Finding the Beauty in sometimes Ugly Spots Part 1

No matter where you look these days weather its on TV, surfing the internet or flipping through a magazine the underwater images you see for the most part of are of beautiful blue water filled with colourful tropical corals. But not everywhere is like that and sometime those aren’t the places close to home.

A reef off the western coast of Panama.

For me diving in green water filled with plants is what is close to home, the strikingly vibrant emerald water of the Pacific Northwest to more precise. Yes it’s a little colder and a little darker but I love it.

Stellar Sea lion swimming through the kelp at Race Rocks

Due to the water and weather in this part of the world you can’t always dive were you want, Race Rocks with the sea lions or Browning Pass north or Port Hardy.

Browning Wall, Port Hardy British Columbia

Sometimes you go diving in places that are perceived as dull and boring or lifeless and that is when you can be pleasantly surprised.

Spring Bay is a small sandy, mucky spot very close to a very popular dive site called 10 Mile Point. The bay is usually reserved for new divers, divers in training or if all other places are not diveable you go to Spring Bay. It’s a shallow dive site, with easy access, a place to get geared up and very little water movement.

Smoothhead Sculpin

I’ve dove this bay doing guide dives and taken students here a few hundred times over the years but I’d never taken my camera and spent some time exploring the nooks and crannies of the to see what if any life lived there.

Too my surprise and delight the area is a mecca for macro photography. Some species I had never photographed let a lone seen before because they live in places that people including myself don’t normally go to or dive at due to the lack of colour or muddy flat underwater environment.

Longfin Gunnel

Sand Soul

Snake Prickleback

Never underestimate nature and the power it has. Creatures inhabit and adapt to their surrounding in amazing ways. Diving in places that most think are boring can sometimes yield the best results. All you have to do is be patient and look.

The only unhappy face on this dive.

Thanks for reading, part two will be post tomorrow.

Scott

For more stories and images - http://www.scottstevensonphotography.ca/