I’m having some problems with my www.tony-wu.com server. If you’re trying to send me email at that domain and haven’t heard back, it’s probably because I haven’t received the email.

On the one hand, it’s a drag to have a domain down. On the other, receiving much less email than normal is a relief!

Anyway, I’m sure the server issue will get resolved soon, but until then, if you need to reach me, please use my contact form.

Been back for a few days, immediately swamped with work, so I haven’t had time to sort through photos yet. One problem I’m going to face is that the sea lions are so irresistibly cute that I’ll have a difficult time selecting just a few to post.

Anyway, it was a great trip, with mostly sunny (but blistering hot) weather, and the sea lions were as engaging and adorable as ever. I got some amazing photos, which I’ll post as soon as I have time.

It’s the Lunar New Year, and I’m off to Western Australia to photograph Australian sea lions. I’m looking forward to playing with the adorable pinnipeds again, and also to pigging out on the excellent Chinese food at Billy Lee’s.

Given that it’s snowed quite a bit recently, I’m particularly grateful to be heading toward warmer weather (it’s summer Down Under). On that note, I leave with a couple of photos of Pasta enjoying one of our extra long play sessions in the snow a few days ago.

Counterintuitive as this might seem at first blush, one of the things you absolutely must do to get better photographs of marine life (or anything in nature, actually), is to invest as much effort as possible into looking, as opposed to pressing the shutter.

The more time you spend watching a fish, crab or whatever, the more you insight you’ll get into it habits, territorial preferences if any, and “personality” as such. As time passes (without your attempting to shove a lens in your subject’s face or hammering it with a thousand strobe flashes), the subject of your attention may actually grow accustomed to your presence and demonstrate interesting, perhaps even unique, behaviour.

Recently at Loloata, I spent nearly an hour with a very small goby. It was most likely a Tomiyamichthys oni, though the photos I’ve seen of this fish in guidebooks and online don’t show a blue spot together with the dark splotch on the dorsal fin, which the little fish I was watching did have.

In all other respects, it resembled at T. oni…tiny (about 2cm), shy, with a tendency to move rapidly in random directions. It’s difficult to know for sure, as very little information in general is available about the Tomiyamichthys genus (as is unfortunately the case for many other marine animals).

What was truly special about this particular fish wasn’t the unusual blue marking however. It was the unusual and entertaining behaviour it demonstrated.

Normally, when gobies like this feel threatened or annoyed, they disappear in a blink into their burrows, or they might swim away so quickly that you can’t figure out where they went.

This one didn’t seem terribly bothered with my presence, though it did disappear into its hole a couple times. I waited patiently, and it reappeared each time, satisfied that I wasn’t a threat.

Once we established a certain level of trust, the fish ventured relatively far from its hole, perhaps two metres or so…a bit at a time, stopping along the way to grab a mouthful of dirt, or just to look around.

At one point, the goby seemed to realise that it was quite far from home. Stopping dead in its tracks, the fish stared straight at me, then amazingly, ducked down to lay flat on the sand, as if to hide. It worked.

Without the aid of artificial light, it was nearly impossible to discern the extremely well camouflaged goby against the sand when the fish was in this prostrated position.

With the help of a macro lens, I kept tabs on the goby as it alternated between lying flat on the sand and raising its head a bit to take a peek around. After five minutes or so, the fish finally tired of this game and bolted back to its burrow, leaving a puff of sand in its wake.

I’ve never noticed anything like this before, but I’ll wager there’s a decent possibility that this is a common strategy employed by gobies like this, given their mottled-sand colouration and pattern, which makes it easy for them to blend into the substrate.

Has anyone else witnessed similar behaviour before?

Among the emails I received while I was in PNG was one asking about Pasta. In part, it read:

(We have) have fallen in love with Pasta. I know it may sound weird, but do you have any puppy pictures of Pasta you can share? She is so cute and we enjoy reading about her. Your breakdown of her “language” abilities was particularly amusing and her love of pizza. My fiancé and I are looking into in getting a golden.

This isn’t the first email I’ve gotten asking about Pasta. Actually, I get a quite a few, perhaps more than the number of emails asking about diving or underwater photography. Pasta has no idea how popular she is.

Since the sender of this email is thinking about getting a golden retriever, I decided to trawl through my archives to find a few photographs to convey a bit of what it’s like to raise a golden pup.

