was in, making the entry at the Sunabe seawall much easier. I floated out into clear blue seas, watching the unmoving brilliant corals. Today the fish were shy, though.
Fish behavior is unlike human behavior. The prettiest ones rarely want to be the center of attention. Diving is an advantage, since you don't have that old bugaboo called buoyancy keeping you at the surface, nor do you require the occasional breath of oxygen. Despite the excellent conditions, I was having a tough time drawing a bead on any of my scaly brethren, so I had to content myself with paddling around and getting a photo-free gander.
Then I saw it: the invasive species responsible for destroying coral here and in Australia, the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish. Unlike the lovely fish, it doesn't swim away, so I got a shot of it and thought about how to proceed.
During my first encounter with this vile creature, I wasn't certain enough of my identification to take steps. This time, there was no doubt I was looking at the reef-murderer itself.
Multiple means are used to eradicate the Crown-of-Thorns, none of which I had at my disposal. Out here they like to remove the beast from the ocean entirely, but in my snorkeling gear, I didn't even have protective gloves. Still, I wanted to try something.I toed at it with my stiff, long dive flipper. The environmental scourge was softer than you might think, though I had no luck dislodging it at first.
So I did what any responsible ecologist (or drunken redneck) would have done. I kicked the absolute snot out of it.
This is how justice looks. Very blurry, that justice.
These creatures can regenerate, so I wanted to do as much damage to it (and as little damage to the coral) as possible.
After a few minutes of careful kicking -- I didn't want to harm the coral beneath, nor did I want to be accidentally pricked by the star's spines -- my flipper pierced crown, thorns and flesh. Innards became outards.
If I've learned nothing else from The Predator, I've learned that if things can bleed, you can kill them. Spurred on by this encouraging developed, I sprayed the water orange with starfish gall bladder, spleen and pancreas until it gave up the ghost, came loose and went belly up. In poker parlance, let's see the flop:
Starry the Gutted Invasive Species floated away, hopefully to trouble us no more and leave the reef in peace. Here's the coral stand to which it was formerly affixed. You're welcome, coral, just doing my job.
Virtue is its own reward, it is said. But it's always nice when virtue gets one a little something extra. In this case, all those beautiful fish that ran from me before were made ravenous by the sight of starfish guts. Butterflyfish, parrotfish, blennies and angelfish all wandered toward lunch, apparently oblivious of yours truly.
Instant karma. A trip saved by starfish innards.
The weather promises to be even better the next few days, so the forecast calls for more diving and snorkeling posts. Stay tuned: I have some exciting things planned.
“for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea”
-- e.e. cummings
Today is a writing day. I'm brewing about 15 pots of genmaicha and trying to turn the 2.5 chapters I have done on the book into three polished chapters.
Ironically, a "writing day" for me means a slow posting day. I have a few longer posts I'm working on, but the bulk of my word power is going to be spent enriching the book.
Loath as I am to come empty-handed, here is a link to a series of incredible underwater photos from the BBC. Inspiration requires a constant search, and for maybe fellow dive photographers -- or just people who find themselves in the sea -- maybe that link will serve.
Today I went diving at three spots along the southern coast of Okinawa. The weather wasn't the best; it was chilly for here, and we felt a strong tidal surge at each site that left me spent this afternoon. It was well worth it, though, as always.
I played around with my new color filter, and after determining that I could in fact extract truer color from an image with it attached, also learned some ways to best use my new tool.
The more soft coral I see, the more charmed I am. I feel like just stopping and watching, trying to capture these strange and beautiful creatures' movements, either with still photographs or video. Here are some attempts at each:
This is a shellfish known as a sea rabbit. Similar to a conch, it congregates near reefs, consuming food.
It's the black shell, below the soft coral.
And out of dark caves:
Since this will have to be a quick post -- it's an early day tomorrow -- here are a few decent shots of the coral and colorful fish that rely on them:
Three dives today. Lots of swimming. With luck, another two or three dives tomorrow. looking for the elusive dugong. Wish us luck.
If Cape Maeda (Maeda Misaki) were in an American park, they would slap the name "multi-use area" on it. Whatever appellation you want to affix, though, it's a must-see when you're in Okinawa.
I told my mom this when she was here, and we were greeted with views like this one, which shows fairly well the wild shifts in sea color:
Unfortunately for our snorkeling plans, currently there is construction on the ladder that leads to the access point:
The tides were also surging -- evidently, experienced surfers will ride waves nearby, although that looked like a shot of fun chased with the taste of danger.
All of this added up to no snorkeling -- or at least, a five minute drive to a nearby spot.
I said this was a multi-use area, though, and I meant it. Besides sightseers, snorkelers, divers and surfers, you get the occasional local taking a break from work in the cane fields nearby:
Plenty of fishermen come in search of sea bass and batfish. There must be some huge fish down there, because on of the men we saw was strapping himself in with a leather harness.
The sea isn't the only attraction. The craggy rocks create a landscape for climbing or simple exploration, and even break at certain points into meadow and forest habitat.
Whether you're resting against the cliffs fishing or looking for a snorkeling spot, it's not a bad way to spend a day. Now, when that construction's finished, we'll be in business.
