Diving Tayrona National Park, Colombia

As I have shared in previous posts, my wife and I enjoy diving to see a different side of wildlife. Well we are finally in South America having worked our way down from Mexico City and before exploring wildlife on land we have been diving with Ocean Lovers in the Tayrona National Park to see some of the marine life. I have also taken the opportunity to take the PADI Underwater Photography Speciality with a great instructor called Nataly

Fun Diving

Initially I was photographing with my GoPro. This isn’t great for photos as it is so wide angle. But it was good to capture an array of the life from Bristle Worms to Grunts, Cowfish and a sustained encounter with a Conger Eel.

We saw more Moray Eels, Puffer Fish and Trumpet Fish here than anywhere we have dived so far on this trip.

On another dive (we did 8 total) we found several Scorpion and Lion Fish both poisonous.

Particularly with the GoPro, the video footage is better so will share some of the highlights of the diving here below.

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Underwater Photography Speciality Course

In addition to shooting with the GoPro I signed up to do this photography course. Having done a speciality course before with a PADI school that was very low key I wasn’t sure how good this would be. But I was pleasantly surprised as the instructor Nataly was very skilled and engaging and I also got to play with a new camera. It was a steep learning curve for both the diving skills and the photography but I was pleased with some of my photos all of which were taken on two dives.

I really enjoyed some of the macro work small Bristleworms and Fireworms for example. An opportunity to work on my diving control and focus skills underwater.

I spent a lovely 10 minutes or so photographing a Sea Horse (apparently so absorbed I missed a Turtle swimming past). Various fish including a Cowfish provided good photo subjects too.

We found several Lionfish sheltering in Coral. There was a strong current here but this provided the opportunity to swim into the current and therefore stay fairly still and fire off several photos.

Overall I really enjoyed these dives and the focused attention from a skilled diver and underwater photographer. I learnt a lot and am seriously thinking about spending some money on an underwater camera to keep this learning going.

Next up we are going to the Santa Marta Mountains and birdwatching here in an area with 19 endemics. Watch this space.