The first photo is from when Pasta was just a couple of months old. She was basically a tiny fluff ball with four legs, a tail and a nose. For some reason, when she was a baby, Pasta was a homebody.

Try as I might to take her for walks, she wouldn’t leave my side, and didn’t want to go more than a few metres from the front door. Inside the house, she was a frantic furball, running around in circles chasing her tail, bouncing off of walls, chewing on everything I owned, poking her nose into whatever I was working on, jumping all over me…but outside, she was quiet, shy and reserved.

Of course, with time, that changed. Pasta gradually gained more confidence, and nothing could keep her inside. She particularly loved going for drives to the beach, where she made it her mission to get as wet and dirty as possible in as brief a time as possible. She was exceptionally talented in this regard.

At the beach, we often played a unique variation of the game fetch. I bought a float-toy for her, which I threw into the water. The idea was for Pasta to swim out, grab the float, and bring it back. She is a retriever, after all.

As it turned out, more often than not, I’d throw the float out into the water and Pasta would wait patiently on the beach, looking first at the float, then at me, then back to the float…until finally, I swam out and brought the float back to her. On a number of occasions, a substantial audience gathered to watch Pasta teach me to fetch. Once, we even earned a round of applause, which made Pasta very proud of me.

Once Pasta grew up, we reached a mutual understanding and stopped trying to get one another to fetch things. Instead, we settled on running…a lot, whether at the beach, at a park, just in the neighborhood, wherever. Pasta ran.

She ran after cats (she’s actually quite scared of cats, but that’s another story altogether), after squirrels (she tried unsuccessfully a couple of times to climb trees after the squirrels), geckos (she could never quite figure out how those tricky little critters manage to walk upside-down), frisbees (she never learned how to catch one though, she just chased them), swans (which are bigger than she is and actually ended up chasing her around in circles), and most of all, anyone with food.

These days, Pasta still likes to play and she still chases things, but she’s mature now, and she’s learned to take things in stride and enjoy the simple pleasures in life, like classical music on her red-edition iPod nano.

Clearly, there’s a lot more to bringing up a golden retriever than what I’ve described here, but I hope this helps to get across the general idea.

There’s a small town in New South Wales named Narromine. I’ve never been there, probably will never have a chance to visit. From what I understand, it’s not a particularly special town. As of a 2001 census, Narromine had a population of 3,548 people. It’s known for growing citrus fruits and is popular among gliding enthusiasts.

As unremarkable a place as this little town might seem, I learned something about Narromine on my recent trip to Papua New Guinea that means I’m highly unlikely ever to forget the place, and I’d probably jump at the opportunity to go there if the occasion ever arises.

Here’s the story: Apparently, if you stir the air with your finger in a clockwise (to account for the Coriolis effect) direction while you’re in Narrowmine, it’s possible to start a small willy willy (that’s Aussie-speak for little tornado). I imagine that this works best if you pick an area with black pavement or other such similar surface to ensure maximum amounts of rising hot air, but in any case, when I heard this from Tim, one of my fellow passengers on the MV Golden Dawn, I immediately pictured myself spending hours and hours in the arid climate, snickering like the proverbial mad scientist while stirring the air to conjure up a bunch of little willy willies.

I could see myself doing this for days without getting bored, wondering all the while whether my creation of little wind dervishes would lead to unforeseen and catastrophic effects in far-flung corners of the world…a disastrous derivative of the Butterfly Effect.

Though it might not seem obvious, this bit of trivia has a lot to do with diving, or rather, the absence thereof. To cut to the chase, the weather was less-than-cooperative during my month in PNG.

Mainly it was the wind, with 25-30 knot winds the norm, and gusts up to 50 knots on some days. In practical terms, this meant that it was tough to reach some dive sites while I was based at Loloata, and we were port-bound for a few days of the scheduled trip to Eastern Fields on Golden Dawn.

With ample time on hand to chat with fellow travellers, I found myself eagerly accumulating bits of trivia (a fancy word for “almost entirely useless information”) and pondering things that I’d probably never otherwise contemplate (since I’d normally have more productive things to do).

Holiday Sacrifice
I flew to PNG on 22 December, meaning that I missed both Christmas and New Year. The holidays per se don’t mean much to me, but I really like the time of year in Japan, since everything shuts down and the entire country becomes quiet, still, peaceful.

