X-Ray Mag #70

Don Silcock || Humpback whales off Tonga.
94 spreads (double pages)
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Feature articles in this issue with stand-alone pdfs

Brandi Mueller   Brandi Mueller

If there was a place that inspired me to become a diver and invoked my passion and love for the ocean, it was Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). As a kid, I could spend hours watching television specials of this blue, fish-filled world that was so different from the Wisconsin farm town I grew up in.

Barb Roy   Barb Roy

A reluctant winter clung to an early March morning while flakes of snow silently fell on eight fully suited divers as our open-skiff slowly motored across glassy-calm water to the first dive site. No one spoke a word.

Barb Roy   Barb Roy

A reluctant winter clung to an early March morning while flakes of snow silently fell on eight fully suited divers as our open-skiff slowly motored across glassy-calm water to the first dive site. No one spoke a word.

Photo by Rico Besserdich

— A small sniff into color psychology and its effects in underwater photography.

Photo by Rico Besserdich

The Cayos Cochinos is a group of small islands located just between the mainland of Honduras and Roatán. Within this group are two small islands—Cayo Menor and Cayo Grande—and 13 more small coral cays situated 30km (19mi) northeast of La Ceiba on the northern shores of Honduras.

Simon Pridmore   Brandi Mueller

Andrew rolled off the tender boat into the exciting, fish-filled, current-strewn waters of northwest Papua, in the area known to divers as Raja Ampat. It was the first dive of a trip that he had been looking forward to for months. He deflated his BCD and descended. As he was rolling around onto his front to get his bearings, his world exploded.

Simon Pridmore   Brandi Mueller

Andrew rolled off the tender boat into the exciting, fish-filled, current-strewn waters of northwest Papua, in the area known to divers as Raja Ampat. It was the first dive of a trip that he had been looking forward to for months. He deflated his BCD and descended. As he was rolling around onto his front to get his bearings, his world exploded.

Richard Taylor   Larry Cohen , Peter Symes , Olga Torrey

One thing about crystal ball gazing, it is a lot like looking down into the blue abyss while sitting in deco, with the sun’s rays streaming in and making a magical and inviting sight. To those who may not have experienced this yet, it is one of the most evocative and alluring sights that any diver—technical or sport—could ever see. It brings one closer to the water than one can explain in words.

Edited by Gunild Symes   J. Paul Fennell
Coriolis, wood carving by J. Paul Fennell

American artist and woodturner J. Paul Fennell carves wood into delicate and fluid vessels inspired by the movement and dynamics of the sea. Brought up by the ocean on the East Coast, this former engineer of the Apollo space program is now based in Arizona where he re-purposes exotic urban trees destined for the bin and transforms their wood into sublime sculptures.

Konstantinos Alexiou   University of Southern Denmark

In 2006, a postgraduate program in maritime archaeology was established at the University of Southern Denmark. Based in Esbjerg, on the west coast of the Jutland Peninsula in southwestern Denmark, it is a one-of-a-kind university program in this centuries-old seafaring nation. The program is designed for students who want to pursue a professional career in maritime archaeology and heritage management.

Walt Stearns   Walt Stearns , Peter Symes

While there has been much ado internationally about Australia’s culling practices on large sharks in their coastal waters, there is about to be a similar event to take place in Florida come January 1st, 2016.

I have a confession. I’ve gone solo diving before. (Mom, I’m sorry.) I’ve been a scuba instructor for eleven years, diving since I was 15, and have done over 4,000 dives, I believe sometimes I am more comfortable underwater than I am on land (seriously, fish can be much easier to get along with than people).

Our skipper, Ali, carefully maneuvered the boat into position and cut the engine, shouting, “Go, go, go!” at the top of his lungs. And go we did—straight into the deep blue water, with cameras held in vice-like death-grips and onto the path of over a dozen mature and rather excited humpback whales.

Pierre Constant   Pierre Constant

On the coast of Western Australia, Exmouth is a little sleepy town on the Exmouth Gulf. Located at the threshold of the Indian Ocean, this is where you can find the renowned Ningaloo Reef, one of the longest and most virgin fringing reefs on the planet. A World Heritage Site since 2011, it hosts about 200 to 300 species of corals and 500 species of fish.

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