My final trip aboard Dewi Nusantara started in full force.

I've recently returned from another briliant trip to Lembeh Strait in north Sulawesi, Indonesia.  We stayed at Lembeh Resort and dived with Critters@Lembeh.  They were a really great bunch and we had an amazing time diving with them.  Some of the underwater highlights for me during this trip were my first ever zebra seahorse (a colour form of Hippocampus trimaculatus), a mototi octopus (Amphioctopus siamensis) (which advertises it's venomous bite with a pair of bright blue rings either side of the body and occasion

In June 2011 I visited Pico Island in the Azores, which are situated 1500 km west of Portugal in the mid Atlantic.  I had been lucky enough to be granted permission by the Azorean government to enter the water with Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus).  This priveledge is limited to professional photographers and supported by my marine biology background.  Great care must be taken not to disturb these gentle giants and so we were only on snorkel, not SCUBA.  Our daily excursions were organised by Pic

The final leg of our road trip from Brisbane took us to the island state of Tasmania.  We took the red eye ferry from Melbourne that left at 9pm and got us to Devonport on the north coast of Tasmania at 6am the next morning.  We'd had quite a hectic weekend in Melbourne and were exhausted by the time we found our seats on the ferry.  In hindsight maybe a cabin with actual beds would have been a good idea but we decided the cheap seats would be fine.  We arrived in Tasmania at dawn and decided to take the scenic route to Hobart, where we were diving the next day.  To cut a long story short w

After a couple of days chilling in Sydney with friends it was time to head south again on our epic Brisbane to Tasmania road trip.  Part two was equally diverse and rewarding as the first.  The thousand kilometres of coast we covered between Sydney and Melbourne gave us opportunity to encounter a variety of marine ecosystems starting in Jervis Bay.  It is the largest natural Bay in Australia and was our first experience with a large macroalgal dominated habitat (i.e kelp).  We saw heaps of filder rays, which are a kind of shovelnose ray that has a beautiful patterning over the body.  It was

My friend Laura and I are currently on a geographically epic dive road trip from Brisbane to Tasmania.  We are stopping at some of Australia's top dive sites on the way where I'm taking images and preparing an article about our adventures for Sport Diving Magazine.  I've spent the last few years diving tropical coral reefs conducting research for my PhD studies so I was keen to experience some of the cooler waters off Australia.  I became slightly obsessed with planning the trip and we'll be visiting a number of locations in search of particular spe

I have recently returned from two trips aboard the Paradise Dancer in the Raja Ampat region of Indonesia where I have been in search of the recently described and extremely elusive Satomi’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus satomiae). The Paradise Dancer, or Dewi Nusantara as it is also known, is a member of the Peter Hughes fleet and the crown jewel of Indonesian liveaboard diving.

Every week during my two months at Wakatobi Dive Resort between August and October 2009 I wrote a blog for FiNS online.  I was at the resort conducting fieldwork for my PhD on the biology of pygmy seahorses.  The blog explains what I was up to each week so just follow the links below to each week's write-up:

Week 1 - The weeks ahead

I spent a couple of weeks at Walea Dive Resort in the Togean Islands of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia conducting surveys of gorgonian-associated pygmy seahorses as well as having my first experiences with the amazing and newly named Walea pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus waleananus).

I also wrote some information for the resort's website about the reef and some creatures they habour, which you can read on the resort's website:

Walea's Coral Reefs

I was lucky enough to meet Christina Ngiam, who is the founder of EcoAsia, recently whilst working at Wakatobi. It was great to meet someone who has a passion for conserving our natural resources whilst also realising that this can occur along side development and everyday living.