Freeflow

Back from Oz

I got back home from Australia a week ago. Compared with our normal trips, this wasn’t especially intended as a dive holiday, but I still managed a handful of dives.

We revisited the HMAS Brisbane (which we last dived in October 2005) and then made some dives around South East Tasmania.

Alice took the photo above near Remarkable Cave by Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula (here). Suffice it to say that the weather wasn’t like this the whole time we were there…

However, weather notwithstanding and with the help of our friends Keith and Clare, I did manage to see and video the weedy sea-dragons.

Video of both locations to follow…

Stephen · Monday, January 22, 2007, 17:48 · Permalink · Comment

On [and off] the grid

This site has been hosted on mediatemple for well over a year now. (I can’t even remember the name of the old hosting company, but suffice it to say that service was random at best.)

Mediatemple recently released a new product (gs) Grid-Server, replacing their shared server offering. As a dedicated early adopter, I switched within a couple of weeks.

Migration was seamless and this site plus the three others I have hosted here were up and running very quickly, following a few simple configuration changes.

A couple of teething troubles aside during the first few days, everything has been running perfectly since. For $20/month, the flexibility and scalability of Grid-Server are fanstastic.

Check it out here.

UPDATE: Naturally, the day after I wrote this, some new issues emerged and this site (amongst others) was down. Disappointing for sure. However, things are now stable once more…

Stephen · Saturday, November 18, 2006, 13:04 · Permalink · Comment

Vilivaru's natural beauty destroyed

My very first dives were in the Maldives on the island of Vilivaru in South Male Atoll, where Alice and I took our Open Water course in 1997. It was the most wonderful location in which to learn, with a stunning house reef protected from currents.

But Vilivaru is currently being extended.

One of the island’s main appeals was its small size and intimate feel. It seems these natural charms don’t generate enough profit, for the owners have seen fit recently to start a land reclamation project that destroys the island’s character and no doubt trashes the environment in the process.

This is how Vilivaru used to look:

Vilivaru before

See the reeftop? That’s where we saw turtles, stingrays and baby blacktip reefsharks while standing on the beach a mere 20 minutes after our arrival.

This is how it looked in August of this year:

Vilivaru after

Reclamation completed to the north of the house reef and the reeftop scraped bare to the south, presumably in readiness for further reclamation.

So what do you think? Is the reef likely to be better or worse off? Is there more or less habitat available? Does the island look better as a result? I don’t think the answers are hard to find.

I understand the need for land reclamation around major population centres threatened by rising sea levels, but there can’t be any such justification here.

How sad. I won’t be going back.

UPDATE: And I read that the fine for whoever did this has been reduced from Rf 100m to Rf 10m (around $790k). Well, at least that’s a material figure…

UPDATE 2: Thanks to everyone who commented on this post. Unfortunately the debate turned rather too political, something my post was never intended to be. For that reason, I’ve closed commenting and taken down those comments that were made – the political debate is one best undertaken elsewhere.

Some people suspected the ‘after’ photo might be altered, and looking at it afresh, I can understand that view. However, the other photos here appear quite genuine to me and show the same scene.

I still believe that the changes to Vilivaru apparently being made can only be to the detriment of the environment and aesthetics of the island and its surrounding reef.

If anyone can show differently, please feel free to mail me or link back to this post. I’d love to be proved wrong.

Stephen · Wednesday, November 15, 2006, 17:06 · Permalink

Podcasting from the depths

DiveFilm PodCast Video

I can’t quite recall where I stumbled across DiveFilm PodCast Video, but I must admit that I hadn’t quite expected ever to find an underwater video podcast.

It seems that Divefilm.com has been up and running for some years, presenting some fantastic quality footage by some of the best underwater videographers around.

The podcast (a term that has very quickly morphed beyond its initial audio-only associations) publishes regular updates every couple of weeks that can be viewed in iTunes on Mac or Windows.

I’ve just watched Mark Thorpe’s stunning macro video from Yap and Palau that features some extreme close up footage of nudibranchs.

On the one hand, my wallet starts itching for some more sophisticated kit. On the other, I think, how the hell would I ever hold the camera steady enough even if I had the kit that could capture those sorts of images?! Watching this makes you want to get back in the water and get practicing.

Stephen · Wednesday, November 08, 2006, 15:39 · Permalink · Comment

Photoshopped Whaleshark

A few weeks back I stumbled over a very useful tutorial by Saeed Rashid on adjusting underwater photos using Photoshop. Do check out his site, lovetodive.net, which has some great images, movies and trip reports.

Photoshop has long been a mystery to me – Adobe software seems to require some sort of arcane initiation by those-who-know. I’ve always found the user interfaces to be cluttered and unintuitive (in very stark contrast to Macromedia Fireworks, for example). However, clearly Photoshop is the tool of choice for image work, so I figured I’d give Saeed’s tutorial a go.

Here’s the original image:

Alice took this in Ari Atoll in the Maldives in 2004 using a Canon Powershot S45. (Click for a larger version.) It certainly deserves some TLC as the angle on the whaleshark is great.

Now here’s the adjusted image: