Whale Tales from Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga: Whale song from 2008.

Whale Tales from Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga: Whale song from 2008.

Listen to one of our many recordings of the male South Pacific Humpback Whale from 2008.

Marine Life Keywords for Photographs

For all those photographers who put the continual effort into keywording your photographs, this is for you. Marty Snyderman, Eric Cheng and Barry Guimbellot are behind this wonderful new program Marine Life Keywords. The program contains over 12,000 marine species, using common names, genus and species.

This program can save you many hours of keyboard work and make more time for underwater work, and all for the cost of US$99. Currently this program runs with Lightroom and Aperture but other programs are being looked at for compatability.

For more information visit the website for Marine Keywords

Reptile mating photo may be a first......

Back in February we were sat on our deck enjoying the summer in Vava'u, when 2 very large lizards ran across our deck and started mating. They were approximately 25cm in length.

We had not seen this species here before, and so we sent off the photos to the Australia Museum of Herpetology. With no immediate reply we put our minds back to diving and continued to see these lizards every now and then.

Just recently I received an email from the Museum saying

"The skink is Emoia trossula. While known from Fiji and Rarotonga, our research scientists have told us that there have been no published accounts of mating in this species. "

So here is my mating photo and a couple of others....... pretty cool for just a snap shot.....

All images copyright karen varndell 2009

Bula Fiji Tourism Exchange

Despite the economy woes, swine flu and political hardship, the tourism industry was well represented last week at the BFTE in the Sheraton on Denarau. Booth from all the South Pacific Islands stood their ground against the economy, lavishly decorating their booths. It was great to see such attendance, and as always the Fijian Bula Welcome was everywhere.

A surprise walk around by the Fijian Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama and meet and great for many of the booths.

Are whale strandings increasing for 2009?

Since the beginning of 2009 the news has been steadily reporting whale strandings around the world....... some of these include

January 2009  - 48 Sperm Whales in Tasmania

March 2009 - 194 Pilot Whales and Dolphins in Tasmania

May 2009 - Rare Blue Whale washed up in NZ

and today in South Africa after returning 20 whales to the water, over 30 pilot whales were humanely shot after rescues efforts no longer worked. 

Vava'u has 3 Pilot Whales strand in January and 2 Beaked Whales strand on one of the outer islands last week.

In Ireland, the IWDG reported that though numbers of strandings are down in their area from 2008, numbers of unusual species  stranding is on the rise.

As we wrote about before, strandings occur for many reasons, and have been reported from the Roman Era. As our oceans become busier with boats and tests, we may see more strandings. 

This site states they are able to predict whale strandings.........

The reasons for these strandings are still largely unknown, however as our population grows and we create more technologies with which to explore the ocean with, we may have more of an effect on these events than we realise........

Trying something new........

Living in remote destinations for the last 7 years, has pushed me behind in the technical aspects of digital photography. Through websites such as Wetpixel and Dive Photo Guide, its now easier to gain access to new aspects and techniques of digital photography, which has in some ways become more important than with film cameras.

I made the switch 4 years ago to digital after shooting film for many years, you ask many people there opinion and everyone has a lengthy list of pros and cons for each.

So what have I been trying recently......... diopters. I know for many of you, you have been doing this technique for years but not me. I used to shoot them on my film cameras, but when I switched I forgot about it. 

Diopters decrease the working distance of a lens, in other words the lens can focus on the subject much closer than normal. The lens is not good with a

 diopter on it for distance shooting.

These were all taken with a Nikor 105mm 2.8 lens on a D200 camera, sea and sea housing with YS250 and DX90 stobes.

images copyright Karen Varndell 2009

For more of my photos please visit my website

Fiji Shark Awareness Programme

BAD in Fiji designed a slideshow concentrating on shark awareness, as the Tongan sponsor to this project, we carried out our own slideshow last week. It was well attended, and everyone had fun.

We will be carrying out this slideshow every 6 weeks as well as our other slideshows we will be doing......... more information will be available soon. Many thanks to Tonga Bobs for hosting this event....