Photos

I cannot describe this shot without first describing the day surrounding it. The five of us took a tender boat from the ship to shore, a cab from the pier to the airport, a plane to San Pedro on the Island of Ambergri Caye and finally a boat to the dive site. After two dives, we made the trip straight back to the ship and then, here's the amazing part, all returned to do a full days' work. As crew on cruise ships, this is a piece of our remarkable life. It's an incredible opportunity, but it takes more energy than one would imagine to work and vacation all at the same time. Most of us work full time or more for months on end without a day off, with incredible moments like this sandwiched in between those hours.

Now on to this shot. We were surrounded by nurse sharks out here, beautiful creatures that ranged from about 3' to 6' in length. Ever since my first shark dive I've been intrigued by "shark suckers", the fish you see hanging off the belly. According to my research, these creatures are not truly parisitic, as they may appear. They've evolved a suction cup on the top of their heads that they use to hang on. As best researchers can tell, they just come along for the ride and perhaps the morsels food they can scavenge when the shark dines.

Finally a trivial note on San Pedro: this is the beautful place that Madonna dreamed of last night in her song "La Isla Bonita".

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Captured with the cheapest digital underwater camera I found in my extensive search, this picture needed a fair bit of work to clean up. It served as a fine sample for a friend learning photo editing. Unsharp mask, contrast, brightness and levels were her primary tools in Paint Shop Pro before running it through Neat Image.