New Indonesia Expedition for 2013
Raja Ampat aboard Pindito

Michele and Howard will begin 2013 with a return to Raja Ampat. This time we are collaborating with John and Karen Ellerbrock of Gates Underwater and will be doing two back-to-back trips aboard Edi Frommenwiler’s famous Indonesian liveaboard, Pindito.

For years Edi and I have discussed shooting motion picture footage together. Edi is a fellow RED camera owner. He has captured amazing underwater images using his RED and his Gates Deep Red housing. By 2013, both John and I will have upgraded our camera systems to the RED Epic 5K camera and will be looking forward to recapturing the spectacular reefs of Raja Ampat in Epic 5K digital. Combining Edi’s substantial camera skills with his decades of diving experience in Indonesia should prove highly productive and a wonderful learning experience for all of us.

The trips are open and booking is done directly with Pindito’s offices.

Trip one is February 4-15, 2013
Starting and ending in Sorong, Irian Jaya.

Trip two is February 18 – March 1, 2013
Starting in Sorong and dropping off passengers in Ambon.

For more information and bookings go to: www.pindito.com/

 

 

Raja Ampat Expedition January 2012*
*Expeditions now full. Contact Seven Seas for waiting list

In January 2012 Michele and I will return to Indonesia aboard Seven Seas, the beautiful boat we used during the making of our IMAX 3D feature, Under the Sea 3D. Our Under the Sea 3D / Seven Seas expedition was our longest of the five trips we did for the film. It was also the most beautiful trip. We spent five wonderful weeks filming in the Komodo National Park and east along the Komodo Archipelago.

But we never made it to Raja Ampat. Next January will be our first opportunity to visit this richest of all marine ecosystems in the world. And we’ll do it aboard Seven Seas. Michele will be shooting video and stills with her new Canon 7D and I will be gathering stock footage in 4K with my RED camera.

Our Seven Seas expedition will be composed of two itineraries: A Northern Itinerary and a Southern Itinerary. Guests can choose either leg of the trip or (as with Michele and me) both legs. Both expeditions will begin and end in Sorong.

The Southern Itinerary begins January 8 in Sorong and returns to Sorong on January 22.

The Northern Itinerary begins January 24 in Sorong and returns to Sorong on February 7.

There are a total of 8 cabins available on Sevens Seas for a maximum of 16 guests (including Michele and me).

Cost is US$ 7,000 per person for each cruise of 14 nights or US$ 14,000 per person for both expeditions.

Booking should be made directly with Seven Seas by contacting: info@thesevenseas.net

For more information about Seven Seas go to: www.thesevenseas.net

Click on maps for a larger version

Northern Itinerary

Southern Itinerary

Since most of us on board will be photographers, we will try to keep our actual itineraries somewhat flexible allowing us to spend extra time at some of the more popular locations, possibly at the expense of locations that may be less productive photographically.

 

Lembeh Straits Expedition September/ October 2011

For information about Lembeh Resort go to: lembehresort.com .

Report from Lembeh Resort #1.

Michele and I were probably the only underwater professionals who had never been to the Lembeh Resort. Well, we are no longer Lembeh virgins. We arrived at the Resort after attending the Celebrate the Sea Festival in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. When the Festival was over, the Lembeh Resort picked us up at the hotel and we made the two hour drive to the Resort on the other side of the island.
We have now been here six days and have already seen many of the Straits most famous animals. Our timing seems to be excellent. All the animals that the Lembeh Straits are famous for seem to be here. It's truly an amazing place. Huge tidal currents rush through the Straits between North Sulawesi and the tiny island of Lembeh. Current eddies bring cold plankton-rich water to the sheltered bays and coves. The bottom is either coral or black sand. The latter having been created from volcanic ash. The biodiversity is astounding. There may be more than 2,000 species of fish here. And the variety of coral species is off the chart. We've seen many corals Michele and I have never seen before.
The diving conditions make working here easy. The waters are protected from wind. There is no swell. And the currents over the dive sites are mild. I'm shooting with my RED camera in the Deep RED Gates housing. Michele is shooting stills with her Canon 7D in her new Nauticam housing. Lembeh Resort usually provides one guide for each pair of divers. Normally, I enjoy looking for animals myself, but here guides are critical. They dive every day and know the animals and know how to spot them. On our first dive our guide, Ronald Sarante, showed us wonderpus, mimic octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish and several other iconic Lembeh critters. I never stopped shooting.
On our second dive, Ronald showed us a hairy octopus. Today we saw a second one. These are quite rare and Helen Gomez, Guest Relations Manager here at Lembeh Resort, has yet to see one after more than 700 dives in the Strait. Since we have seen two in less than a week, either Michele and I are quite lucky or Helen has no luck at all.
After three days of diving, I began to ask Ronald to show us specific animals that I was interested in filming. I told Ronald I was interested in filming catfish schools. On our eighth dive, he took us to a hole beneath a small reef that was home to the largest catfish I have ever seen. Each was more than a foot long. They looked to be preparing to sleep for the night. Michele and I photographed them laying on top of each other like a stack of lumber.
We've spent several dives with flamboyant cuttlefish. We filmed a batch of eggs hatching yesterday. Apparently the eggs take 50 days to gestate. Our guides know by looking at them just how close to hatching they are. Ronald said he knew of one batch beneath a coconut shell that was ready to hatch. The process took our whole dive, but it went like clockwork. Ronald turned over the coconut shell, and my bright movie lights stimulated the baby cuttlefish to hatch. Today we went down for more cuttlefish action and filmed the flamboyants feeding on shrimp.
So far the trip has been more than successful. Today was the first glitch in an otherwise flawless experience. My RED camera has begun to melt. I've been having an intermittent power failure that I thought was just a temperamental battery terminal. Today it completely gave up. Upon inspection I discovered that the battery terminals had partially melted. Certainly, the camera gets very hot when operating. But the heat of discharging the battery has actually melted the plastic surrounding the battery terminals on both the batteries and the camera battery mount. Steve Fish and I took one battery apart to discover the wire soldered to the terminal had melted free. Steve re-soldered the wire and everything is working tonight, but I will be lucky to get through the rest of our expedition without something going seriously wrong.

Report from Lembeh Resort #2

We only have a few days of diving remaining. Soon Michele and I will have to return home where we must prepare our own meals, rinse our own dive gear, and lift our own cameras. These things are forbidden at Lembeh Resort. Frankly, I’m seldom comfortable with others washing and moving my expensive RED system around. But Ronald and the boat crews are very careful and I’ve quickly adapted.

I’m certain that the diving here is the easiest I have ever experienced. There is not the slightest hint of surge (swells passing overhead), no wind chop on the surface even when the wind is blowing, and very little current on the dive sites. For people who want effortless diving, this is the place. Effortless diving conditions do not mean effortless shooting. The animals don’t care that I may have come half way round the world to capture IMAX quality images of their intimate behaviors. In fact, some of the critters seem to take pleasure inducing massive levels of frustration. They seem to know that smacking them on their little heads with stainless steel prodders is gravely frowned upon here.

I was trying to film an amazingly beautiful foot-long dragonet. It was feeding in the rubble and each time it moved it erected a dorsal fin that would make a Vegas casino marquee seem dull. But the fish only presented its backside to me. It would continue to feed, but would not allow a frontal shot. I struggled with it for twenty minutes or so figuring to win a battle of wills. I even tried swimming in circles around the fish as it constantly turned to face away thinking I would tire it out. I circled it so many times I made myself dizzy. Finally, I gave up. Some animals simply don’t recognize art and superior intellect. Michele swam up to the dragnet, hovered a few inches away from its face and shot a series of perfect images of its smug little face. I almost bit through my mouthpiece.

Fortunately, most subjects here are less cantankerous than the dragonet. During the last few days we’ve photographed mimic octopus, truly bizarre scorpionfish, snake eels, coconut octopus, and more. I think seeing the coconut octopus was my biggest incentive for coming to Lembeh. I’d seen great footage captured by guys like Bob Cranston of these animals and deeply wanted to include their hilarious antics in our library. We spent two days working with these guys capturing a range of fascinating behaviors.

Coconut octopi are aggressive hunters. They are death on crabs but will also go after your stainless critter probe, your hand, anything it thinks could be prey. They have little fear. After catching a crab, the octopus hustles back to its den, which is often a large abandoned clamshell. Then after grabbing both halves of the shell, it puts its eight legs on the bottom and walks away. Down slope, the octopus stops and pulls the two shell halves together – clamming up. You can’t help but laugh.

We have three more days of diving left. I have only seen two very small frogfish, but tomorrow we plan to give frogfish the full-court press. By the way, Steve’s fix on my RED battery seems to be holding up. Everything is working and hopefully will continue to do so for the next nine or ten dives.

Report from Lembeh Resort #3.

RED Frame Grabs Michele and I spent our last couple days at Lembeh concentrating on frogfish and wonderpus. But we were often distracted by the many other fascinating critters found here. Ronald had little trouble finding various frogfish species for us as well as a wide variety of octopus. On one dive we encountered a carrier crab and I followed it around for more than an hour We filmed a nice sequence of a carrier crab for Under the Sea 3D. That particular crab was using a Cassiopeia jellyfish as a venomous shield against predators. But I had seen photos of carrier crabs toting fire urchins. I was thrilled when Ronald spotted one of these. RED Frame Grabs We also spent a dive watching a seahorse feed. It had quite a battle with a small transparent shrimp that was really too big for the seahorse’s mouth. After the seahorse struck the shrimp, the shrimp retaliated by grabbing the seahorse on the lower lip with one of its pinchers. Most of this rather hilarious action was impossible to see in the video monitor of my RED camera. It wasn’t until I looked at the footage that I was very pleasantly surprised by this little drama. I was even happier that the action was in focus, which is no mean trick when shooting macro with a large sensor camera. RED Frame Grabs We made three night dives during our stay at Lembeh Resort. One was to watch mandarin fish spawning. This event happens every night and it was the only time the dive site became really crowded. About fifteen divers gathered to watch the spawning. I’ve seen many amazing still images of this behavior and after trying (and failing) to capture this action with my RED, I gained a new respect for the photographers who have managed to capture this action. I realized I would need four or five nights with this site to myself to get a descent sequence. Maybe I’ll try that next time I’m at Lembeh. We also did one dive on the Lembeh Resort house reef. Danny Charlton has spent considerable time and money restoring the reef in front of the resort. It’s not as pretty as most other reef dives at Lembeh, but the coral is definitely coming back and we saw lots of interesting critters, some of which we saw nowhere else. RED Frame Grabs Our most memorable dive was a night dive right next to a shear cliff that drops into the sea. The site is called Nudi Falls. During the dive there was a terrifying rumble that was physically uncomfortable. It sounded and felt like a large ship starting its engine just a few meters overhead. The noise was very loud and the vibration rattled lungs and other organs. I’d experienced similar cacophonies diving under boats with large diesel engines running. Although it made no sense that a ship would be that close to our dive location, I was still sure this was what I was hearing. It lasted about 15 seconds. I discovered later after returning to the Resort that there had been an earthquake. If Michele and I had known that was what we were experiencing we probably would have completely freaked out especially being that close to the steep cliffs that formed the Nudi Falls dive site. That was definitely a first for me (and I hope a last). RED Frame Grabs When we made Under the Sea 3D, Michele and I considered an expedition to Lembeh. But the logistics seemed too difficult especially with the 1,300 pound IMAX 3D camera system. But after spending time at Lembeh Resort, I can see that shooting sequences for a digital IMAX 3D feature would work very well here. An underwater IMAX digital 3D system would weight about 350 pounds, and that could be handled by one of the Lembeh Resort boats. The huge camera room at the resort is a very short walk from the boats and would make working on the gear between dives very practical. I will certainly keep this in mind as we consider new projects or when consulting with MacGillivray Freeman for their One World One Ocean project.

Report from Lembeh Resort #1

Report from Lembeh Resort #2