Wallpaper December 2008

I know this comes quite late, but I completely forgot about this while on holidays and busy diving.

This month’s wallpaper is underwater again. It’s a wide angle shot from a dive site called Lion’s head or Batu Pendata in Northern Sulawesi. The Pulisan area is still quite off the beaten track if you compare to it’s busy neighbours : Bunaken NP and Lembeh Strait.

What I personally like in this shot is that the rock in the background has almost the same shape than the sponge, like a shadow.

Upon entering the water we were surrounded by zillions of schooling fish. A huge Napolean wrasse took a glimpse at us before he disappeared in the blue…

Only one word to resume it all : BAGUS

Here are the links to download :

1280 x 1024

1600 x 1200

Northern Sulawesi – Part One

diving, Travels, underwater

it has been a week since we arrived at Cocotinos, a lovely dive resort in the Manado area on Northern Sulawesi. After the huge wave of SMS’s and mails we got concerning the earthquake, peace came back to our daily schedule. In fact none of us noticed the quake on Sunday night. After a great breakfast in the morning we left for a 3 tank day dive. I have been to Bunaken before but have never dived the “mainland” dive sites around Manado. So it really came as a surprise to me to find critters such as BRO, Ambon scorpion fish and pontohi seahorses, only to name a few.

Pontohi seahorse

orange eyed mantis

On Wednesday we went on an extended day trip to the Bangka area and paradise pier. That meant wide angle shots. Huge seafans and schooling yellow snappers welcomed us on our first dive. Taking pictures can be tricky as currents might get strong…

Colourful reef

schooling around

Paradise jetty is located at Paradise Resort a huge ugly (at least to my taste) building which stands in the middle of nowhere, empty, waiting for the new owner to open the place again.

paradise jetty

We definitley have fun

LOL

More to come from Lembeh.

Festival de l’image sous-marine Antibes

My Point of View, PhotoCompetitons

Last week took place the 35th Festival de l’Image sous-marine in Antibes, southern France. This was a great opportunity to get away from the freezing temperatures around here in Luxembourg and to drive south 1000km.

Festival mondial de l'image sous-marine

I had also organised to meet an online buddy from Digidiver.net there, Thomas Vignaud aka Autopsea. It’s always interesting and funny to meet people you only know from the net for real. Concerning Thomas it was a great day to meet as he won the first prize in the photo competition as well as the prize of young photographer with his great turtle shot.