After spending weeks immersed deep in the blue of the Pacific Ocean, next stop was red; days amongst towering red sand dunes in the Namib Desert and then immersed again... this time in the daily lives of the wildlife of Etosha National Park.
Another photo guiding assignment, this time for Darran Leal's specialist photo tour company Safariwise Australia.
My group of six: John and Pip, Clinton, Sandy, Wendy and Jane were great companions as we crossed Namibia in search of classic African landscape, wildlife and culture. Our local guide Neil showed as the best opportunities Namibia had to offer and his fabulous staff Samuel, Simson and Malakia looked after our every need back at camp.
Our route took us first Southward to the dunes of the Namib Desert; West to the coastal towns of Walvis Bay and Swakopmund for fantastic seabirds, fur seals and dolphin encounters; North to the waterholes and wildlife of Etosha; then East into the Kalahari Desert to visit the San Bushmen.
You can browse a web gallery featuring around 100 of my images from the trip via this link.
WHALES SWIM / EARTH MOVES IN LATE SEPTEMBER, VAVA'U GROUP
September was whale month, and in a previous post I linked to a web gallery featuring images from the first of my two Whaleswim Photo Tours in Tonga.
I've now posted a second gallery, with images captured with my second group of whaleswimmers; Jann, Phillipa, Bridget from Australia; Bob from Alaska; Ryan and Cam from the middle of Canada.
Along with additional whale images this new gallery link also includes a few images of the surge effects seen in the Vava'u Group's Port of Refuge harbour at the time of the earthquake and tsunami. The event coincided with low tide, so resulted in the "tide" pushing in all the way to the high water mark, then retreating again to low water mark at a rapid rate. This complete ebb and flow of the tidal range happened 4 times in 15 minutes, but never threatened above the usual maximum sea level. The photographs show the massive turbulence created as the incoming water tries to enter through the neck of the harbour, and also close-ups of the cascading flow over the shallows, close to shore. There was damage to a couple of jetties outside of the harbour, but in Vava'u no major damage or injury was reported. After a slight delay to our morning departure, we had a great day swimming with whales!
I'm looking forward to next season's trips already. The excitment has been fueled by the new BBC Series "Life" that features fabulous aerial and underwater sequences of the Tongan humpbacks during their aggressive "Heat Runs", when numerous males compete for mating rights. The BBC enlisted the help of our local skippers Alaister and Ali to help capture the amazing footage. A video preview of the episode can be seen here.
So if you're thinking of joining us on a Whaleswim Adventure in Tonga during 2010, go to this page on the Whaleswim site for more details (look for "Photography Small Group A and B").