nature

Paradise wrapped in plastic

My Point of View

I spent 2 wonderful weeks diving the reefs in Raja Ampat last November. West Papua has since long been high up on my wish list. I love travelling to remote places, leave every day comfort behind and get in touch with Nature and the people living in these places.

It’s pure magic to witness the first glimpse of light in the wee hours of the morning and the golden sunbeams in the afternoon…

Cruising through the labyrinth of small islands, entering the famous Passage is pure food for all our senses !

Fam islands

The Passage

Mirrors

Having a coffee or/and lunch break on a white sandy beach comes sooner or later into your mind. The boat gets closer to the beach and you disembark the food..

You look forward to a perfect moment in this perfect picture…but then reality gets you, right away, without a warning! You stand on the beach and you rub your eyes as if you still can’t believe what you see…

The whole beach is covered in rubbish, plastic sandals, bottles, brushes, scatters and boxes of any kind. You are miles away from the next village, hours away from the next city…

My appetite for the delicious food faded away instantly

Wallpaper-February 2009

Uncategorized, Wallpapers

Hi everybody!
Here’s my wallpaper for the short month of February. It shows the famous waterfall “Schiessentumpel” in the Little Switzerland here in Luxembourg. It’s one of the highlights of a visit in the country. It has many colour faces, I prefer by far its winter cloths

Schiessentumpel

Schiessentumpel

Here different sizes :
1280 x 800

1680 x 1050

1024 x 768

The Call of the Wild

My Point of View

Why are you diving? How is it?

These may be the questions most of the people ask after having watched one of my slide-shows. How do you explain this feeling? Are we looking for something? It’s not easy to put words on this special sensation.

In some way we are like gold seekers in the old times. They travelled the whole country to the unknown lands and felt like adventurers. They scanned every single river, they dreamt all night to find the precious metal. They looked below every stone, examining every sand-corn until their eyes got blurred. Even on their way back home in the evenings, their minds were filled with golden sparks. And finally when they held a tiny precious piece in their hands, the world around them stopped. Nothing had any importance anymore. Their eyes were fixed by a magic glimpse of gold.

I often travel through unknown lands before I get to a dive spot. My eyes and mind are filled with sparks. I open up to all these new sounds, lights and smells. But the underwater world is the largest unknown place on earth. And it depends on us.

“La bibliothèque de la vie brûle et nous ne connaissons même pas les titres des livres” (Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian politician)

Life’s library is burning and we don’t even know the titles of the books .

Most people don’t care about things they don’t know. That’s why I always take my time to answer questions. We as divers are very privileged people. Everyday new species are discovered. We get face to face to some of the most awesome creatures. We also see the damages done to the reef, the shrinking number of some species like sharks. And sometimes we even see fellow divers damaging the reef. Is an underwater picture worth damaging the reef or harassing the wildlife? Never! As underwater photographers we are examples for the people close to us or even on a wider board. We should use this to protect our seas. To raise awareness.

“Il ne sert à rien à l’homme de gagner la lune, s’il venait de perdre la terre.” (Francois Mauriac)

It doesn’t help to gain the moon if we would loose earth

semuc