First Dive of the Season

I finally went diving this past week. People who come on vacation in our town go much more to sea than us who live right next to it, I guess you get spoiled or the fact that it is just there makes it less important to go.

Weather was around 40 degrees Celsius and the water 24 so perfect, although deeper it does of course get colder.

There are some shipwrecks, sunken purely for divers, although it does give a nice grip for critters and fauna.

 
Fish like to seek shelter under it.

This was also once part of a ship, now it is flourishing.

And Squid eggs, dancing with the waves, they were pretty deep, hence the quality of the photo. The sea is beautiful from each and every angle :)

A Local Adventure

A week ago I went to Seferihisar, a little town about 4 hours from ours.
I went there for an underwater video workshop but I got up early on Friday to leave at 6 am so that I would arrive at 10 am to explore the town.

My first stop was Teos Ancient Site, first settled during the Protogeometric period at circa 1000 BC.
There were more places to see but it was soooo hot and I was on only 2 hours of sleep that I could not stay longer than 2 hours and had to escape the heat.

Entrance is 5 lira (1 dollar) and that includes a map which is handy as it is a pretty large area.

The Bouleuterion was in pretty good shape. A bouleuterion, also translated as council house, assembly house, and senate house, was a building in ancient Greece which housed the council of citizens of a democratic city state. These representatives assembled at the bouleteurion to confer and decide about public affairs. There are several extant bouleuteria around Greece and its former colonies.

In the middle of the site was also an old woman with her goats I'm pretty sure that the goats are appreciated as they keep the vegetation at bay :)

If I had been there during May or Fall I would definitely spent some more time but without shade it was really too hot to stay for too long.

There was still work going on at the site.

I loved these tunnels the most, nice shady and the beauty of abandonment very clear.

I then went to a little old Mill, the Greek history was clear all around Seferihisar.

Making use of the wind in several ways.

The town itself could easily be in Greece, as you know Turkey has a long history with Greece.

Beautiful old mosque.

Around the old town were the remnants of a castle wall.
On Sunday there was a bazaar here extremely crowded but with delicious home made food. We ate so much between our two dives that day that I was afraid I would sink too fast :D

Due to the heat it was very quiet when I went.

This I did all on Friday including some theory briefing for my video workshop in the evening.

As the town is small but popular there are not many hotels and  I discovered that rooms were pretty expensive. I discovered a lovely bungalow through Airbnb and it had this lovely place to sit with a cool breeze and amazing view.

At night I woke up to this red moon, not a blood moon just red due to the heat, I did take pics of the blood moon which you can see at my previous blog post.

On Saturday and Sunday we had two dives each day, and we took videos, will edit them soon to post on YouTube.

I managed to take a few photos as well, but mostly videos as that was what the course was about.

There was much more to see that in my town, the sea life especially the flora better preserved.

I had a great time and hope to do one on photography as well as underwater photography is tricky :)

View from our table during dinner.

Under the Sea

I went for another dive the other day.
Beside my GoPro I also now have a second hand camera which has a water proof case, I was hoping that it would take better macro pictures than the GoPro but it didn't work out yet. The camera is a compact Sony Cybershot works great above water, but I need to figure out how it can do better underwater, until I can afford something better!

Right below the surface all was fine problem is with underwater photography colors disappear.
At what depth does color disappear?
Red - 4-5 meters (15 feet)
Orange - 7-8 meters (25 feet)
Yellow - 10 meters (35 feet)
Green - 22 meters (70 feet)

I found this video intriguing to see how colors are effected underwater.

So the deeper you go the less color is left.

Resulting with only blue pictures at 25 meters (82 feet), unless you have a camera worth thousands with lights and special lenses.

I was at a different diving school than usual and things did not go very smoothly, not to mention that one guy finished his oxygen tank in 20 minutes during both dives resulting in much shorter dives than usual.
I think it would have been helpful to adjust the camera to 'cloudy day' setting, will try that next time :)

I took some videos with the GoPro, and wanted to edit them together but had some problems with that as well, I had a battle with cameras, hope for better pics and video next time. So here a short video where you can see me making friends with a fish, and you can actually also see the guy I mentioned above starting sharing a tank with someone :)
I would be grateful for subscribes and likes on YouTube as my channel is brand new!