The hustle and bustle of normal life in and around Tokyo grinds to a nearly complete halt, and in many ways, it’s one of the most sane times of year in the hectic metropolis. People spend time with their families and friends, and you can almost feel the collective sigh of relief as everyone takes a well-deserved and much-needed break. I particularly enjoy the new year traditions (see my posts from the previous year: one, two, three)

Anyway, it takes a lot to pull me away during this season, and PNG is one of the flew places I’d sacrifice the holidays for. The reason is simple…the underwater sights are awesome. More on that in a bit.

As it turned out, Christmas Eve and the actual day passed by without much fanfare, as we were all too busy and tuckered out from diving, and I spent a quiet and pleasant New Year’s Eve on the balcony of a friend’s apartment sipping a glass of Chardonnay while enjoying the sunset over Port Moresby harbour.

Diving Port Moresby
Many cities are located on the water, but most of the time, you wouldn’t want to dive in those waters. This might change with time, but for the present, the waters around Port Moresby are an exception…the area is teeming with life.

The signature dive site around Port Moresby is Suzie’s Bommie. You’ve probably seen it featured in articles in various dive magazines, so I won’t dwell on a description of the site or on trying to think of an appropriate string of superlatives.

Suffice it to say that this relatively small bommie holds its own against most dive sites around the world, and you’ll definitely want to pay it a visit if you find yourself in the area, weather permitting of course. The site is a 25-minute boat ride away from the inside of Bootless Bay (where Loloata Island Resort is, and where other day boats generally depart from), so when the winds are ripping and/ or the swells are acting up, it may not be safe to go there.

The dive guides told me stories of divers insisting on visiting Suzie’s when conditions were unsafe, in some cases to disastrous consequence. Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to pay heed to local knowledge and experience. When the guides thought going to Suzie’s wasn’t a good idea, we didn’t go. Pretty simple concept, but it’s odd how some people seem to think they know better.

One thing that makes these waters highly unusual is the abundance of lacy scorpionfish (Rhinopias aphanes), a fish that seems to be rare in most other locations (or perhaps just highly difficult to spot). For many divers, especially photographers, the reasonably high probability (note: not guarantee) of seeing one or more of these fish is reason enough to dive around Port Moresby. During my stay, we located approximately 10 individuals, covering a range of sizes and colours.

What precisely makes these cryptic fish congregate on the reefs around Moresby is a mystery, though that’s not surprising given how little is known about them in general. One thing I did learn is that the Rhinopias in this area are most likely all the aphanes species, not the frondosa or other species.

There is considerable confusion, misinformation, and mixing of terms on the internet and in dive publications regarding the aphanes and frondosa species. I’m hard-pressed to provide an easy way to tell the difference (actually, I’m not sure anyone can do so accurately just by sight), but one thing that Dik Knight, who owns and manages Loloata explained to me is that both fish occupy the same ecological niche, so they are highly unlikely to co-habit the same area.

Makes sense to me, but I will undoubtedly continue to remain confused each time I see one of these exquisite critters, irrespective of the species.

One final point about this area…if you find yourself there at a time of low visibility (which happens from time to time because of the high nutrient flow from nearby major river systems), go with the flow and don’t stress too much about seeing the big stuff.

The concentration of macro life subjects in incredible, and no matter what the conditions, there’s always something to see and learn. Nearby Lion Island is generally the place to go diving when conditions are less than optimal. Viz isn’t terrific, and there generally aren’t large animals swimming by, but if you look closely, there are all sorts of interesting finds. I never have a problem keeping myself amused for hours around Lion Island.

Among some of my finds this time: curious blennies peeking around corners to observe me, a juvenile Amblyeleotris guttata goby (normally difficult to approach), a possible Tomiyamichthys oni goby (but with slightly different markings and exhibiting unusual behaviour), four Phyllodesmium longicirrum solar-powered nudibranchs, and a whole host of other stuff.

Um Or Ium?
Besides the wonderful tidbit about Narromine, I also picked up a few other choice factoids that I can now throw out at parties to make everyone wonder what I do with my time. Among the more memorable items:

• Borscht is not Russian. It’s Ukranian.
• Chewbacca’s voice/ sound is based on the sounds George Lucas’ pet malamute made.
• The breed standard weight for malamutes is about 45 kgs.
• Banksia plants (and apparently quite a few others) require brush fires for their seeds to germinate.
• English/ UK law was originally written in an archaic form of French, on the theory that an archaic language does not change, while living languages do.
• The etymology for the word “posh” comes from when ships sailed from the UK to then-colony India. It is an acronym for Port Out, Starboard Home, which describes the cabins that wealthier people preferred because of relatively greater comfort given prevailing wind conditions.
• The world’s helium supply is mined and therefore limited. Most of it used to be mined in the USA, but now comes primarily from Russia.
• If you have a helium-filled balloon in a car and you accelerate, it will go forward. If you brake it will go backward. (You gotta think about this one for a moment to get it.)
• Aluminium melts without turning orange first, making it quite difficult to weld properly.

