Photos from Belize dive trip

(2-foot wide Octopus during a night dive off Turneffe Caye, Belize)

 

Kimberly and I headed to Belize in November for our first dive trip in well over a year (we're not letting that happen again!) and spent a week on the Belize Aggressor III liveaboard dive boat. Doing liveaboards is the only way to dive – eat, sleep, and dive for 7 days! I did a bunch of courses during the week, including my very-long-overdue Nitrox and Advanced Open Water certifications, and 26 dives to make it up to 122 total dives. I managed to tick something off my bucket-list – diving the famous Blue Hole (down to 140 feet!). I also took a lot of photos!

Here I present my favorites from the week. Click on a photo for a 1024×768 enlargement.

Left to right below: Lizardfish; 3-ft Grouper who liked to be stroked.

 

Left to right below: Kimberly with her new camera rig; 5-ft barrel sponges.

 

Left to right below: mated pair of Banded Coral Shrimp; very small (1-inch long) Secretary Blennie that Kimberly found.

 

Left to right below: juvenile File Fish (about 2 inches) during a night dive; Brittle Star during a night dive.

 

Left to right below: Basket Star during a night dive – these guys are fun to feed by holding a light just by them and all the little worms and critters in the water swim to the light and and the Basket Star catches them; Brittle Stars in a barrel sponge during a night dive.

 

Left to right below: Large (9-inch shell) hermit crab; White-Speckled Nudibranch (about two inches long) I was lucky enough to spot in a sea-grass and soft coral forest.

 

Left to right below: Swimming with 8-ft Black-Tipped Reef Sharks – we really were that close!; looking up at a big shark.

 

Left to right below: the same shark again; swimming with a school of Jacks.

 

Left to right below: Speckled Moray warning me off; large (8-ft) Green Moray.

 

Left to right below: Now the Green Moray has seen me – Morays have terrible eyesight; a Jawfish – these guys live in little burrows in the sand and are very shy – I spent 1/2 hour lying on the sand waiting for this shot.

 

Left to right below: Lobster during a night dive – with mood lighting; solitary Banded Coral Shrimp during a night dive.

 

Left to right below: 4-inch Large-Eye Shrimp burrowing into the sand during a night dive; Speckled Toadfish during a night dive – these are really weird looking fish – very flat and wide – and extremely rare!

 

Left to right below: Octopus (same one as the picture at the start of the post) during a night dive.

 

10 thoughts on “Photos from Belize dive trip

  1. Very nice guys! Colleague who works in the SQL space at Dimensional Fund Advisors here in Austin, TX sent me over to your site. I dove for about 4 years during the 6 years I was in the Navy. Stationed in Pearl Harbor I figured it would be a great hobby. Hawaii wasn’t all that great as far as underwater interests (young Pacific islands); however, my most memorable dive was smack-dab in the middle of a huge shipping harbor in Guam…holy cow, the best way to describe it is to think of the opening scene from Finding Nemo :)

    Looks like you work with some nice gear and you made great use of it. I shot with a Sea and Sea 35mm point and shoot; in fact, here’s the gear spread out in my barracks in Pearl c 1995: http://www.motleypixel.com/public/posts/equip_1_resize.jpg and my favorite shot taken with this setup: http://www.flickr.com/photos/motleypixel/2753928764/in/set-72157623727257604

    I really like the black-tip reef shark shot (7th row, second column).

    -Roy

  2. Amazing photos and reminds me of NGC/Discovery Channel… Thanks for Sharing. Wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2012

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Other articles

Imagine feeling confident enough to handle whatever your database throws at you.

With training and consulting from SQLskills, you’ll be able to solve big problems, elevate your team’s capacity, and take control of your data career.