Return to the Island of the Sharks
In March I went back to Cocos Island National Park, Costa Rica. Cocos is well-known in the scuba diving community for sharks, sharks, and more sharks, and it really is a special place. Yes, most of the diving is deep (~100 ft) and can be challenging, but in return you are rewarded with thousands of schooling fish of all sizes. While Cocos possesses the closest I've seen to an unspoiled underwater environment, sadly it is not, and year to year dive operators notice fewer large predatory fish, more fishing boats outside the national park boundaries, and more illegal fishing within the park.
This marked the second year in a row I went to Cocos on expedition with PRETOMA of Costa Rica and the Sea Turtle Restoration Network of the US, and this time we were also accompanied by CIMAD of Columbia. These three NGOs work cooperatively, along with researchers from Ecuador, towards conserving sharks and sea turtles in Central and northern South American waters.
While on expedition we help the biologists catch sea turtles which are then measured, tagged, and released; tag sharks; and retrieve and replace data receivers. The receivers collect information telling researchers which tagged animals have passed within 500 meters of that particular station. On this trip we caught/tagged approximately eight turtles and thirteen sharks.
Expeditions are usually run twice per year, and are open to experienced scuba divers. The next trip is September 2011, and space is available in case you happen to be interested in going. I highly recommend it!
Photography notes: So far I've done exclusively wide-angle photography at Cocos, shooting entirely in manual using a 16-35mm f/2.8 lens on a full-frame DSLR. Since most diving is deep, there's not a lot of light down there. While strobes are very useful, all the particulate matter in the water causes a lot of backscatter so I often shot just with ambient light. I really should have used my strobes more, extending them all the way to the sides. A slightly longer focal length would have improved my photos as well; the 16-35 lens on a cropped sensor camera would probably be perfect.
This marked the second year in a row I went to Cocos on expedition with PRETOMA of Costa Rica and the Sea Turtle Restoration Network of the US, and this time we were also accompanied by CIMAD of Columbia. These three NGOs work cooperatively, along with researchers from Ecuador, towards conserving sharks and sea turtles in Central and northern South American waters.
While on expedition we help the biologists catch sea turtles which are then measured, tagged, and released; tag sharks; and retrieve and replace data receivers. The receivers collect information telling researchers which tagged animals have passed within 500 meters of that particular station. On this trip we caught/tagged approximately eight turtles and thirteen sharks.
Expeditions are usually run twice per year, and are open to experienced scuba divers. The next trip is September 2011, and space is available in case you happen to be interested in going. I highly recommend it!
Photography notes: So far I've done exclusively wide-angle photography at Cocos, shooting entirely in manual using a 16-35mm f/2.8 lens on a full-frame DSLR. Since most diving is deep, there's not a lot of light down there. While strobes are very useful, all the particulate matter in the water causes a lot of backscatter so I often shot just with ambient light. I really should have used my strobes more, extending them all the way to the sides. A slightly longer focal length would have improved my photos as well; the 16-35 lens on a cropped sensor camera would probably be perfect.