Credit for most of these odds and ends goes to fellow Golden Dawn passengers Tim and Barbara, a seemingly inexhaustible source of superfluous information and otherwise highly engaging people.

Speaking of Tim, the point about aluminium engendered a debate between Tim and someone else (can’t recall precisely whom) about whether “aluminium” or “aluminum” is correct. Tim originally hails from the UK, which explains his preference for the “-ium” ending. His reasoning was that no other element in the periodic table ends in “ium”, thus demonstrating the US corruption of the English language.

Though I could care less either way, I pointed out that molybdenum ends in “-um” (I have no idea why or how I knew that. Must have been from another period of accumulating useless information), which sort of put a hole in the hull of that argument. Subsequently, I thought of “platinum” and then found another on the net, “lanthanum”…so Tim, that’s three!

[Note: Received an email letting me know that aluminium is difficult to weld because it oxidizes too rapidly to achieve a good joint, so you need to use an electric arc weld in a bubble of insert gas like argon, fed in from a tank. Cool.]

A Bit About The Eastern Fields
Anyone who knows me has probably heard me rant and rave about the Eastern Fields. It’s just awesome. What makes it so amazing is its remote location. Situated halfway to Australia, the Eastern Fields is a system of submerged atolls that are part of PNG territory, extending about 15 x 25 km in size, 100 metres or so in depth inside the atoll and dropping to 2000+ metres outside.

The area is not well marked on charts, and weather is difficult for most of the year, so the Golden Dawn is the only boat that regularly visits. The lack of pressure from people means that the reefs are truly pristine, and fish number in the gazillions. Visibility is almost always excellent, and you’ll not likely to run into anyone else out there. In all of human history, only a few hundred people have ever dived the Eastern Fields.

So it kind of sucked when gale-force winds kept us from heading out there for a few days.

To make a long story short, we spent much of the first four days of the 10-day trip downloading weather forecasts (notoriously unreliable for such a remote area) and making several aborted attempts to make the 12-hour ocean crossing. Each time, we ended up back in or near Moresby, diving in low-visibility waters or just sitting on the boat.

The saving grace was the passengers. It’s no exaggeration to say that my co-travellers were among the best group of people I’ve ever spent time with on a boat, particularly given the climatological circumstances.

If you’ve ever been on an extended liveaboard trip, you know that the people make or break the trip, and one bad apple truly spoils the lot. Reality TV has nothing on the politics and drama on a liveaboard with unpleasant people aboard.

So it’s always with some wariness that I size-up fellow travellers on long cruises. The roster this time included Tim and Barbara (from Australia, but Tim originally from the UK), Ai Lin (friend from Singapore), Marcus (from Singapore but originally Malaysia), Stephane (from France), Obata-san (from Japan) and Antonio and Gunita (Antonio is half German, half Sicilian, making for quite an entertaining personality, and Gunita is the first person from Latvia I’ve ever met).

In less-than-ideal circumstances, everyone was totally cool, and we had a great time, even while we remained confined to port. Jokes, games, serious chats, trading of useless facts…I’d happily travel with any of them again. Truly amazing was Obata-san, who though unable to speak much English, had not one iota of difficulty communicating with everyone, and even had the crew and some passengers spouting off Japanese by the end of the trip.

When the winds settled a bit and we did finally make it out to Eastern Fields, the diving didn’t disappoint. With no land nearby, the visibility was great, waters blue, and marine life abundant. We still had to contend with strong winds, and as a result weren’t able to get to many of my favourite sites, but any dive in the Eastern Fields is special.

The best dives, for me at least, came on our last day out there, when we visited a small reef called Carl’s Ultimate, named for my friend Carl Roessler. The term “ultimate” hardly does the reef justice.

Elongated and easily swimmable, the reef is one of the most action-packed dives you’ll ever encounter. Of course, you’ve got to hit it when the current is running, as the elongated shape of the reef means there are effectively two tips, both of which serve as centres of activity when the current is whipping past. When the current is slack, it’s much easier to swim around, but the action isn’t anywhere near as adrenalin-charged.

