Part of the team...

Two days ago I had the opportunity to get some REALLY amazing dolphin footage just north of Kosi Bay. I'd been jumping on and off the little boat in an effort to get close enough to these creatures in order to get a decent shot or two with my HD water unit.

After the third attempt, the pod, which had been largely ignoring me until this moment, came racing in towards me in what seemed to be some sort of recce mission. After being "charged" repeatedly by one particular individual the pod seemed to dismiss me as non threatening, and promptly bunched around me, including me in their swimming formation. I had five dolphin on my right and four on the left, I was sandwiched in the middle, in amongst the school!

Strange Nights...

Here on the coast we get these hot, sweaty evenings which degenerate into sticky nights that aren't much good for anything. I was knocking around down on the beach one night looking in the rock pools, and finding all sorts of weird things when I decided to try and capture this dank, hot environment in a picture.

This pic is the result, a couple of minutes exposure, and the rocks in front of my house looked like another planet. I got quite a fright when I checked the LCD!

Another Load of Bull!

These are shots from a recent foray with a chain-gang of Bull Sharks that we've got to know... Great fun to dive with, but you've gotta watch your back as they have a habit of working you over in pairs... One does the frontal approach and one sneaks up from behind. So often you have to whip around to chase off the offending "finsniffer"

Shooting these sharks is quite difficult in relation to Whites or Tigers, as they don't readily swim right up to head on, they're a more skitsy species, choosing to maintain a good depth below the surface. On this particular day we managed to lure them up to 15 meters or so, with the help of Baitbox's expert chumming skills!

Tiger Tim

This is a video clip from some of the footage that was shot during a Tiger session... It features Tim "Baitbox" Barnett being worked by a fat female. Tim was trying to safeguard his last piece of precious bait, hiding it under his arm so the Tiger wouldn't see it. At least we know they can smell now.

So if you're swimming along and you happen to come across a guy in a black wetsuit hacking at a dead fish and surrounded by a cloud of blood, that'd be Tim. He's the best chum I've ever had.

A Load of Bull!

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to be in the water with 7 Zambezi or Bull sharks off the coast of Southern Mozambique. This is late in the season for this species, and after battling with weather for a week, we finally hit the right day and conditions. SCUBA doesn't work very well when trying to get close to these creatures, so we freedive on them... For this reason we have to try and get them to within 12 - 15m from the surface to make this possible with the HD housings. Even then, its like swimming around with a 20l paint tin!