Category Archives: Travels

Searching for Oliver the froggie…

Posted on March 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today Chris and I decided to have a late afternoon dive on Swisscare house reef. Sarah precisely explained us where to look for Oliver the newly discovered freckled frog fish. We both headed to the coral block when we saw two mating reef octopi sitting on top of it. Apparently Chris got too close because one of the two left his beloved one and headed straight out to Chris’ strobe, wrapping all its arms around it and his arm! The other octopus left behind changed colour and really seemed pissed off! It followed its unfaithful lover and eventually took him back to the coral block and pursued what they had started…
We were both laughing and continued then the search for Oliver… suddenly I saw Chris waving at me! Did he find the froggie? No…he was shooting something tiny in a hole…when I came closer I couldn’t believe what I saw! A couple of Harlequin Shrimps sat there and showed off their beautiful claws in every possible pose!

Harlequin shrimp


The harlequin shrimp (Hymenocera Elegans) is found throughout the Indo-Pacific, including the Red Sea. They mostly occur in couples and feed on sea stars. It’s not easy to spot them and for most underwater photographers count in the famous Top Ten or Holy Grail List.
So you can imagine our surprise!
….Ah yes, did I mention that we never found Oliver :) ….maybe next time….

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Komodo : drifting away

Posted on November 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

Diving in Komodo can’t really be explained. You have to witness it by yourself. Feeling the strength of the current in your face!

Trying to keep hold to  your camera  :)

Diving through a bowl of fish soup!

It is simply breathtaking, in every sense of the word!

The best is to give away some pictures all straight from the camera to give you an idea :

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Komodo : back to diving

Posted on November 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

We had a first day diving today around Sebolan Kecil in Labuan Bajo.

As this site hasn’t too much current I took the opportunity to play with my 105mm macro lens again :)

Tomorrow will be a Tokina Wide angle day again!

 

Pink

 

 

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Flores : Overland visions

Posted on November 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

We had a great time travelling through Flores. 4 days, over 500km, much more potholes and turns. Countless smiles and faces.

Day One : Maumere-Moni

Driving over the mountains from the North coast down to the deserted beaches of the south coast. Unbearable temperatures! Fortunately Moni is located in the mountains and the evening breeze comes like a gift!

Day Two : Moni -  Berjawa

We got up early to witness the sunrise on top of Kelimutu volcano.

We had lunch on Blue Stone Beach

…before we did English school work with the kids of the traditional village

Day Three : Berjawa – Ruteng

Bena village is the most famous traditional village around Berjawa. Marc was busy trading vanilla.

….and rice fields all over!

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Maumere News

Posted on November 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am sitting here in a small room with no fan and nor A/C to write these few lines.  This is one major point which kept me from keeping you all updated during this first week. No WIFI  here, so you have to plug in your Computer in the reception area. An as you can imagine it is not the fastest connection. Welcome to Maumere, Flores :)

Let’s talk diving

We leave every morning at 7am or 8 am with a small fisherman boat to the different spots. Maumere is a wide angle paradise. We see reef sharks on almost every dive, turtles and a eagle ray passed by lately too! There is some macro stuff around but it is difficult to find it when your eyes focus on large gorgonian fans, sponges in different colours and other huge coral!

There are still places you can see the damage of the 1992 earthquake underwater but the reef has well devellopped since.

As you can imagine we are the only divers around. This is great!!!

Tomorrow will be our last diving day here with the people from SEA WORLD CLUB. We will go wreck diving.

Well the only moment I put on the macro lens is on the night dives. There is a much dive site here on the housereef. Lots of sand and rubbish and then millions of crabs and other sand critters.

I put some photos together straight from the camera without processing to give you an idea of Maumere underwater

Enjoy!

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Packed and ready to go!

Posted on November 7, 2010 | Leave a comment
Sunset over Komodo NP

Sunset over Komodo NP

All the bags are packed for our 3 weeks trip around Flores island. I think we really reduced our luggage to a strict minimum :
Chris’ and my bags weight 20 kg each!

This includes :

  • all dive equipment such as BCD, regulator, wetsuit, mask, fins, booties,snorkel, gloves, reef hook  :)
  • strobe arms, housing handles and all cables for the cameras
  • a bit of clothes such as 3 pants and 4 T-Shirts
  • Lots of Anti -Nyamuk!
Ze bags

Ze bags

An Explorer hard case (15kg) contains the 2 Ike housings.

Well, no need to tell you that our hand luggage  goes slightly over the 7 kg we are allowed to :) But with 10 kg in each bag I find it quite reasonable for a laptop, 2 cameras, as for me I take the 18-200mm lens for topside shots. A 60mm and 105mm macro and the 10-17mm Tokina wide angle and 2 Ike strobes. Chris carries a 50mm macro, a 2x TC , his brand new 14-54mm lens and 2 Ike strobes too. I carry a Canon compact camera for the eventual snapshot during surface interval

Here an old slide picture I took in 2003 around Komodo with my old Sea&Sea MII. The image quality is crap to non-existent, but you can see why I’m eager to get back diving there. Healthy reefs and lots of life!

sharkfamily in Komodo

shark family in Komodo

If internet connections allow I will keep you updated on a daily basis on the adventures around Flores.

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Is it true what they say about…?

Posted on October 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

A couple of days back a friend sent me a link on a youtube video. It was a funny but interesting presentation of my home country. I couldn’t find out where it came from. A couple of days later I came through another version…and then a third one. Hmmm? I surfed a bit around and found the origin : www.luxembourg.lu. Unfortunately only in French.

But check out this one : http://www.promoteluxembourg.com/

You’ll find 10 different promotional films.

I love them! Nicely done. Just get in touch if you want to visit !

 

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Nuweiba Photo Workshop goes to an end..

Posted on August 20, 2010 | 2 Comments

This week here in Nuweiba passed really fast. We had 6 amazing days of diving with 15 to 17 dives. Water temperatures were at a comfortable 27-29C which allowed some of us to dive in shorts and T-Shirts or for me with a 0,5mm skin suit.

The group came up with some great shots as well in macro as in wide-angle. One of the advantages of Nuweiba is that you don’t have to share a dive site with other divers.

Ras Mamlach south of Nuweiba has beautiful soft corals and great drop-offs

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Nuweiba PhotoWorkShop

Posted on August 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

The whole group arrived safely in Nuweiba at the Swisscare Hotel on Saturday morning. We didn’t lose much time and were in the water with Sarah and Daniel at 12 o’clock …some even earlier :)

A nice and quiet dive next to the pipeline to get used to the camera gear again and for others getting used to saltwater in general.

Yesterday we had to great dives at Maga’ana with lovely swim-throughs on the first dive. Wide angle heaven!

The second dive was more into macro.

Today we went to Sinkers. This is actually a buoy which was installed 25 years ago in 35 m of water with a chain of only 25m…hmmm

well it ended up becoming a great dive site :)

In general there are lovely angler fishes around…Frances, Papa Frances or Geraldine (commonly known as Pink ass), lots of mating octopi, huge ugly stonefish and lots more.

We’ll keep you updated

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Wallpaper July

Posted on July 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here comes the new wallpaper for July. This little hawkfish just settled down for a couple of seconds on this green featherstar  when I passed by during one of my dives around Anilao last year. I tried different lightening techniques. This is the one I love best.

Hope you enjoy!

CClick on the image to download the wallpaper size

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