Large sea fans, super-gazillions of fish, large predators like barracuda, dogtooth tuna and trevallies, and large resident potato cods (who unfortunately were away during most of our day there)…if I had to pick just one site to dive in the Eastern Fields, this would be it. During our final day, we had excellent weather and I spent 6.5 hours on the reef, happily observing the goings on and taking the occasional photograph (slight understatement).

Not All Sugar and Honey
Life isn’t a fairy tale of course, so there was an unhappy side to this visit…the number of sharks was far too low. Craig, Golden Dawn’s captain, had warned me in advance that fishing fleets, most likely from Asia, had swooped in and pillaged the atolls a few times, but I still really wasn’t quite prepared for the shock.

This is the place where I’ve been surrounded by silvertips, swam next to hammerheads, been nearly engulfed in swarms of friendly reef whitetips, and been mesmerised by legions of patrolling grey reefs. No longer.

I hesitate to pronounce judgement after just this trip, but dammit…can’t humans just stop being so f*cking stupid? Seriously, the Eastern Fields is not an easy place to reach, and it’s far from safe for fishing vessels. This kept the fleets away for many years, but it must be a sign of how dry the well is running elsewhere and how voracious the collective Asian appetite for shark fin is that fishing vessels were prepared to take the considerable risk of hitting one of the many unmarked bommies for the sake of reaping quick profits from shark fins.

I wanted to get angry, but a deep, dark vacuum in my gut prevailed, sucking the life out of me after we came up empty handed from our first shark dive…leaving me utterly despondent.

Everyone on board wanted to see sharks, and we managed to stir up a couple of silvertips and some teeny whitetip reef sharks plus a few really, really small grey reefs, but sigh…

Demolishing shark populations for their fins is but a symptom of a much greater problem. Overfishing is rapidly depleting the world’s oceans of fish. Governments around the world are using tax funds to subsidise ever-larger fleets to kill ever-more fish in ever-more efficient (read unsustainable) ways. It’s not just Asian fishing boats. European boats are among the world’s worst offenders in this regard. It’s a global problem, but remains largely hidden from public view and awareness.

To be witnessing this directly is one of the saddest things I’m sure I’ll ever experience.

Look Ma, No Bubbles
Going back to less disheartening stuff…one of the best things about being on Golden Dawn was having the chance to dive on a rebreather again. Craig certified me on a KISS rebreather several years ago. It had been a while since I’d dived the unit, so it took a bit of getting reacquainted, but two dives or so and I was back in good form.

Diving on a fully closed-circuit rebreather has its pros and cons. I’m by means no expert on the ins and outs of rebreathers, but for me, the biggest advantage is gaining extra time safely at normal scuba depths. By maintaining a relatively conservative PPO2 of 1.00, at normal scuba depths you’re getting relatively high levels of O2 without taking undue risk of O2 toxicity, meaning quicker flushing of nitrogen out of your system.

For someone like me who likes to sit with a fish at 12 metres for an hour or more, this is an incredible boon. I’m generally much less tired than from breathing air, and with the gases I’m breathing being recycled, the chances of running low on gas are…low.

Other benefits include staying warm (because you’re not exhaling air and expelling body heat), as well as the fact that you don’t blow a lot of bubbles. It’s a mistake to think you’re completely bubble-less, but you’re not scaring fish halfway to oblivion each time you exhale.

Cons include the need to be much more vigilant and aware of your equipment and gas levels, having to spend time maintaining the rebreather (as if camera gear weren’t hassle enough), and having to grow accustomed to the constrictive feeling of breathing into a bag (which is effectively what a closed-circuit rebreather is…you blowing into and breathing out of a bag).

Overall, the KISS system is really simple to use (KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid), but as with any life-support system, there are risks involved, so it’s not for everyone.

Fellow passenger Marcus brought along his own Megalodon fully-closed rebreather system, brand-spanking new, so I had someone else going bubble-less with me, which was a comforting feeling. When you’re down for two to three hours and you’re in stealth mode not blowing bubbles, it can get a bit lonely, and just the knowledge that someone else is down with you is a great psychological boost.

Marcus also had an iPhone with him, a Mac laptop, a Seacam housing and other toys, making him officially a member of the global gadget geek brigade. It also made him really easy to pick out at the airport, as his baggage trolley was practically pleading for help under the weight of his luggage.

