I’m back to the land of the interwebs, and I brought all the underwater goodness that I promised last week. Our four-day dive trip to Isla de Coiba with Scuba Coiba and surrounding days in Santa Catalina, Panama, were completely off the grid. Yesterday was spent wading through the 270 emails that piled up in the five days I was offline and whittling down over a thousand photos from the past week. While it was nice to take some time off, it’s going to take me ages to catch back up and its hard to get back into my disciplined routine after spending a few days doing nothing more than diving and lazing on the sand. Was it worth it? I’ll let the following photos answer that questions.
This week we’re drying out in the highlands before crossing the isthmus to hit the beach on the Caribbean side of Panama. It is suddenly hitting me that I’m in the final stages of this Latin American exploration — I’ll be stateside in just over three weeks!
Photo A
Photo B
Photo C
Photo D
Photo E
Photo F
Which photo is your favorite?
Welcome back! Loving all the underwater goodness 🙂 I’m staying photo B. What is that on the right?
It’s a moray eel! Guess I should have done captions this week 🙂
Love them all but F1 is spectacular! He/she almost looks like a fossil, while also seeming like a human trapped in a fish body…maybe a spell?
Love that idea! He is a frogfish, a rare diving find and one of the many we spotted at Coiba!
Photo D really captures the movement of the fish!
It was one of my favorite moments of the trip!
I like photo D the best – incredible!
Thanks Emily! I loved that dive!
I can’t decide between photo C and D..
I like the moray eel in B as well but it took me a long time to actually that it was a moray eel! Think I got confused with the lack of colors.
Unfortunately Coiba has pretty low viz most of the time and we were diving quite deep, so the only way to work with a lot of my photos was to edit them into black and white!
Wow, dang! You really have got a great eye, Alex. I really like the composition of your photos. This week I think I’m picking C…and D (and B and E) 😀
Thanks Andy! I appreciate it… and I’m sure my BFA is to thank for those compositional skills 🙂
It was C , and i was feeling pretty set on that … but i scrolled on and D just snuck right up! D for the win. At this point I get max 10-15 e-mails a day. i crave more e-mail. maybe one day I’ll be like you with an overflowing inbox, but until then i’ll stream Girls (the tv show) and eat skittles 🙂
Email has basically become the bane of my existence! I’ve done unroll.me and got rid of most of my junk mail which has helped enormously. But between advertising and freelance stuff, making future travel plans, keeping up with friends and fam and answering reader emails I spend so much of my day in my inbox. Maybe I can send you some of mine? 😀
Photo D! So. Many. Fishies. In. One. Photo!! I miss diving already sighs
I’m happy I don’t have to wait too long to dive again. We should be back in the water next week! But it will be quite a while after that, sadly.
These are the best photos I’ve ever seen from you! Amazing!
Wow, thanks Meghan! That’s a nice thing to read 🙂
I have to go with C!
I love me some silhouette shots! Thanks Soffia!
These are stunning, can’t wait to see the rest 🙂 I’ll go with c or d, those are my two favorites!
I have SO much editing to do 🙂 Underwater photos need a lot of attention!
These photos all have unique perspectives which I really enjoy. I have to say there is something special in photo A with the crisp clarity of the crashing waves!
Pretty crisp considering it was my iPhone! Continue to be amazed at what that thing can do.
This week I am voting for photo D. You have captured the motion and abundance of life beautifully!
Thank you Caity! It was a fantastic school of fish!
C and D! SO happy to see more dive shots on your site! Guess the camera didn’t fog this time and the tampon worked? 😉
Tampon worked — no fogging! However my camera is definitely on it’s last legs. It doesn’t focus as crisply as it used to and the image quality has significantly degraded. I think I may have dropped/abused it one too many times 🙁 On the lookout for a new one at the big dive show in March!
C!! I have a weakness for the underwater low angle with sun flare shot & this is a great one!
D! I feel like I’m seeing the perspective of one of those fish in the school. Cool photo of the eel too even if he creeps me out a bit – they’re the one creature I’ve encountered underwater that make me the most nervous.
