What Lurks Beneath

This is the rainy season, but we have had some fabulous days that call us out onto and into the water.

Morning view across to Greater Monkey Cay, 0.8 miles distant.

Our new dock gate.

We had to put a gate on our dock.  You will soon see why.

Standing on the dock looking north.  Greater Monkey Cay is just of view to the right of this shot.  When it looks like this, the kayaking is great.

I have learned to get the kayak ready from the dock rather then on the beach, clipping in the seat, positioning the live vest, stowing water bottle, snack, and camera.  This is much easier without help from Barnie!

Poor Barnie can't come through the gate onto the dock.

It got worse for Barnie, too.  Before I got in the kayak, I put her on the chain in the shade of the seagrape so she couldn't swim out after me.  I could hear her howls of despair across the water as I paddled out.  Sorry, Barnie, until your new CFD (canine flotation device) arrives, you are not allowed to go so far from shore.

I had unearthed my old underwater housing for a little Canon PowerShot A95 camera.  My old and well-used PowerShot fritzed out some time back, but Dennis had found a refurbished replacement on eBay and squirreled it away for later.  As eventually happens, later became now.  I got it going with new batteries (thanks, Dennis!) and decided to try it out by just holding under the water.  What better place than the corals around Greater Monkey Cay.  I took the following photos by holding the camera down into the water while leaning over the edge of the kayak.  I basically shot blind and wound up with lots of worthless images.  But I did get a few keepers to show what lurks beneath.

Hard and soft corals near the cay.  The water is a little murky.

The PowerShot does OK.  It has a very small chip, so you can't crop the shots very much.  It does have an underwater setting that seems to work all right.  I still have to white balance the shots after the fact.

In bright sunshine and with minimal ripples on the water's surface, it does pretty good.

The fish moved too fast for me to get any good shots of them, but there were lots around.

Sea fans and brain corals. in dappled sunlight.

Now I must get busy learning the names and types of corals.

I was fairly pleased with the results.  I will take it snorkeling next.  This will be a good way for me to learn more about the local sea-life while getting more experienced with underwater photography.  Not sure if I will upgrade to better equipment or not; underwater camera gear is quite expensive.  For now, I am enjoying this setup very much.

My dog-loving blogging friends will be happy to know that after this trip I went back for Barnie and we spent about an hour paddling along in the shallows.  She is getting better behaved with each trip.