Solomon Islands 1996

Jellyfish

Pulling myself away from the crab on the purple anemone (to the left and down), and heading for the surface, this jelly pulsated by about six feet under. I tried some shots with the flash on, but the best ones were like this, shooting straight up and letting the skylight shine through.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, f/5.6, 1/125, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Orange Clownfish

White Beach is the site of a World War II dock. After the war, the US forces ended up with a lot of stuff that would have been too much trouble to take back to the States, so they dumped it in the drink (probably without even filing an environmental impact report). On an old LS/T, I discovered this tiny (maybe an inch long) orange clownfish in an equally tiny green anemone. What a color combination!

Nikon F4, 200mm f/4 AF Micro-Nikkor @ 1:1, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Crinoid

We were out for a dusk dive, at about the time that the crinoids started walking out to find their spots for the night. This one stopped on top of a coral head, and I got a close-up.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Hawkfish

Everybody has a favorite subject. I have many. But for pure challenge, it's hard to beat a hawkfish. They're tiny little things, about two or three inches long, and they're fairly skittish. But they like to rest briefly on sea fans, and when they flutter off, they usually come down in some tantalizing place. So I peer around the intervening underbrush and try to get a clear shot, only to have him flit away just as I'm going for the shutter release. One thing that keeps me coming back: I've never come close to getting my definitive hawkfish picture.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/16, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Cateye Blenny

Cateye Blenny (Meiacanthus athrodorsasis), White Beach, Russell Islands. Perched on a junk of WWII metal. Thanks to Dustin Jennings for the identification.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Jacks

There's a place called Mary Island that's off by itself. Two points stick out into the ocean and the current can be fierce. Where there's current, there are often big fish, and if you're lucky, you can find barracudas off the points. Back in the shoals, there's a little recess in about 35 feet of water where you can hide from the current. Betty and I were finishing off our dive there when a cloud of jacks came over.

Nikonos III, 15 mm, Ikelite 200 Strobe, f/5.6, 1/60, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Porcelain Crab

We'd finished our dive, and were poking along the wall in about 15 feet of water when I found a fluorescent purple anemone. I hung around for a minute or so and spotted a crab no bigger than my fingernail, but I was out of air and film. After a rush trip back to the boat for a new roll and a new tank, we dropped in, hoping we could find the anemone again. He hadn't moved at all.

The situation made for one of the shortest and shallowest dives in my log: 12 min, max depth 21 feet.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Anemone Shrimp

The host looks like an anemone, but it's not: it's called mushroom coral, and if you look carefully, you can usually find one or two of these tiny, transparent shrimp. Everybody calls them anemone shrimp. This one was less than an inch long, and seemed to be as interested in me as I was in him. All the time I was photographing him, he kept moving his front pinchers back and forth as if he were clapping.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor @ 1:1, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/45, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Yawning Lizardfish

Is this lizardfish really yawning? I don't know, but it makes a good picture.

Nikon F4, 200mm f/4 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Two Gobies and a Blind Shrimp

I'm not usually much for grubbing around on a rubble bottom looking for fish behaviors, but that's what I was doing one afternoon, and, while I'd be the first to admit that this isn't an esthetic success, I like it. The shrimp can't see, and needs the gobies to warn when danger is about. The shrimp keeps up its part by digging out the hole where all three live.

Nikon F4, 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Caledonian Stinger

This strange fish is called a Caledonian stinger. He's a relative of the stonefish, and supposedly packs a wallop. I didn't get close enough to find out. In fact, I didn't get as close as I wanted, since I was down there with my 200, and he's pretty big -- maybe 15 inches long. So I just got the eye.

Nikon F4, 200mm f/4 AF Micro-Nikkor, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/16, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Gobie

In about four feet of water on a sandy bottom, this little gobie is doing guard duty, while a blind shrimp toils on the other side of the rubble heap surrounding their hole.

Nikon F4, 200mm f/4 AF Micro-Nikkor @ 1:1, Aquatica Housing, 2 Ikelite AI/n strobes, f/22, Kodak Royal Gold 100.
Schooling Barracudas

A spectacular fish behavior I’d heard about but never seen occurs when a school of barracuda wraps itself in a circle and starts chasing its own tail. Mary Island is known for its barracuda schools, and there were plenty, but they were strung out in boring old straight lines. Toward the end of the trip, at Anemone Point, Minjanga Island, I had about given up. Betty and I were poking around at the top of a wall at the end of a dive when she spotted something out in the blue water. I couldn’t see what it was, but it was obvious that she was excited about it, so I took off in that direction. After a while I saw the school, spinning slowly and majestically about 30 feet under the surface. I headed down so I could get the sun in the picture, and you can see the result.

Nikonos III, 15mm lens, f/8, 1/60, Kodak Royal Gold 100.

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