Blackwater Safari Week at Crystal Blue Resort January 30 through February 5, 2024

The first ten days, January 20 through 29 were the annual Critterfest at Crystal Blue Resort ( divecbr.com ), two dives in the morning, two dives in the afternoon with the last dive being twilight at the start, a night dive by the finish. The following week, January 30 through February 5 was Darkwater Safari week, I decided to do a single blog covering the Blackwater Safari week. One dive in the morning at 11 am, then lunch, then two Darkwater bouy drift dives at night after dinner, departing at 7 pm, return about 11 pm. Each day included a review of photos and a lecture on Blackwater diving, photography, and its creatures by Mike Bartick who is the photo pro at Crystal Blue Resort and is the pioneer of Blackwater diving in Anilao. Mike also founded "Blackwater Photo Group" on facebook, a great place to see blackwater photos from all over the world and to learn about blackwater diving: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Blackwaterphotogroup/?multi_permalinks=2155784394764018¬if_id=1709076062181497¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif Mike is also author of a great ebook on Blackwater diving, photography, and its creatures: "The World of Blackwater", I highly recommend it. I told Mike that the talks he gave for Blackwater Safari week were the college level marine biology class I never got to take because I shifted my degree goal from marine biology to engineering, making my love of diving and marine life an avocation instead of career. As I intended, my engineering degree led to a career which did a fine job of funding diving and my life... Blackwater diving is diving in open water, the ocean bottom far far below, beyond diving range, drifting with a buoy called "The Pumpkin" with a weighted downline with bright lights evey 15 feet down to about 85 ft. You drift with the buoy, keeping the suspended lights in view and using them as a quick depth reference. Your dive panga follows the buoy and picks you up when you surface at the end of the dive. Below, the pumkin buoy:

I used two different lens for my Blackwater dives, the 60 mm Canon macro lens I used for all the dives for Critterfest and the day dives during Blackwater Safari week and also my trusted Tokina 10-17 mm wide angle lens. Shooting macro during blackwater diving is tricky, you are floating free, your subject isn't settled on the bottom, it is free floating and frequently actually swimming and the narrow field of view of your macrolens, limited illumination from your focus light combine to make getting the subject in frame and focused is difficult. I cheat with my wideangle lens. With the apeture set at f9 I can focus it on my hand then simply point the camera at the subject and shoot without even using my viewfinder, so then I have to crop the photo....Tradeoff in fine details vs ease of use. Mike Bartick gave me some coaching and loaned me a float to use in place of my short strobe arm because this took my camera closer to neutral bouyancy so that the mere act of moving the camera to target the subject didn't cause me to lose balance, have to kick, lose the subject, repeat....Below:

Jhoma, our wonderful guide, helped find subjects, so did other divers sharing subjects and you drift along and sometimes a good subject just comes to you or you spot it at some distance by sweeping with your dive light. Below:

Jhoma briefly herded a Pelican flounder larvae so I could catch up and shoot it! Below:

Below are some more wonderful larval flatfish I photo'd:

I've enjoyed encounters with adult Wunderpus Octopus in the past, especially at Lembeh, Indonesia. Here's a wonderful juvenile Wunderpus, below:

It's good that the 76 degree water meant that we were in at least light to medium wetsuits with little exposed skin. Some of the creatures in the plankton cloud were stinging. Audrey got a painful sting on part of her face and lips returning to the boat. Below is a dangerously venomous Box Jelly:

The buoy lights attract zooplankton which in turn attracts the fish and squid etc. that feed on them. You'll see in many of my Blackwater photos lots of backscatter. I actually like the backscatter in these photos because it shows the richness of the plankton and zooplankton life we were diving in, unlike the annoying backscatter in conventionsal diving photos which all too often, rather than reflecting part of natural conditions, are caused by the photographer or another lurking diver stirring up sediment. I could have reduced the backscatter by carefully angling my strobe, though my focus light would still contribute. I could also edit out the backscatter in my photos except for a couple things: 1) I'm too lazy and can't be bothered and 2) My life is too short for that (truer each year now that I'm a septuagenarian!) One of the cool creatures you can encounter on these dives are larval crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, mantis shrimps, shrimp, amphipods, copepods..). Below, phylosoma stage larval lobsters:

I also saw squid on these dives, only managed to photo them a couple times because they were in motion, hunting. Below, Delta Squid:

Here's another couple of squid, don't know the species, below:

I photographed several mantis shrimp of different species and different stages of development, below:

It's magical down there, it's also a rough neighborhood, this juvenile jack narrowly survived getting devoured, below:

I saw several Pipefish on these dives. Pipefish aren't strong swimmers, I don't know if they accidentally get swept up off the bottom or if they intentionally swim up to feast on the many creatures in the Diel Migration every night. It's the largest migration on earth, every night,in all the world's oceans, when zooplankton, fish, and squid that lie deep in the ocean every day for shelter from larger predators swim upwards to feed on solar fed plankton under the cover of darkness. Below:

There are many gelatinous transparent or translucent creatures to see on Blackwater dives. It's important to look very closely at them because there are frequently other critters riding on them, hiding in them, or sometimes being eaten by them. Below is a Ctenophore (Comb Jelly) and a second one covered in Amphipods.

Above: Hydromedusa Below: Jellyfish with either a guest fish or is it prey?

Argonauts are pelagic octopuses. Female Argonauts secret a thin shell that looks a lot like the shell of a Chambered Nautilus and are frequently called Paper Nautilus and Winged Paper Nautilus but they are Argonauts. The thin, translucent shell is not chambered. Male Argonauts don't secrete shells are are much smaller than female Argonauts. Argonauts are one of the most sought out, wonderful photo subjects to be seen on Darkwater dives and may be seen either free swimming, or more often, riding other animals and objects. Below is a female Argonaut riding a jellyfish with a Black Pomfret fish and, in the background, the diver that waved me over with his torch to give me a turn at photographing it. Below:

I also photographed shelled Female Argonauts (aka Paper and Winged Paper Nautilus) and unshelled male Argonauts with Tunicates and Salps, below:

Also, scanning the black with my uw flashlight, I spotted a leaf speeding through the dark! How does a leaf speed through blackwater? When its towed by a Argonaut, below:

Below: A free swimming male Argonaut and a female Argonaut squirted a cloud of ink when I startled it:

Salps attract lots of company, below:

Above: Driftfish in the salp, amphipod on the salp. Below: Juvenile fish in a salp and, second, juvenile fish hovering near salps.

Below: Salp with Argonaut, Driftfish, and Amphipods

Below: Juvenile octopus in a chain of salps

Below: Juvenile octopus in a salp

Below: A pelagic mollusk, called a pteropod, with a hitchhiking Juvenile octopus.

Below for adults only. A pair of mating pteropods followed by a Creseid pteropod, followed by a mating pair of Creseid pteropods:

On one of my last Blackwater dives I had an amazing encounter with a filefish grasping a really cool jellyfish. It continued to grasp the jellyfish despite my manuevering, and its...Below:

Seven fantastic nights of Blackwater diving with Crystal Blue Resort! To see more Blackwater Creatures please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2xszneEQ9Q8vjaCA7