I returned to shot the whale sharks only on month after my first visit this year.  Yes, its THAT good.  Things were different this time, though.  I arrived only 2 days after Hurricane Dolly plowed through, and while all the people and buildings were fine, the water visibility was like swimming in tea.  Viz is normally between 15-35’, but I rarely saw the tip of my fin, with viz at about 4’ on the first day, improving to about 8-9’ on the final day.  All but one of the photos were from the last day.  The scariest part of it all was thinking that if I dropped my camera rig, there was absolutely no chance whatsoever of recovering it, since I’d never be able to see it through the funk.

Well, when life gives you lemons . . . use a w/a fisheye lens!  I asked the guides to concentrate on the smallest of the behemoths.  By avoiding the largest individuals, in the range of 9-15’, I was able to see nearly half-way down their bodies, and could make it appear to be better viz than it was.  By nearly pressing the ultra-wide lens up against their faces, I was able to get a level of clarity that would be otherwise impossible.  Some of these shots are from less than 3” away from the mouth.  Additionally, I used a little Photoshop CS3 Camera Raw trickery to “blue” up the images and make it appear a bit more clear, since no one would want to look at the mud that I saw with my naked eye.  All adjustments were done as global adjustments in Camera Raw.  No other manipulation involved. 

This really is on of the most spectacular marinelife encounters out there today.  And as if to make amends for the crap viz, Neptune presented a parting gift.  After the final day’s whalesharking, on the way back to the marina, I saw what appeared to be an endless weedline of sargassum.  My guide screeched, “rays!  rays!!!!”, and before my eyes, the mundane sargassum transformed itself into tens of thousands (maybe more) of rare golden cownose rays at the surface, puttering along in a river of greenish gold.  As soon as I quietly slipped into the water (many times over) I realized that this “puttering around” was actually at about 3 knots, they sensed me in the water way before I could make out their shape.  No doubt considering me a predator, they barely came into view before bolting down into the mucky water.  Back on the boat, they watched me, in the doughnut hole of the spectacle, fruitlessly trying to ninja sneak my way towards the interior ring of the doughnut to get the shot.  Proving photographically fruitless, I returned to boat, with only a few mediocre shots, and from topside, enjoyed the single most beautiful marinelife spectacle of my entire life as they continued to swim past us for what seemed like an eternity in absolutely uncountable numbers.

I used the Nikon D2x in the Aquatica housing with the Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom lens, always at 10mm.  The AquaView magnified viewfinder was an absolute life-saver in the murky visibility.