Night Diving: The Secret is to NOT DIE

~Of the five dives I did in Okinawa, the final two were at night. I'd never been night diving before, so it was an entirely new experience for me. To be honest, I did not fully relish the idea of being forty feet underwater, relying on a small circle of light, while Poseidon knows what could be approaching me from all directions. I was fortunate that the night was clear and the moon was almost entirely full, so my rookie night dives were more exciting than they were frightening.

^ You might think that you'd be able to see less at night, but you can actually see more things underwater than you can during the day. This is because a dive light illuminates areas that are lost in the shadow during the day, revealing things you'd never notice on a day dive.

^ In addition, the lack of sunlight eliminates the blue-coloration of everything caused by ocean water splitting light. This means that everything I saw at night was in true color. My underwater camera case came with a "diffusion plate" that spread out the light from the flash; the nighttime photographs, you'll note, are much clearer than those I took underwater while the sun was up.

^ Say hello to Nemo and friends! These Ocellaris Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) were undoubtedly the most "kawaii" (cute) things I saw on my dives. Aside from being quite social, they were completely unafraid of me, letting me swim right up in their faces and take a picture.

^ I don't know if this eel is electric or not, but I wasn't about to take a chance finding out. I let him sleep where he was and kept a safe distance.

^ The coral made me think of huge, alien flowers permanently open on the ocean floor. This dinner-plate sized coral was lit in the ghostly light of the moon. I suppose I was wrong before when I said that the blue-light effect is absent at night; after all, moonlight is just reflected sunlight. When the clouds parted and the moonlight shone through, I didn't need to use the flash, but everything did look a bit blue.

^ When I was finished diving, the anchor had to be brought up. This wasn't simply a matter of hauling it up like on a pirate ship--the delicate coral reefs demand more respect than that. When the divemaster found a suitable site to dive, he'd jump in the water, grab the anchor, and manually secure it to a rock outcropping below. When it was time to leave, he had to remove it by hand...and in the strong currents, that's easier said than done.

That's it from Okinawa. The vacation was great, even though I didn't get much time to look around the island itself. I'm interesting in going back again in the future to check out the underwater pyramids of Yonaguni. Interested persons, please inquire. ~Oyasumi!

Undersea-zures

~I hope you voted yesterday. That's because I hear some restaurants give you a discount if you have one of those "I VOTED!" stickers. I mean, why else would you bother to vote? Republicrats, Democricans, it's all the same to me. (disclaimer: I sent my absentee ballot in a month ago and personally looked up the website of every single candidate. Believe me: absentee is the way to go.)

^ Back to Okinawa. On my first day of diving, I was accompanied by a friendly Austrian couple who were there on vacation. They wanted it to be very clear that they were Austrian, not Australian. The Arnold jokes were, of course, inevitable.

^ The guy in the above picture is Tom, one of the Austrians. Hi, Tom!

^ A few hundred feet away was one of the numerous U.S. military bases on the island. The structures you see above are guide lights for the airfield just beyond the shore.

^ The first day I was there was apparently a very busy day for the air force. Planes constantly flew over us to the landing field, causing a loud roar which necessitated a stop in whatever conversations were being held at the moment. I think the fighter jets were practicing in-flight refueling with the help of large fuel tanker planes, although this took place well out of my sight.

More amusingly, the fighter jets taking off had a habit of igniting their afterburners just above us; you could feel the blast underwater, which caused all the fish to stop moving and vibrate as if they were having seizures.

^ I saw many of these fish, which look like sails to me. I counted red, blue, yellow, and orange varieties. It's hard to make out, but the above fish has yellow stripes along with the usual black and white. For reference, he's about the size of my hand.

^ I have no idea what this is, but it looks cool! The "look but don't touch" rule is very important in this case. since it's easy to accidentally brush up against the floating tendrils. This thing was perhaps one foot in diameter.

^ This brightly-colored fish kept following me around. I think he liked me, because he was always swimming around me, just out of reach. Maybe he was looking for food.

^ As I completed my first day of diving, I was treated to a spectacular Okinawa sunset. I think the above picture speaks for itself. Tomorrow: night diving!
~Oyasumi.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

~I'm back from Okinawa, and what a vacation it was! Leaving behind the pleasant, chilly weather of Niigata Prefecture, I completed a more-or-less smooth trip to my tropical island destination, which was much warmer and more humid. After one night in a hotel, I was ready for my first day of diving:

^ The dive boat I was on was called the "Tege", an Okinawan word that roughly translates to "No Worries". It was really a fine vehicle, with plenty of room to relax between dives. There was also an onboard GPS computer, which displayed the Tege's exact location on a map of the area.

^ Look, it's me! I'm underwater! The water was quite warm; warmer, in fact, than the surface air. For taking pictures, I used an underwater case for my camera. I did this for you, my loyal readers, that you might behold the wonders of the undersea world from my perspective!

Although, as you will "sea", everything comes out kind of blue when you're underwater. It has to do with the ocean water scattering light to reflect blue; next time, I'll have to use a red filter to cancel out the blue, so you can see the "true" colors.

^ Ocean diving is like visiting another planet. The life-forms, both plant and animal, look almost completely alien compared to what's above the surface. It's bizarre, and great fun. You should try it if you haven't already.

^The area I went diving in was filled with many kinds of colorful coral. I learned from the dive instructor that there are two main kinds of coral: the "hard" and "soft" varieties. This area was once dominated by hard coral, but it's almost completely died off due to ecological changes (El Nino/global warming/whatever) and pollution from fertilizer runoff. The instructor was actually quite excited to discover small pieces of hard coral that had somehow survived.

Soft coral, like the one pictured above, have thrived in this environment. Most of what I saw was soft coral, of many different species and colors. Some of it, however, is quite dangerous if you touch it, so the rule is to look, but don't touch. By the way, coral is not a plant, but an animal in the same family as jellyfish.

^ There were many, many starfish in the area. Perhaps someone tried to cut them up, and made the mistake of throwing them back? Anyway, I saw both blue and orange starfish. Some were as small as my hand, while others were over a foot in diameter.

^ There were also many interesting fish. Most of them darted away if I got too close, but I was able to get a few pictures of some of the more oblivious fish, like the one above. The blue highlights look fluorescent, don't they?

Finally, I present you with my first attempt at underwater videography. Bear in mind that this is my first attempt, so it's not the most exciting thing in the world. However, it will give you a glimpse into what I spent the last few days doing:



~There are more underwater pictures to come. For now, Oyasumi!