Guest Post by Keith Ellenbogen, Parsons School of Design


Diver with wide angle lens

Diving into the clear blue waters of Fiji, I arrive in a biodiverse world spectacular in nature. Approaching the corals and fish, I focus my underwater lens on their elaborate colors, patterns, textures and behaviors. The images of these photographs allow the viewer to gain an awareness of the underwater world in an artistic and visually pleasing way.


A crab resting on a soft coral at night

However, the excitement of taking pictures begins onboard the boat during the dive briefing. This is the moment when the dive masters relay current information as to where some of the animals of photographic interest were last seen as well as a dive plan based on time of day, tide charts, and expected currents. Using the information provided, I select a lens, either wide angle or macro, depending on the underwater topography and the marine life I am expecting to encounter. With a careful pre-dive visual inspection of the o-rings, the camera is sealed within the housing and all functions retested, before transferring the housing from the Naia to Skiff-A.


Textures and patterns of hard corals

Once underwater, one of the primary challenges is to find the animals. It's a big ocean and most of these subjects are relatively small. While many of these animals are not rare they are often hard to find, well camouflaged, living in nooks and crannies or swimming at a distance just beyond a good photographic moment. However, with slow breathing, patience, and a bit of good luck, it is possible to wait for just the right moment that reveals a visually interesting body movement, eye contact or wiggle of the tail.


Soft coral crab hiding within the soft coral


Sabre squirrelfish in crevasse

On one of many dives within Fiji's protected Namena Marine Reserve, I decided to rearrange my lights and photograph one of the most common fish on the reef, the golden damselfish (photo below). Looking for a different perspective, this image showcases the de-tails of shape, form and composition. The individual scales and tissues that perhaps are often overlooked as this fish swims past us time and time again are emphasized. In contrast to abstract macro photography, the above example of a wide-angle photograph captures a moment peering into a small crevasse to discover a colorful Sabre Squirrelfish. The stunning vibrant yellow-orange fins and red-orange body is rotating in one direction while its eye curiously looks backward in the opposite direction towards the camera.


Tail of a golden damselfish

The abundance of undersea life in Fiji is amazing and on every dive there was always something new to see and photograph. Enjoy!

-Keith Ellenbogen, Parsons School of Design

P.S. All my photographs for this expedition were taken using Nikon D200, Sea&Sea Underwater Housing, and duel YS-250 Strobes.

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Labels: damselfish, Fiji, hard coral, Keith, lens, photography, Photos, soft coral, squirrelfish

Post by expedition member Jody Renouf


Dive photos: Keith Ellenbogen

Yesterday we did only three dives, forgoing our usual dusk dive so we could enjoy a village visit in the late afternoon and early evening. Instead of wet suits and fins, we donned bright island bula shirts and colorful sulus (complimentary fabric wraps provided by the Nai'a). Suli, the boat's purser and only female crew member, showed us how to correctly don this traditional Fijian garb; we needed all the help we could get! In preparation for the visit to Makogai Island, we were also given a few basic rules: wear shorts under your sulu, don't wear a hat into the village or touch anyone's head (including the childrens'), and don't sit with your feet pointing towards the elders during the sevu-sevu welcoming ceremony.



We board the skiffs for the short trip to the island, where we are greeted by the smell of outdoor cooking, the sight of about twenty smiling faces and the sound of their singing; the welcoming spirit is genuine. The children are front and center, presenting us with leis made from island flowers. Chief Watson introduces himself and shows us the pit of smoldering rocks where our dinner will roast under a thick cover of palm leaves. Next he explains the history of the island, which dates back to 1911 when the French Catholic Church set up a leper colony here; after a cure for leprosy was found the remaining inhabitants were transferred to a hospital in the capital of Suva and the current village was founded in 1956. While most of the buildings have crumbled, a few are still used.

The nearly 100-year-old diesel-powered generator still chugs along, powering the lights and the village's clam and turtle farm. The clams from the village help sustain the local reef's population, proving that even a community of such limited resources can give something back to the ocean. Unfortunately, at this time the tanks are empty because there hasn't been a delivery of diesel fuel to run the water pumps for several weeks. Chief Watson also shows us a few relics from the Europeans' occupation, including a large concrete wall that used to be a cinema projection screen and an enormous overgrown cemetery with leaning crosses.



One of us coughs; Chief Watson pulls up a plant and reveals its white core that is used like menthol to treat the problem. Then we pass a vine-covered fence that is selectively harvested before our eyes. Children, eager to share something with us, squeeze the leaves and the bright green juice produced is given to us as a topical treatment for our many cuts and scrapes; some of us are a real mess! The villagers obviously know and love the land, and Chief Watson is proud of their Fijian heritage; he left the hustle and bustle of the city to help preserve these traditions.