I know how you feel. They pop out of nowhere! With all those teeth!
D for sure, that is an amazing picture. Can’t believe you are almost finished latin america, feels like you just started!
Really? It feels like ages to me, ha! I guess it has only been four months. But I’ll be back 🙂
I always feel that when you post a bunch of photos and ask “Which photo is your favorite?” that you need an “all of the above” choice! You take great photos that always make me wish I was there!
Also where did you stay when you visited these islands?
We stayed at the ANAM station in the National Park. It was simple but you aren’t spending much time indoors!
Love all the photos this week! Especially the frog fish in F, it is a frog fish right?
I can totally relate to the love/hate relationship to being offline. While in Malapascua (!!) there was no internet for the entire two weeks I was there and it was blissful after being overly connected here in Korea. I’m struggling to want to get back to emailing, tweeting and what not!
Also, I am now open water certified! Malapascua was the perfect place to learn and I cannot thank you enough for going there first and writing about it here! And for all your awesome underwater photography too, which over the last 2 years has had me itching to finally get under the water! Thank you Alex!
I’m so so happy to hear that, Jade! Yay for diving! And I’m happy to hear Malapascua is still a lovely destination for travelers post-Typhoon. I can totally relate to the post-vacation inertia and having a hard time diving back into work after. Oh, and yes, it is a frogfish!
I love C, I want to know what they’re pointing at! Xx
I think it was a giant school of barracuda!
i am choosing C. I like the light shining through the water.
Love that effect. It’s beautiful underwater!
It’s very hard to decide this week but I’m choosing photo B as well.
Crazy creatures above and below the surface! It was such a special place.
Hmmm, tough call indeed!
It’s between C or E for me (hmmmm, between C and D, does that make it D?)
Loving the underwater world you share with us!
LOL, it must be late! That should have said “hmmmm, between C and E, does that make it D?”
Commenting under the influence of exhaustion! It is a serious problem!
Cool shots, as always!My fave is the top! Love that wave. Panama is sooo on my list!
It wasn’t very high on mine before this trip, which has made it a really fun surprise! I couldn’t be loving it more.
B!
I knew you’d pick the monkey…
B as well! What setting do you use for underwater fotos on your S100? Do you use the underwater function?
Yup, I always put the underwater setting on to help bring the reds back in. But sometimes if you’re too deep there’s nothing the camera can do!
Gotta love the Frogfish! A face only a mom could love! Too bad you lost your reds, I would love to see all of them in color. Chow – Ron
We found quite a few frogfish on this trip, so no worries…. some color photos will be coming up! 🙂
OMG that thing on the right on photo b would have scared the hell out of me. 🙂 I love the last photo!
They are pretty creepy… I have to remind myself they chomp their jaws like that just to breathe!
It has to be F1… The Frogfish. I love the effect of the black and white.. Now tell me you took this with your Cannon s100 and I will be happy. I purchased the Cannon s100 after reading many reviews including yours and will be trying it out the end of the month in Akumal Mexico. I will be using the Ikelite housing but not sure I will need the strobe. I believe you told me you did not use one.. Your pictures are great and I enjoy reading about your travels.
Be safe,
Bob…
I took all of these underwater ones with the s100 and sans strobe! Best of luck with your dive trip… I’m sure you’ll love the new camera!
D is a really great shot! So many fish!
It was a magical moment! Can’t wait to share more photos from the trip.
I just discoverd you blog when doing some trip planning for our 3 week holiday in Panama. We are from the netherlands and will be taking our almost 2 year old daugther.
I came across your railway picture on Trover and have now spend over an hour reading the different stories on your site. You have a great website! Was already thinking about going to santa catalina and both doing one day of diving there at la coiba but now I am sold!
Thank you so much Tikva! I LOVED Panama and I’m so glad to hear you’re giving it a good chunk of time — so many people rush through. It’s a seriously underrated country. Enjoy your trip and let me know if I can help!