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I
thought at first that I should introduce myself as I am a
newcomer to BSoUP, and also I am quite a newcomer to underwater
photography, but I am certainly no newcomer to land photography.
I have been working cis a wildlife photographer, plus commercial
photography for the last fifteen years. In the last f ive
years I have run a photo agency called Papilio.
I
thought I would mention all this to place you in the picture
of why I ended up in Los Roques! After making many land based
photographic trips my partner, Justine, got me into diving
and it was a natural progression to continue to take photos.
Only the one thing about this is that they had to be as good
as the work I do on land, or at least good enough for me!
We
started out underwater photography about two years ago in
the Red Sea, where I used a housed camera doing mainly macro
work, trying to learn and build up a portfolio of work.
In
the following season I had a trip planned to go to Venezuela
to photograph butterflies and other insects etc., and this
lead me to the idea that Los Roques was close and perhaps
we could make a dive trip there as well. It was also suggest
that we could dive around the islands of Margarita.
All
my experiences of the opportunities at Los Roques and Margarita
are based on my own experiences. This is certainly not to
say that other people experienced the same, this is just my
impression of the place. I had not heard about diving around
the island of Margarita but there was a bit more information
about Los Roques but it did not seem a very well known dive
destination. But with the wonders of the web more information
was available.
I'll
deal with Margarita first, we made shortstop here to make
a few dives off this island. What is apparent about this place
is the visibility is affected dramatically by the flow of
the Orinoco on the mainland. Unfortunately the time we went,
which was June 1999 the Orinoco had recently flooded and had
taken with it lots of silt which meant that anything other
than close up photography was really not feasible. There are
certainly some interesting Caribbean species to be seen, off
the beaten track. There were lots of Arrow Crabs, Shrimps,
but due to the conditions there was nothing very easy.
We
decided to move quickly on to the Islands of Los Poques, our
first impressions was that it was very unspoilt, not at all
touristy and very beautiful. I genuinely think that this impression
stayed with me till the end of our trip.
At
the time there was only one dive shop/operation on the main
inhabited island. I suppose that in fairness we were a little
out of season and their main dive boat was out for repair.
This didn't matter too much are reached by the smaller local
boats, however this did make it a bit more tough when using
cameras and getting kitted up etc., as I'm sure you all know.
But I also think that this added to its ruggedness and untameness!
So
now to the diving and the photography - the first reef which
we dived there was Boca cle Cote - this was quite spectacular
it had an amazing array of fish live and coral with some very
huge green moray eels, a few nurse sharks and turtles. However
more than this and as I've said before it was rugged and untamed
and we were the only divers there!! In fact throughout the
Los Roques National Park there were no other diverd! I do
know that the "Antares" fleet run trips there but
they were not there whilst we were there and anyway we diving
daily from the mainland and not on a liveaboard that passes
through.
I
won't go through all the dive sites that we went to but will
only highlight some of them. Having a keen interest in the
biology of the natural world I am always looking for behavioural
things to see and to photograph, but sadly more times than
not I can't! (I must try harder).
One
of the best sites was Grouper Rock, I thought I'd mention
there are some pretty strange currents around the islands
again adding to the wildness of the place, which we dived
during the day and night. The fish end invertebrate life was
again outstanding here lots of large morays, scorpion fish,
and massive groupers!! One of the spectacular sites here was
witnessing a moray eel dramatically taking a fish end biting
it clean in half.
Another
site worth mentioning was Cayo Sal, this reef was on the edge
of the Park with nothing left in one direction except the
open blue Caribbean Sectfl I have to say at first that photography
here was not successful, for reasons, which will become apparent.
Being on a small boot was dif ficult getting kitted up together
and this meant that you had to get in the water and wait for
the last diver. Although this didn't take long, as soon as
you got in the water you realised that the dive masters suggestion
of hanging onto the buoy line was not something to be missed
because the current was unbelievable. The idect of the dive
was to go with the current and to go into some caves along
the wall and hopefully see some large pelagic species.
Well
all the four of us had been in currents before but this was
one of the quickest I'd experienced. We made our decent and
went with the current and missed the first cove totally!!
We managed to slip neatly into the second cave end watched
the blue sea go by!! We watched the large gorgonians bending
and feeding and all the other plankton feeders have their
fill but sadly no pelagic species.
In
conclusion to all of this I would recommend Los Roques for
two reasons, one being that you are able to visit Venezuela
if you con end secondly for the wildness of the erect, in
that sense it was spectacular. However from a photographic
point of view it was a baptism by fire and not at all easy!!
So my next trip will be a millpond somewhere!!
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