X-Ray Mag #93

There is just something that always feels right about getting on a small airplane for the final leg of travel to begin a dive trip. In my mind, it almost guarantees the destination is somewhere amazing—a place that is so special that the large jets used in mass transit cannot even get to it. I departed the island of Mahé, the largest and most-populated island in the Seychelles, for the tiny island of Alphonse, with that giddy, childlike feeling in which I could not stop grinning. I looked around at my fellow passengers also destined for Alphonse, and I could see them smiling too.

With the abundance of choices available on the market today, choosing the right camera and underwater housing that fits your needs can be a daunting and bewildering task. Larry Cohen offers advice, insights and tips to help underwater photographers make the best selection.

Landmines. They are some of the most insidious weapons mankind has ever created. Invisible, hard to destroy and waiting years for their opportunity to kill. Tens of millions are scattered around the world. In fact, Czech police divers and bomb disposal experts returned from another mission in Bosnia, where they were looking for war ammunition, especially landmines, in the rivers.

How big is the technical diving market? What trends can we see? How many technical divers are out there? What are their typical careers? And what do we know about them and their purchasing behavior? Three studies in brief shed light on these questions.

Since 2011, scientists in South Africa have observed an unusual event: large groups of humpback whales seen from mid-October to mid-December off the western coast of South Africa, between Cape Town and St. Helena Bay. During this time period, depending on weather and wind conditions, the Benguela Current brings krill, upon which the whales feed, northward from Antarctica.

Ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting! Someone, somewhere, had found something really exciting! One of the dive guides was tapping frantically on the side of his cylinder with his metal pointer. Ting-ting-ting replied my dive guide Opo, only to receive more frantic tapping in response. My pulse rate upped a few more levels in anticipation of yet another exciting find. Following Opo and the frantic tinging up the dark sand slope, we finally found its source—one of the other dive guides had found a beautiful flamboyant cuttlefish.

British artist, painter and sculptor Mark Adlington has travelled to the wild and re­mote corners of the world, studying and sketching wild animals in their natural habitats, and from these impressions, created large, vivid, spellbinding paintings and fluid drawings featuring the dynamic movement and magnificent presence of some of the earth’s most threatened species. His underwater paintings feature polar bears, otters and seals.

X-Ray Mag interviewed the artist to gain insight into his art and perspectives of these animals.

It was day seven of the liveaboard trip and the twentieth dive of Darren’s holiday. He joined his team in the tender boat and they sped off to the dive site. He donned his gear and ran through his usual pre-dive checks, while the guide dropped in to do a current check. It was only when the countdown began for all the divers to roll into the water together that Darren reached for the mask hanging around his neck… and it was not there.

Friday, 21 June 2019. Today was an important day. It would be the final act that would close the marking of one hundred years since the Great War.

Separated from the northern coast of mainland Scotland by only the six-mile-wide channel of the Pentland Firth, Orkney has some 90 islands, only 18 of which are inhabited. In the southern region of the archipelago is the large area of sheltered water known as Scapa Flow. Scapa Flow was the base chosen by the British Admiralty as the home of the Grand Naval Fleet.

From all over the world, more and more divers are coming to the Red Sea to discover its underwater paradise. The vast majority choose the Egyptian Red Sea as their main destination because it offers a wide variety of dive sites, suitable for all levels of diving; it is where one can travel all year round at a great price.

But there is another Red Sea, one that has been nearly kept in a time capsule, practically intact, unexplored and retaining a sense of adventure that the Egyptian Red Sea offered 30 years ago. We’re talking about the Sudanese Red Sea—the wild Red Sea!

When it comes to final editing of your digital underwater images, the white balance should be the first step of your digital post-production workflow. Always.