Australia - Great Barrier Reef

Photos from a snorkeling trip to some destinations along the great barrier reef. Heavy color tweaking has been applied since everything tends to turn blue underwater.

We depart Port Douglas on the Poseidon, bound for the reefs to the north.

The weather was perfect for snorkeling, with extremely calm, transluscent water....

Scuba divers enter the water first, descending to the ocean floor, while...

Recipe for fog-free mask: wash inside with diluted baby shampoo, then rinse with...

Straight out of the camera most wide-angle photos are flooded with blue-green...

The exposure and bright/dark points must be set for each photo, and then depending on the content, colors can be corrected. This is a photo with colors...

Daniel dives (not very far)

Three fish, any one of which would make a bass trophy fisherman proud to hook.

This shot shows the shiny white calcium skeleton of the coral, as well as the...

Dad goes in for closer inspection of the corals on the ocean floor. Just a few...

Fred Dupriest doesn't swim through water. Water get's out of Fred Dupriest's...

There is no up or down for fish, so they go wherever they want. It's a good idea...

Over the years these coral have grown right up to the water's surface. It's hard...

In these shallow areas the water is positively jacuzzi-like, with the coral...

There is nothing special about this photo, but it's a picture of a very special...

Dad spots something of interest on the ocean floor and heads down for a look. At these depths the colors begin to fade and it's hard for the camera to pick up...

Ocean and sunbeams wallpaper

I tweaked this photo as well as I could to try and show off the beautiful coloration of these fish. Like silver bullets with orange and blue racing...

Uh oh... these blue fish were totally silver in the last photo. Color-correcting...

I could not believe my eyes when I saw this scene. Scroll down for the full effect. Now imagine everything in motion with waves, sunbeams and shimmering...

I am going to call these 'zebrafish' and 'cornstarch finger coral'.

Dad diving like the Red October. Aside from a high tolerance for airlessness and...

Ooh, I know this one! Blue Staghorn coral... only because it's the most common...

Fish1: "Are you sure you're going the right way?" Fish2: "ME? I've been...

A massive fish possibly called a 'Bull Fish' was gliding through the shallowest...

Sooner or later we are bound to swim right into one of Australia's hundreds of...

OK Captain Nemo, time to come back up to periscope-depth. Ocean is starting to...

Honeycomb and ferns and octupus legs and brushes and who knows what...

These look like tiny suction cups.

The ocean's surface illuminates the coral's surface with shimmering waves of diffracted rainbow light. It must be pretty psychadelic for the fish that live...

Even though it's called 'hard coral', up close it looks suprisingly soft, smooth...

Pink coral vs. uuuuugly coral. Sorry, out-of-focus.

'Long skinny fish' trying to hide from the camera.

This giant clam could easily gobble up a small child.

This clam has found a permanent home among the coral. About a hand's width in...

Bert the sea cucumber and Ernie the... um... not really sure.

Parrotfish zoom in and bite off entire mouthfulls of this stuff. I don't blame...

This used its anti-autofocus field to deflect the camera's attention over to the...

Layer after layer of brown and blue staghorn coral grow in every direction.

We were told the weather was the best they had seen in months. The ocean was as...

I seem to recall someone saying something about 'no more than 3 boat-lengths',...

Attack formation delta!

In this photo I wanted to show the extreme difference in color and light as you...

Just bubbles. Oh, and bubbles wallpaper.

I hear the 'Imperial March' in my head every time I see these guys.

Words fail me. All I can say is, 'shark' must be the easiest job in the ocean.

House-sized schools of fish surge and rush around Dad. There really isn't a way to tease any more detail out of this photo since there are way too many fish for...

One diver and approx. 1,200 fish.

Jellyfish wallpaper (just kidding)

Barracuda possibly playing with, possibly eating, another school of fish.

Try and spot the camofish!

Come for the food, stay for the FOOD!

Too many fish moving too quickly to photograph! What to do!? Click furiously!

In another 30 minutes this coral will all be exposed as the tide goes out.

Contender no. 1 for 'most agreeable camera subject'

'Mouth'

Coral breaching the surface of the water.

Extreme coral extreme close-up!

Too shallow to swim into. With the tide going out even the fish seem to know not...

These blue-green fish have discovered the perfect color to blend right into the...

Talk about a fish melting pot! I've never seen so many different types of fish...

The cast from an upcoming Pixar movie?

The clone war!

Mistaken for a sea cucumber, the Zerthraxian ambassador's first contact with...

Try to focus on sandfish -> Camera focuses on sand instead -> Camoflage...

I was just about the last person left still in the water when these four...

The reef as seen from the boat (also wallpaper)

Once the tide has gone out the reef looks like this with maybe several inches...

The ocean was almost a mirror at the last reef we visited.

The still water casts almost a perfect shadow on the ocean floor as Dad passes...

Streamlined human, streamlined fish.

Blurry but interesting photo showing how this type of coral begins growing out...

Dad vs. reef shark, round one!

This shark didn't seem the least bit interested in my photo shoot.

Weird and wonderful colors

This parrotfish has found the all-you-can-eat buffet of coral.

Two clownfish procrastinating on whose turn it is to cut the grass.

Blurry, but very cool green ferny leafy thing

The only picture I managed to take of a parrotfish where it wasn't running away

Rainbow-colored fish swimming over rainbow-colored coral

Canteloupe coral?

Now, how many fingers am I holding up?

3LDK with gas stove and heating, hardwood floors and twelve thousand stinging...

Beware of the blob♪ coral.

Aha! Parrotfish will let you take their picture if you corner them!

I will name this 'elephant ear coral'.

Wonderful, weird and beautiful... and if you think THIS is creepy, zoom in...