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Photo Gallery
I'm a beginning underwater photographer, but I'm trying. On this page I'll post some of my attempts at capturing underwater sights from my dives.
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One of the ugliest sights in NJ waters is the Sea Raven, sometimes called a Sally Growler or Mother-in-Law Fish. Its one of the few fish that I’m never tempted to poke or play with. This one was hiding under a rock along the Shark River Inlet on the Belmar side. He was sharing the hole with a small eel on the right of the picture. This was a beautiful day in early November when the air temperatures had dipped into the 30’s but the water was a balmy 55 degrees and the visibility was over 20 feet. It doesn’t get much better than that around here.
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In late to mid-summer some tropical fish start to show up in local waters. These butterfly fish are the most common, but I’ve seen other fish like banded rudderfish, various kinds of jacks, and many I don’t know the names of. With their bright colors they really stand out and bring extra interest to a dive. I’ve been told that the fertilized eggs of these fish are carried along in the Gulf Stream and the fry hatch and live for a short time in the warmish water temps of late summer and fall. Unfortunately, they don’t have much of a future come late fall and winter. Some divers catch them and put them in marine aquariums.
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This shot shows a little of what it's like diving in low visibility conditions in NJ waters. I found it very challenging trying to focus my camera and take the picture while juggling my light in one hand, the dive flag line in the other, and my camera in my third hand. Oops, ran out of hands. Meanwhile, I'm drifting with the current, my subject wants to scurry away, and I'm trying to manage my buoyancy in very shallow water.
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A very common sight at this location throughout the year. In June, they appear in the bay by the thousands in a spider crab mating orgy. I've see the bottom literally covered with spider crabs ranging in size from a few inches to a foot or more claw to claw. As you drift over them, they rear up on their rear legs and wave their front claws menacingly. I'm always afraid of having sensitive part pinched. Fortunately their claws are pretty weak compared to blue crabs. This picture was taken in very low visibility conditions and the flash caused a lot of back scatter.
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This isn't a great picture, but I think it captures the sometimes spooky and almost surreal atmosphere of low vis diving. The main attraction of the Belmar Back Bay is a condemned fishing pier that extends out into the bay. Underneath the supports have rotted from an original 12'' to in some cases a few inches. I expect the whole thing to come crashing down any day now. The posts and boards of the pier are covered with a variety of marine life and seem to form their own little ecosystems. This shot shows a clump of mussels and some orange sponges. At night you can often see eels swarming in and around the pier and in the warm weather tropical fish, carried up by the Gulf Stream, often seek refuge around the pilings. I hope to get some pictures of these before the pier disappears.
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For this picture I managed to shine my light on the coral while taking the picture. The coral is called "White Encrusting Coral" or "Northern Stony Coral" and is common in NJ waters. Most of the time, however, it's very flat and thin - more like lichen on a rock. This is the first time I've seen it flowery like this, and there were several more growths of it along the pier. I've never seen it like this in warmer weather and I wonder if it's a seasonal "flowering" or whether the coral gets eaten by other marine life in the warmer times of the year.
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This is the same coral under natural lighting conditions.
Copyright 2002 Carl Muhlhausen