When our tour is over it's time for the official sevu-sevu welcoming ceremony. This consists of an offering to the village and the sharing of kava, the watery medicine-flavored lip-numbing beverage made from pepper root. The children also give us large leaves to use as fans in the hot and humid mbure (meeting house). The ceremonial exchange between Chief Watson and Nai'a's representative (Bosun/ Divemaster Moses) is beautiful to listen to, but lacks subtitles! Mo apparently represents us well, because soon the kava is poured and shared by all. The villagers greatly appreciate our gifts: school supplies for the children, twenty gallons of diesel fuel, and some money for additional fuel in the hopes of filling the clam beds again.



After a few rounds of kava Chief Watson announces that it's time for entertainment. The children have worked hard to prepare a show for us, and their efforts are evident; the choreography and costumes are topnotch! Between every song Chief Watson apologizes for the lack of high tech special effects and lighting but we are impressed, especially by the final number when the boys lunge ferociously at us with spears and grimaces!

Next, we are all invited to dance. Our dance partners, the village children, pull us one by one from the perimeter of the mbure where we are seated; eventually everyone is dancing, first as couples or trios, then as one long conga line.



Group photos and general socializing follow the dancing. By now it's quite dark, and the smell of cooking meat and veggies scents the air. Our dinner is ready to be dug out of the hot pit and loaded onto the skiffs to be enjoyed back aboard the Nai'a.

Later, if the wind is right and we listen closely, we can still hear singing from the island. The bula spirit is unmistakable; while they may run out of diesel, they'll never run out of energy!

- Jody

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Labels: bula, Chief Watson, clams, Fiji, Jody, mbure, Photos, village

Post by Dr. Steve Webster of the Monterey Bay Aquarium



I've decided the crepuscular dive (just before darkness envelopes the reef) is my favorite. Our vision adjusts to the dimming light, our cameras take some of their most dramatic photos and videos, and the denizens of the reef are frantic in their attempts to score a before-bed snack, or are already snuggling into their protective cracks and crevices for the night. The jacks are tearing though the schools of Anthias. The Anthias are dashing in unison for the protective cover of the reef corals, and the groupers, lurking there with keen eye and open mouth, are doing just fine on Anthias snacks.



Stonefish do their rock-mimic act with elegant precision, and their unsuspecting prey are all but unaware of their presence. Divers with lights (a.k.a torches) are better equipped to pick them out. Thankfully! Contact with a stonefish would be a memorable event. Perhaps one's last memorable event.



It is the divers' lights that also illuminate the pygmy seahorses, a half-inch tall and tail-hooked to a feathery hydroid colony. They are saved by their tiny size (for a fish), stingy use of swimming as a sensible thing to do, and (perhaps) by the stings and venoms of the hydroids to which they anchor themselves.



Just over the edge of the reefs, looking upward from about thirty feet deep, the corals at the edge of the wall are silhouetted against the last light of day, providing some of the best photo ops of the day. Heading back to the skiff, I look back to see the several points of light – my companions still squeezing the last great find in their torchlight before batteries and SCUBA tanks are drained of their contents. The ride back to the Nai’a is a happy recounting of all the firsts and bests of the dive, bathed in the last rays of a gorgeous sunset.



As we approach the sparkling lights of the mother ships, loud cries of "bula!" ring out from the Fijian crew, welcoming us back to their floating "village." And the fifth great meal of the day.
And tomorrow we'll just have to do it all over again. Hot, wet work, but somebody has to do it!

- Steve Webster

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Labels: Fiji, hydroid, Photos, seahorse, Steve Webster, stonefish

Post by Heidi Munzinger

This morning seemed to come earlier than most. Last night after dinner the Nai'a crew hosted a traditional Fijian kava party, and many of us stayed up until midnight singing and enjoying the local "grog."

However, it was definitely worth getting up in time to take advantage of favorable tides and enjoy the first dive of the day at "Fantasea" in the South Save-a-Tack region of the Namena Marine Reserve. Our cruise director Brigitte advised us to take it slow and make it a long, leisurely dive. We dropped onto a wall teeming with small triggerfish, colorful dottybacks and damsels, then cruised across sand flats and "high quality rubble" featuring decorated dartfish, flagtail blanquillos, and bluestreak gobies, admire a half-dozen ghostly cornets, pair of yellow boxfish, and huge star puffer that disappeared into the blue before doing our safety stops on a reeftop amid swarms of ubiquitous purple and orange scalefin anthias.


