Underwater photographers are one of a kind… “Well, we got our mantas yesterday, now let’s move on to the sharks“, was the general opinion on the jetty in the morning. Said and done. Half an hour later guests and photo hosts plunged into the water at Vertigo and into a group of around 20 grey reef sharks off the wall. Some of them with bite marks from the last rough mating season. It’s always great to see how the greys patrol the open water while the smaller blacktip reef sharks hardly dare to leave the shallow reef top. Apart from the sharking, the dive also brought some medium-sized groupers, rainbow runners, a big school of convict surgeonfishes and – surprise – a group of pelagic cuttlefish.

More than 190 shots on the memory card in 80 minutes did not prevent our shark enthusiasts from sneaking into the water at this time’s most productive cleaning station around the corner in Mi’l Channel. While there are plenty of manta rays around right now, this dive brought along five different animals in less than 10 metres depth. A great dive for everybody, with the exception of Tim Rock, who tried to get widelens close-ups of smaller fish inhabiting the cleaning station. His comment: “And you guessed it. Here I am shooting clownfish and a manta once again sneaks into the shot!“ Luxury problems… didn’t I mention underwater photographers are one of a kind?

Some photographic treats can be seen on the individual facebook sites of Tim Rock and Frank Schneider. Further information: www.mantafest.com, www.mantaray.com