Soft Spot
Continuing my ongoing efforts toward creativity, I devoted some time while diving around Port Moresby to shooting at the f2.8 to f4 range instead of selecting the smaller f-stops more generally used by marine photographers.

I had two reasons for this. The first was practical. With relatively low visibility, once of the side effects of using a small f-stop for clarity is that you see everything clearly, including all the stuff you don’t want to see clearly…gunk in the water.

By opening up, you can take advantage of the blurry/ dreamy effect that results to minimise distraction caused by particles in the water. The attendant difficulty, of course, is that your depth of field is severely restricted, and it’s a heckuva lot more difficult to get pinpoint sharpness where you want.

The second was just a matter of creativity. Some subjects just seem to work better as “soft and cuddly”, irrespective of whether the actual subjects are like that in real life or not. I generally don’t photograph for the purpose of getting ID photos, so I’m not terribly concerned with accurately representing the real life situation.

I prefer to watch an animal, consider how it might be portrayed in a flattering or unusual manner, and work accordingly.

The effect that results from using f2.8 isn’t ideal for everything. In fact, the circumstances in which you can pull off a 2.8 to 4 shot are probably quite limited. But the next time you find yourself in bad viz, consider giving it a try.

Remember to reduce your strobe power, crank the ISO down to 100 or less if you can, and make sure you avoid camera shake (unless you’re intentionally introducing some blurring). One other trick is to try just using one strobe and fly in the face of the oft-quoted “you should always use two strobes” belief. If you’ve been shooting underwater for a while, these little tricks might add a nice new tool to your arsenal.

Never Land in a Circular Field
It’s difficult, no actually it’s impossible, to relate the events and experiences of a month in PNG in a short post like this. I can think of dozens of other things I’d like to write about, but I’d probably end up boring you to death, assuming that you’ve even read this far.

I’ll probably pick a few of the more interesting things to write about later, but for now, I’m going to wrap this post up with a final bit of trivia I picked up from ever-interesting Tim: Never land in a circular field.

Apparently, this is a rule that glider pilots need to follow, because circular fields (in Australia at least) are watered by long poles that are fixed to the centre of the circle and revolve. So if you land in a circular field, you’ll get bonked by the watering mechanism, which I take isn’t generally recommended for gliders (we’re talking glider planes, not hang gliders).

I’ll probably never become a glider pilot, and surely this bit of information must rank among the least-likely-ever-to-be-useful-to-me things I’ve ever learned, but every time I think of it, I’ll remember this trip and all the great people I met.

So maybe it’s not so trivial after all.

I’m back. Physically at least. Since getting off the plane late Saturday night, I’ve been buried under a mountain of emails, phone calls, to-do list items, dog walks, etc. It’s always like this, but sometimes I wonder whether it’s worth re-entering the real world. And it doesn’t really help when I get emails from PNG saying “The waters are frickin’ amazing now. You should’ve stayed longer!” Sigh.

Anyway, I’m nearly through the first wave of stuff and will hopefully get time soon to pull my notes together to put together a summary of the trip. In short, it was terrific. PNG was hit by some less-than-desirable weather, but the passengers on the MV Golden Dawn liveaboard trip were truly fantastic, among the best bunch of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of being stuck on a boat with, and my stay at Loloata was filled with interesting experiences, as always.

My apologies to everyone who sent me emails, greeting cards, e-greetings, etc., over the holidays. I tried to reply to all the e-greetings, but most likely missed a few inadvertently, and one person I responded to found my response in his spam folder, so please check your spam folder. I replied. Honestly!

While I was away, I had quite a few articles published. First are a Perspective column (108 kB) entitled Pondering Plastics and a destination feature about Tonga (1.7 MB) for FiNS Magazine. These two articles are available via my iTunes podcast too.

For Japanese readers, I also had two articles published in Web-lue, one about Papua New Guinea (3.2 MB), and the other about Tonga (2.1 MB).

And finally, my face-on, full-frame photo of a sperm whale with its mouth wide open is featured in the Big Shot column of the most recent issue of DIVE magazine in the UK, though I don’t have a physical or e-copy yet.

…back to work

I’m off to Papua New Guinea. It’s been a couple of years since I was last there, so I’m really looking forward to the trip. I’ll be staying at Loloata Island Resort, and I’ll also be aboard the MV Golden Dawn.

