Mt. Michel is another pinnacle dive in Saba, peaking about 30 meters under the surface. It had been without a mooring for about two years until a new one was recently added, so it hasn’t been explored much lately. I had the fisheye lens on again, so mostly I took photos of the spectacular sponges.

Before prepping these images, I spent a little time watching some instructional videos from Underwater Photoshop. I have had the DVD for over a year, but hadn’t gotten around to watching most of it. Although I didn’t mess with my images too much, there are some really great techniques covered in the DVD.

Yann and Marie arrived in Saba the day after us, so our second day of diving was actually the first time we all dove together. We started the morning off at Third Encounter, another pinnacle dive. I apologize if the photos are a bit boring. There were so many great sponges that I ended up taking loads of photos of them.

Our next dive was at Diamond Rock, presumably named after its whitewash of guano. This dive site was amazing. In addition to the rock that juts out of the water there is a second peak underwater and a sandy bottom about 80 feet down. In addition to the gorgeous underwater landscape, we saw a giant jack, a southern stingray and a hawksbill turtle.

I should also mention that we dove with Saba Deep, and they were really great. We dove new sites almost every dive and they made everything super easy by taking care of our gear, taxi and such. Since it was low season we were also able to opt in to extra dives in the afternoons, even if we were the only people going out.

Several members of Les Fruits de Mer (Madam J, Yann, Marie and myself) undertook an expedition to the nearby island of Saba last week for some diving, hiking and, of course, Extreme Shallow Snorkeling. Over the next few days I’ll be posting all about our adventures.

Saba is a much younger island than St. Martin, I believe about ten million years younger, or about half the age of St. Martin. While both islands are originally volcanic, St. Martin was submerged and capped with limestone, while Saba is basically still just a volcano jutting straight out of the ocean. It’s about a seventh the area of St. Martin, but twice as tall.

This post features some photos from our first day of diving on the island. The world-famous diving is the primary tourism draw of the island. Our first dive was at a site called Outer Limits, which is one of the pinnacle dives. The underwater pinnacles are basically submerged mountaintops off the coast of Saba that rise to between 90 and 110 feet below the surface of the ocean. Although the depth means short dives, these unique formations are a big attraction to divers.

Our next dive was at a site called Ladder Labyrinth, which primarily consists of coral and sponge encrusted underwater lava flows that create a variety of interesting structures. Underwater hot springs leave sulfur patches in the sand, and geothermal heat can be felt if you put your hands into the sand in the right spots.

We were also lucky enough to arrive during the month-long Sea and Learn event, which includes talks by experts and hands-on research opportunities. We went on a dusk/night dive with Graham Forrester to see if we could watch hamlets spawn. Although we didn’t actually see this because there aren’t very many hamlets in the waters around Saba, we did have a great night dive. One highlight was a nurse shark which followed us everywhere, probably because our flashlights helped it find prey.

It was a busy day and a great way to start our expedition!

A few days ago I went for a dive on the Fusheng, a natural wreck that is at about 30m depth off the Dutch side of the island. Since I’d already been there with the fisheye, I decided to try a macro lens this time. I didn’t get any amazing photos, but I did find a whole bunch of yellowhead jawfish off to the side of the wreck, dozens or maybe hundreds floating above their burrows.

La Renée is a pretty large wreck sitting at about 40 meters deep off Baie aux Prunes. Going to that depth, one gets less than ten minutes of no decompression time at the bottom, but it’s still a very fun dive. We were also lucky to have numerous large jellyfish floating higher up in the water column. Some of them even had groups of small fish hanging out around them.

For the second dive, we went out to Underground City, a reef near Creole Rock that I had discovered a few weeks ago. A long stretch of reef beneath the channel between Creole Rock and Bell Point, it is one of my favorite places to take photos. The reef rises up a couple meters from sand on each side, making it easy to take photos facing upwards, and there are passages and caves under the reef full of schooling silversides and other fish.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of tagging along with a group of students taking the PADI underwater photography specialty course. Our first stop was Rocher Marcel, a free-standing rock surrounded by reef in Anse Marcel. After a few exercises to improve buoyancy control and see the effects of distance when photographing, we headed towards the underwater canyons near the rock and took some photos.

My favorite sighting was a banded jawfish that kept peeking out of his burrow in the sandy channel. As you can see from the photo below, in addition to excavating burrows, they use larger rocks and coral rubble to create a masonry-like structure around the entrance. Usually they retreat into their burrow when approached and are reluctant to re-emerge, but since we were in the vicinity for so long doing exercises, I think this one grew tired of hiding and kept popping back up. I also saw a lancer dragonet, but with the fisheye lens I wasn’t able to get a good photo of something so small.

Yesterday I had a rather crabby night dive. I was swimming along near Creole Rock and found a small piece broken off a sponge. I picked it up, and to my surprise there was a dime-sized hole on the other side with a little crab wedged into it. Throughout the rest of the dive I saw many crabs, including little teardrop decorator crabs and clinging crabs hiding beneath the spines of sea urchins. On the dive there were plenty of fish, shrimp and other creatures, but overall it was mostly crabby.

No matter how many times you’ve been to a particular dive site, it is always strange and exciting to dive there at night. Our recent trip to Creole Rock was no exception. Things one doesn’t normally see during the day were everywhere, like tiny decorator crabs with bits of sponge covering their carapaces and legs and incredibly pale anemones reaching up into the water to collect drifting food. Things you do see normally act differently, like the moray eels prowling the reef instead of resting in their daytime crevices. Other things change color, like the various fishes that were sporting nighttime-only colors and patterns.

As a special bonus, on this dive we had left a flashlight pointing into the water by the boat and by the time we returned there were dozens of squid below it. This technique is probably worth a try next time you do a night dive.

Until yesterday, my first and only visit to Chris’s Reef was over a year ago when it was first discovered. The reef is located in the channel between Saint Martin and Anguilla, and contains the wreckage of various cars and trucks. One theory is that they were destroyed by Hurricane Luis in 1995 and subsequently taken there for disposal. Regardless of their true origin, these parts have clearly been out there a while, as they are entirely encrusted in coral and sponges.

Numerous free-standing coral formations, on car remains and otherwise, make this a great spot for underwater photography. During the dive, the most exciting find was a scorpionfish, which was resting well-camouflaged near a sponge.