PhotoFriday – ‘At Rest’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’At Rest’

The manatees hang out in the hot springs at Crystal River in Flordia (they sleep there over night for warmth in the winter). Its a wonderfully tranquil place when the tourist are behaving themselves and obeying the rules set down to protect the manatees. Rule number one, do not disturb a sleeping manatee. If they want to come over to you for a scratch then they will but they sleep in the springs for protection and we should respect that. It is fascinating to watch them rest though. They pivot on their fin up to the surface to breathe without waking.

You can see more manatee photos here.

If you want to see my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery. Or my best from 2012 here.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘At Rest’ here.

PS: I’m currently selling the set up that took these photos. Click here for more details & the full list of equipment for sale or email me at scubasuzy-sellingnikongear@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks for supporting my work!

PhotoFriday – ‘Mornings’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Mornings’

I’ve got to admit, I’m not at my best first thing in the morning. For Landscape Photographers morning time is their bread & butter. Sunrise & dawn is often a time of most beautiful light. Sometimes if you are in an area near water a nice mist forms that has dispelled by the time most people are up and about (as in the photo above taken in Crystal River in Florida). And of course the obvious reason – the lack of people. Nature is allowed to wake up gracefully (apart from a photographer or two) before all the humans arrive with their boats and cars.

We got up very early in Crystal River to see how many manatees were hanging out in the springs (they sleep there over night for warmth in the winter). This blog post has reminded me that I still have many photos to go through from that trip so I can’t show you an early-morning-many-manatees-sleeping photo like I wanted too. Here’s a picture of a little baby one from later from about 8am though…

If you want to see my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery. Or my best from 2012 here.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Mornings’ here.

PS: I’m currently selling the set up that took these photos. The top image was taken using Nikon D300 and 18-200mm lens. The manatee image was taken with Nikon D300, Tokina 10-17 FE, Subal housing with Dome port. Click here for more details & the full list of equipment for sale or email me at scubasuzy-sellingnikongear@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks for supporting my work!

New underwater video: Scratchy Time with Ringo the Manatee

See on vimeo here.

We called him Ringo because of the little ring pattern on his back (not very clear in the video the way I processed it though).

For more manatees (photos) see here: https://suzywalker.wordpress.com/tag/manatee/
For more scuba suzy videos see here: http://vimeo.com/channels/scubasuzy
Filmed on a old Fuji compact camera in Feb 2011 (not the in summertime). Edited in iMovie.
Music: “In the Good Old Summertime, performed by John Philip Sousa’s Band (recorded 27 October 1905, which is also not in the summertime)”.

 

PhotoFriday – ‘At Play’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’At Play’

Possibly the most playful creature I’ve meet in the sea are the manatees (I’m told seals are even more playful but I don’t generally dive in temperate waters so I’ve never met any). The only downside to “scratch time” is the green algae gets all under your fingernails. If you are a quality scratcher you can get the manatees to roll over and over for one all over complete and continuous scratch roll.

They especially like the under the flipper-pit tickle as demonstrated by Alex and his friend below:

If you want to see more of my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘At play’ here.

New Photos from Florida

As a little follow on to yesterday’s blog post about clearing my 2011 photo back log, I present to you some new photos from the famed Blue Heron Bridge muck diving site in Florida>. It might have been the coldest water I’ve ever dived in (23/24 degrees c brrr, yes I know I’m a wus) but there was so many weird and wonderful critters it was worth an ice cream headache or two. The full gallery is here.

so much life down there they were stepping on each other:

This guy here “walked” along the bottom on his “hands”!

this terrifying chap chased me across the sand, the largest arrow crab I’ve ever seen. Not the best to meet on a night dive!

We stopped of here on the way from Grand Cayman to Crystal Springs to see the Manatees. The sea was unusually full of jelly fish (so much so that Alex got stung quiet badly on the night dive). The next day loads of Portuguese man o’ war jellies has washed up under the bridge.

Here is quite a wide panorama of the Bridge area: click it for larger

PhotoFriday – ‘Cloudy’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Cloudy’

This week’s theme is Cloudy. The clouds & the morning fog in this Florida sunrise is as cloudy as I like it while I’m on vacation. Click it to see it larger (it looks better but my blog isnt wide enough).

If you want to see more of my Florida photos (although they are more manatees than landscapes) then check out other photos in my Florida 2011 Gallery.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Cloudy’ here.

Earth Day – Florida Manatees

To celebrate Earth Day today I’d like to introduce to to some Florida Manatees. The are an endangered species that die out in winter when it gets too cold.

Some sanctuaries have been set up in Crystal River where it is possible for you to go and interact with them (as long as you don’t harass or stress them). Once you see them in person its impossible not to love them! They vie with each other for your attention as long as you give them a good tickle. In fact I did more scratching of bellies than I did taking photographs which should tell you how compelling they are 🙂

You can find out some facts about Manatees here and how to get involved with saving them here.

I haven’t finished processing all my manatee photos from our trip yet be when I do I’ll do another log post with more photos so stay tuned and thanks for looking.