(photo: Keith Ellenbogen)

Not a bad way to start the day, and as we like to say: "Here on the Nai'a we see more before breakfast than most divers do all day!"


(photo: Keith Ellenbogen)

Late morning we moved back up to North Save-a-Tack to revisit a couple of our favorite sites. Some divers were dropped directly on Kansas (with its iconic Sinularia soft coral "blowing in the breeze" of the mild current), others chose to explore again the area around the Arch (where a resident whitetip reef shark lounges in the sand), and a few of us managed to get lost in "No Man's Land" in between (that we not so affectionately dub "Arkansas"). Halfway through the dive many of us heard a strange sound which we were not able to identify; when we returned to the boat we learned it was the song of a Minke whale that our skiff driver Wally saw breaching in the distance while we were all below the surface! As it turns out, this is not an uncommon occurrence in this area, so we all will be keeping our eyes and ears open in the future.

For the afternoon dive both skiffs went to "Two Thumbs Up" where there are plenty of pinnacles and definitely enough cool critters to go around. Mark Rosenstein, New England Aquarium volunteer collector and self-described "fish geek," was thrilled to score a "life fish" when he sighted his first ever leopard blenny (Exalias brevis).


Leopard Blenny, Mark's life fish (photo: Mark Rosenstein)

This event exemplifies why so many of us return again and again to this part of the world; we may have dived these sites dozens of times, but the abundance and variety of Fiji's underwater fauna ensures that there is always something new and exciting to delight us.

Our dusk dive was back on "Teton I" where divemaster Mo led us directly to the den of an octopus that was resting and not at all interested in interacting with us at the start of the dive. Later, after we had explored the rest of the site, we discovered that the octopus had moved into a more visible space where we could all admire its ability to change colors and textures instantaneously depending on its mood. This time of day marks the "changing of the guard" on the reef, when many animals take advantage of the limited light and either engage in mating and spawning, or hunt by taking advantage of those who have let their guard down. As Bailey succinctly states, "It's either pure bliss or outright death"--a compelling combination!


A decorated dartfish (photo: Mark Rosenstein)

We are still digesting dinner and discussing the highlights of our day when the night divers return to the boat; Keith Ellenbogen (who has made every dive offered on this trip so far) is raving about the "dazzling nudibranch" (Flabellina rubrolineata) he saw, while Bruce Thayer relates his close encounter with spotted unicornfish. Fifteen hours after our dive day has begun it finally comes to a close, and tomorrow we get to do it all again!

-Heidi

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Labels: dartfish, Fiji, Heidi, nudibranch, Photos, reef shark, triggerfish

Post by Ellen Garvey

"If it's been more than 15 minutes since you've eaten, it's time to dive"


Giant clam

During the night, the Fijian captain and crew have moved the boat to the Namena Marine Reserve for the next 2 days of diving. We wonder when they sleep--they seem to be around whenever we're awake and they're on duty every night!

During our daily 'first' breakfast (the continental breakfast to hold us over during the first dive), we fill out the forms for the Reserve and collect our badges. The Reserve was founded 6 years ago. It prohibits commercial fishing, but the local villagers may still partake of the bountiful sea life using lines (no nets). We're briefed on the dive, which is purported to end at 'Kansas'--more on that later. And, of course, on the way to 'Kansas' there's 'Oz.' Unfortunately this inspires some divers to sing various munchkin songs which are now stuck in our brains for the next few hours.



We all back-roll off the skiff at the count of 3 and drop down 100' on a wall where we're swept along as a few gray and white tip reef sharks (above) swim by leisurely, wondering what we're doing in their world. After drifting around in the current while watching the show, some of us missed the next point of interest on this tour--"the arch." No worries--we'll do it on the next dive when they drop us off right at the arch, and there are plenty of other 'bomies' to explore, including Oz and Kansas. There's an impressive school of double spotted queenfish (lysan) that just goes on and on. Two varieties of garden eels are in the sand patches between bomies.



When we get to Kansas (above), the field of coral (singularia) is waving in the current, looking like the field of wheat for which it's named. There's one community of life above the 'wheat' another down in the stalks.

The return to the Nai'i comes all too soon. No worries--there's another dive as soon as we finish the real breakfast. Eggs Benedict hits the spot! The second dive of the day is a variation on the first. Some choose to spend the whole time in Kansas, others of us start at the arch and end up spending the whole time there. The varieties of fish and fish behavior are too varied to describe.