Having been dry for several weeks now, checking and packing gear was even more of a hassle than normal, but I’m finally approaching the end of the ordeal, mere hours before I depart. I get this nagging feeling I’ve forgotten something, but there’s not much I can do about it now.

I won’t have reliable net access while I’m there, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to post anything for a while. Please don’t send any emails with attachments while I’m away.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A couple of articles published in ultraMARINE magazine, a bi-monthly publication in the UK for aquarists.

The first is an editorial article titled Ignorance, and the second a short article about humpback whales in Tonga. I’ve combined the two into a single file (428 kB) that can be downloaded here or from my iTunes podcast.

Perspective is an editorial column I write regularly for FiNS Magazine. This installment is entitled “Doctor Doctor”.

Right click here to download the PDF file (109 kB).

The PDF file is also available as a download from my iTunes podcast.

It’s been ten days since we started Pasta on medicine for low levels of thyroxine in her blood, which is one possible cause for the slight drooping on the left side of her face that appeared suddenly about two weeks ago.

We were originally going to take her in for an MRI at the recommendation of one of the vets who examined her, but after I received a nice, informative email from Dr. Bart De Ridder in Belgium following my original post about Pasta’s condition, I did more background research on possible causes for partial nerve paralysis in dogs, and I realised that a blood test we had done for Pasta about a month before the condition manifested indicated low levels of thyroxine, which is a hormone produced by the thryoid gland.

Upon reading more on the subject, I learned that low thyroxine level is a possible, and frequent, cause of facial nerve problems in many types of dogs as they grow older, including golden retrievers. We consulted the senior vet the next day, and showed him the test results. He concurred that it was better to try addressing the low thyroxine level first, and then move on to an MRI later if required.

So far, there’s no apparent change in the facial droopiness, but it does seem like Pasta is more energetic than ever. She’s taking long walks and bouncing around like a puppy, so she seems completely healthy but for the slight problem with her left eye.

Time will tell if the thyroid medication will eventually help resolve the facial nerve issue, but in the meantime, Pasta’s having a great time.

I’ve stumbled upon a problem with the Inon MRS magnetic rotation system ports which is incredibly annoying. If you are using this system for underwater photography, or might want to use this system in the future, read on.

The port system facilitates manual focus by using a magnetic collar on the outside of the port and magnets that you attach to the focus ring of your lens inside the port. When you rotate the external collar, the magnetic attraction between the external collar and the internal magnets on your lens rotate the lens, allowing you to focus manually just like you do on land. Ingenius.

The system has been around for some time, and as far as I know, the port system currently only works with Inon housings, Olympus housings, and some other housings if you use adapters (like my Zillion housings).

The problem with the system is that it’s designed to fail.

The magnets on the external collar are attracted to the metal of the lens port, meaning that there is constant pull on the magnets embedded in the collar. So over time, this magnetic attraction literally pulls the embedded magnets out of the collar, resulting in penetration of the internal surface coating of the focus ring, and causing the collar to freeze up. The magnets literally punch holes on the inside surface of the collar.

When my focus system froze up on me earlier this year while I was in Lembeh, I only figured this design flaw out by forcefully disassembling the port system and sandpapering down the inside surface to get rid of the bulges created by the exploding magnets.

This emergency equipment surgery meant that the system worked for the duration of my stay, but of course, a few weeks later, the same thing happened again.

Once I got back, I sent the port to Inon HQ for a look, and was informed that it would cost me something like US$85 to repair the focus ring. The thing is, the way the system is designed, this problem will occur with every single MRS port Inon makes and sells. Inon acknowledged as much.

So, basically Inon has been making and selling a faulty design, knowing that it’s faulty and more than happy to charge for repairing the fault, which will fail again, and again, and again…

Inon HQ advised that it’s best to remove the focus ring from the port when not in use. Makes sense. Only thing is, Inon ships the ports with the focus ring attached (meaning the magnetic degeneration process already underway once the port is assembled by Inon), and every retailer keeps the rings attached (meaning that the problem is exacerbated by just having the port on display or in stock).

If best practice is to keep the ring off the port, why does Inon ship the port with the ring attached?
　
I did a quick inspection of several ports at a friend’s shop in Japan. Sure enough, even new on the shelf, the focus collars on the Inon ports had baby bulges from the magnets…virtually assuring product failure.

So…I’m being forced to put up US$85 to fix Inon’s faulty design for which they will neither take responsibility nor undertake steps to eliminate the problem.

Guess who’s no longer using Inon gear?