Jacqueline is a Co-Founder at Experiential Education and Conservation Organization (EECO). www.eecocenter.org and a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. She specializes in conservation, sustainability, and community development and serves as the Programs Development Officer of Ocean-action Resource Center, a grassroots conservation NGO in the rural Philippines.
The hardest skill to master as a SCUBA diver is buoyancy control. That mid-water, floating-in-space, horizontal body position may look effortless, but learning to do it can be tricky and confusing. Buoyancy control is also the most important diving skill; in fact, it is the essence of diving, and a diver without buoyancy control is not really a diver at all. Buoyancy control means that you can place yourself exactly where you want when you’re underwater. You can achieve your intended depth and maintain it. You can ascend and descend calmly and efficiently. You can get close to the reef without touching it- no part of your fins, hands, face, or body ever make contact. Most importantly, you can “hover” in one place. This means that you don’t move significantly forward, backward, up or down. Hovering is the hardest of the buoyancy skills. It’s also critical for an underwater photographer. A photographer needs to hover to check the camera settings, frame a scene, get focus, and wait for the perfect shot. As an underwater photographer, your buoyancy will be tested to the extreme. A diver’s brain and body already have two tasks to manage (exploring the reef and controlling buoyancy); underwater photography adds a third, and the excitement and challenge of taking pictures often steals the spotlight. It’s not uncommon for an underwater photographer to crash into the reef, break coral, get stung by urchins, or float away from the group while focusing on the camera. These mistakes can injure both diver and reef. It’s easy to brush up against a venomous organism like a scorpionfish or hydroid (or worse) when you’re not paying attention. And from the reef’s perspective, a broken branch of coral is a big loss- coral only grows 5 centimeters per year, on average. Plus,
The hardest skill to master as a SCUBA diver is buoyancy control. That mid-water, floating-in-space, horizontal body position may look effortless, but learning to do it can be tricky and confusing. Buoyancy control is also the most important diving skill; in fact, it is the essence of diving, and a diver without buoyancy control is
Do you want to travel back in time and witness the Caribbean Sea as it was hundreds of years ago? Dive Cuba’s sprawling national park in the Gulf of Ana Maria; it’s called Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queen) for good reason. This archipelago of 250 coral and mangrove islands is probably the best-preserved tropical marine ecosystem network in the Caribbean. Its coral reefs are particularly outstanding in contrast to other Caribbean SCUBA destinations. Why? Because Cuba’s relative isolation and limited development meant that the area was left well alone while other reefs were assaulted by coastal construction, overfishing, sewage runoff, siltation, and irresponsible tourism. When you visit, you’ll see for yourself how the Caribbean could have been, if humans had cared more about their environmental impact. Gardens of the Queen Eco Systems The Gulf of Ana Maria lines the southern coastline of Cuba. It is a “shelf” area with a maximum depth of around 25 meters, containing a wealth of different habitats. Most notably the holy triumvirate of mangroves, seagrass, and coral reef. These three particular ecosystems are essential in supporting the biodiversity of the shallow tropical oceans because some coral reef fish spend their childhood in the safety of seagrass beds or mangrove roots. (This applies even to larger predators which grow up to rule the reef; I’ve seen many baby Blacktip Reef Sharks and barracuda practice their hunting skills in seagrass nurseries only one meter deep.) Other functions of the mangrove-seagrass-coral triad include co-hosting fishes’ breeding and feeding grounds, and (to the special benefit of the delicate coral organism) catching the mainland’s soil and nutrients before they reach the reef. Gardens of the Queen Marine life Within these ecosystems, you’ll get to see wildlife wonders in abundance. On Jardines de la Reina’s coral reefs, two
Do you want to travel back in time and witness the Caribbean Sea as it was hundreds of years ago? Dive Cuba’s sprawling national park in the Gulf of Ana Maria; it’s called Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queen) for good reason. This archipelago of 250 coral and mangrove islands is probably the
The Maldives. The name of this country alone conjures up images that make most dive enthusiasts float away on a SCUBA daydream. These isolated atolls in the middle of the immense Indian Ocean have sat firmly among the top five tropical dive locations worldwide for decades. This is the place to go for big and plentiful marine life and a top-side view of picture-perfect deserted islands, their white sandy knolls rising only a meter or two from the lapping waves, dotted with swaying palm trees. Within the Maldives, the Central Atolls preside over the country’s dive scene. This area’s underwater treasures were the first-discovered and remain some of the best-loved. You can find everything here- whale sharks, reef sharks, mantas, coral, swarms of fish, and macro-critters- and it’s all within spitting distance of the international airport on Male. There’s hardly anywhere else in the world where you can step off your plane and plunge into world-class diving so easily. Where to go North Male Atoll: North Male diving goes back to the beginnings of the Maldives dive scene, but its dive sites are well-preserved. Coral cover here is better than South Male and Ari. Perhaps its most famous dive site is Manta Point, a cleaning station for the winged giants that receives so many visits you might actually lose count! Manta-viewing opportunities like this owe their thanks to the tiny blue cleaner wrasse, a roughly 10 centimeters long fish which eats parasites living on mantas’ skin and in their mouths, a service so beneficial to the mantas’ health that they virtually wait in line to get it. For coral in North Male, Banana Reef is a long-time favorite, which thickets of healthy branching coral. Other great dive sites include the pinnacle Girifushi Thila and the Victory Wreck, a shipwreck which has grown
The Maldives. The name of this country alone conjures up images that make most dive enthusiasts float away on a SCUBA daydream. These isolated atolls in the middle of the immense Indian Ocean have sat firmly among the top five tropical dive locations worldwide for decades. This is the place to go for big and