Pennantfishes (Heniochus acuminatus)

Now that we've finished the second dive, it's time for lunch. Since we crossed paths with some local fishermen yesterday, lunch is wahoo tacos--fantastic! After lunch it's time for ... a dive of course!

The entertainment for this dive is to entice cleaner shrimp to floss our teeth. This involves taking your regulator out of your mouth and sticking your head in the hole with the shrimp, which he happens to share with an eel. Hmmm. Several divers executed this maneuver successfully, and the moments were captured expertly for our logs by Keith Ellenbogen. After the third dive of the day, we don't have a meal--just a snack. Teriaki chicken, popcorn, and home-made cookies.

The highlights of dusk dive were a pygmy seahorse (about 1/4"!) and an octopus. There will be no night dive--we had 'only' four dives today. Gotta run, dinner is being served. Wahoo salad to start followed by Mahi Mahi or lamb curry. Then we have a kava party on the dive deck.
Another day in paradise ...

-Ellen

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Labels: Ause, Ellen, Fiji, Kansas, Namena Marine Reserve, Photos, reef shark

Post by Mark Rosenstein.

Our first dive is on the Nasi Yalodina, a medical supply ship that sank in a storm a dozen years ago. It lies at 90 feet, the hull intact but having shed many pieces of structure. A large lionfish lurks on the deck. Soft corals cling to the railings. Several curious spadefish follow us around the wreck. Then we work our way up to shallower water where we encounter a beautiful hard coral garden hosting many butterflyfish, wrasses and damsels. The garden includes table corals ten feet wide. A hawksbill turtle rests on coral rubble. As we surface, we find a tiny juvenile spadefish hiding in floating sargassum seaweed.

The second dive site is Cat's Meow, named for Cat Holloway, wife of the owner of the Naia. It's a narrow pinnacle rising from a 70-foot rubble plain to within 15 feet of the surface. The area around the pinnacle has zoanthus polyps in many colors, as well as a littering of fungia plate corals and larger bowl corals. A dragon nudibranch crawls slowly across the rubble. Near the bottom of the pinnacle is a 20 foot long swim-through in which lurk a dozen many-spotted sweetlips. In a wide area in the middle is a Randall's shrimp goby waving its eye-spotted dorsal fin. We searched diligently, but were unable to find the ghost pipefish who is often at this site. On top of the pinnacle are many anemones each red, green, or beige and hosting clownfish. Many fusiliers, anthias, and surgeonfish swarm around the top.

After lunch, Dr. Steve Webster from the Monterey Bay Aquarium gives part 3 of his lecture series on marine invertebrates, covering cnidaria - corals and anemones.

The third dive is Cat's Reef, the larger reef structure nearby. We started over a rubble field that was covered with more zoanthus soft corals. Many small fish were around, and some huge hermit crabs. Further on we followed a wall, and saw a hundred midnight snapper passing by. A half dozen spadefish came up to us, very curious, and followed us for the rest of the dive.

Back at the Naia, the store is open! Shopping time for Naia logo-wear.

The day's fourth dive was at dusk on Humann Nature, a bommie named after Paul Humann who has written several popular fish ID books. A nice find in the rubble at the bottom was a solar boxfish. As it started to darken, hundreds of banner fish appeared. On the top many fish milled about as the daytime fish were looking for places to bed for the night, and the squirrel and cardinal fish were starting to stray from their caves.

After dinner, the Diver of the Day awards went to Shawn for having a group of spadefish follow her throughout a dive, and to Russ for his ability to be down on the reef within seconds of hitting the water.

The night dive was again on Humann Nature. Sea cucumbers were out, along with a variety of squirrel and cardinal fish. We found a couple of scorpion and lion fishes. Many different kinds of crabs and shrimp were out. The tubastrea coral had its tentacles out feeding. One black-blotched porcupine fish was hunting on the reef top.

A five-dive day is exhausting. Time for bed!

- Mark Rosenstein

(New England Aquarium member and four time expedition team member)

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Labels: butterflyfish, damsels, Fiji, lionfish, Mark, Nasi Yalodina, nudibranch, Photos, polyps, spadefish, tubastra, wrasses

Photos taken by Keith Ellenbogen on Day 3 of the expedition:

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Labels: expedition, Fiji, Photos

Post by Steve Bailey

6 AM During the night aboard Nai'a, while the team was in the arms of Morpheus, we've sailed east into Bligh Waters (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) to the island of Vatu-I-Ra. We awake to a calm sea, a majestic South Pacific sunrise, and Chef Penie sending incredible smells wafting from the galley.

A full day of diving lies ahead that includes visits to favorite sites: Charlie's Garden, Mellow Yellow, and The Whole Shebang. It'll be an initiation of sorts for the newest members of our gang and a reunion for those of us who've explored these sites on four prior expeditions. Also in our sights is to dive on an amazing undersea pinnacle called Go Mo (named after Nai'a's long serving Bosun & Divemaster Ratu Mosese Tuivuna) to continue our work on coral transects. The last two trips powerful currents sweeping around this dive site have blown our dive teams off the pinnacle and prevented our goals from being met.

11:30AM We enjoyed two, terrific dives this morning. The mind-blowing abundance of fishes was just as we remember it, and the surface water temperature was 83 degrees Fahrenheit--a tropical gift for many of us who left the snow and ice behind in Boston! After donning our dive kits and rolling off the skiffs, we drifted down current right to our study sites and settled into the protected lee of towering coral formations. Those currents play a critical role in having the stunning multicolored, Fijian soft corals blown up like 'Michelen Men,' pumped full of water to maximize their ability to filter-feed. The clicks of underwater camera shutters started immediately, and our recording slates and pencils commenced scribbling.

6:30 PM Instead of suiting up for a 5th dive, 11 of us decided to visit Vatu-I-Ra island to observe nesting seabirds. Fortunately, the Fijian government has conserved the island so that terns, boobies, noddies, and frigate birds can make future generations unmolested. Even some distance off this isolated place, the sight, sound (not to mention the smell!), of more than 10,000 winged guano machines was overwhelming.

After landing on the beach, and just steps from the water's edge, we observed an enormous number of nests with chicks in virtually every tree and shrub, every rocky ledge, anywhere really that would accommodate a nest. The spectacle made us wonder how airborne parents could find room to land, let alone, recognize their offspring.

Disturbingly, we soon were very aware of a wagon-load of plastic debris that had apparently washed ashore during recent storms. With this group, however, there was no need to mention what was necessary. Our divers-turned-birdwatchers had in quick order collected a small mountain of rubbish, whipped it all into bags, and loaded the skiffs for ferrying it all back to Nai'a for proper disposal. Now all that caught our eye as we walked the beach were the hermit and Sally lightfoot crab tracks, made even more pronounced by the slanting rays of Fijian sunset.

-Bailey

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Labels: Bailey, Fiji, Photos

Post by Steve Bailey



5:15 AM The humid fragrant Fijian air hits this weary band of divers, now emerging from Air Pacific's 747 Island of Vanua Levu. The simple beauty of the rising sun silhouetting distant volcanic peaks helps us forget about the not-so-restful, 11-hour, overnight flight from Los Angeles. Ahhhh, we're back in paradise.

Those of us who've been on Monterey Bay Aquarium/New England Aquarium Fiji Expeditions on four previous occasions now feel the excitement building. Soon we'll be boarding our impressively outfitted and capable home for 10 days, the 124-foot motorsailer Nai'a. Old, reacquainted friends explain to the 'Fiji freshmen' that within eight hours they will be diving on some of the finest reefs in the world.



The freshmen will be diving with people dedicated a diversity of projects and interests. On this trip, aquarium marine biologists, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Dr. Steve Webster and New England Aquarium Curator of Fishes Steve Bailey, are assessing reef health, tracking changes to diversity and abundance, and as always, having an eye peeled for new species of critters. Keith Ellenbogen, Parsons School of Design photography professor, will be connecting his students back home in New York with the biology and art of Fijian reefs through innovative video/photographic approaches to interpreting life in this incredible habitat.

New subsurface gear will receive important field-testing by Senior Engineer John Larkin of Light & Motion, a California based manufacturer of underwater lighting and camera equipment. Past participants have included scientists such as noted reef fishes expert Dr. G.R. Allen of Conservation International and New England Aquarium Vice President of Global Marine Programs Dr. Greg Stone, as well as proficient filmmakers, photographers, authors and artists.



How do we attract people to these cruises? For one thing, we relentlessly sing the praises of this archipelago's astonishing, aquatic diversity. Our mission is to entice people who can help conserve Fijian waters, mainly by spending their diving dollars in Fiji while observing, learning, and sharing their experiences with others.

10:00 PM A marathonesque but productive and rewarding day is drawing to a close. Most have long since retired to their staterooms and are preparing for a full day tomorrow of exploring the reefs.

-Bailey

Labels: Bailey, Fiji, landing, Photos