Fred Buyle - excellent Interview!

Unsuccessful - attempt to tag a Bull in La Réunion.

This is Frederic Buyle.



From the interview.

Il y a vraiment un paradoxe car on voudrait prendre des mesures mais on ne peut pas sécuriser un milieu comme celui là. Je pense que maintenant ce qu’il faut faire, c’est responsabiliser les usagers de la mer.

Ce que je pense, c’est que maintenant, on va à la mer comme on va au supermarché.
Les gens ne sont plus responsabilisés. Vous allez en Afrique du Sud ou en Australie, où il y a un vrai problème de requins, il y a des panneaux. Vous connaissez les dangers, ce qu’il faut faire pour les éviter. Après, c’est à vous de prendre le risque ou pas. Les gens s’éduquent. Dès lors que l’on informe les gens, ils vont d’eux-mêmes aller chercher d’autres informations.

Translation here - not great but you'll certainly get the gist.
Could not agree more!

The backdrop are obviously the recent Shark strikes in La Réunion.
Fred and several friends had mounted an expedition to go and tag some Sharks which failed miserably: in 17 days of searching, they did not find a single Shark with the exception of a few Bulls that were however incredibly timid; and once they managed to get closer by offering some bait, the Bull Sharks' skin proved to be simply too tough - and haven't we experienced that!

You can read Fred's report in this excellent blog post.
I was particularly interested in hearing about the proximity of fishing ports and beaches, and was once again particularly impressed by Fred's pragmatic advocacy of caution and common sense.

Kudos again!

PS further details by Fred himself in the comments section!

Free Diving with the Big Ones?

Great pic by Fred Buyle - and yes this is a link!

You may want to check out this video clip.
Will it be kept online, or will it be retracted?

It shows what I believe to be an investigatory bite by a large Tiger Shark.
I hear that the free diver (no it was not a dummy) was not hurt in the process, which is great. If I may venture a hypothesis, the animal does not look highly motivated and may also not have liked the taste of rubber.

As to the diver's apparent total lack of reaction, hmmm...
Playing possum may well be a life saving reaction once one is being cornered by a Grizzly - but from everything I've ever experienced, the correct way of addressing the unwanted attentions of Sharks is to confront them. Mostly, a determined stare and a small shove will do the job but sometimes, the reaction needs to be way more assertive - before one ends up in the animal's mouth! To remain completely passive, to me, equals surrendering the initiative to the animal and hoping for a positive outcome - not really what I would consider the best of survival strategies!
In the softest possible way - there are lessons to be learned here and no, this is not proof that Tiger Sharks are harmless!

Which brings me straight over to the subject at hand.
Safe free diving with large predatory Sharks and other large marine predators is certainly possible, as witnessed by countless such encounters in South Africa - and not only there! Now, some of the same highly experienced free divers are mounting a commercial expedition to the North-Eastern Pacific. And yes this includes Guadalupe and having asked, NO it does NOT include cage-less commercial encounters with Great Whites - whether free diving or on SCUBA!

The one factor that caught my eye is the emphasis on education and training.
Free diving is not snorkeling, far from it: both mentally and physically, it is a highly demanding sport requiring life-long training and dedication. And when interacting with marine life, it also requires ocean sense, i.e. a profound and instinctive knowledge of the ocean and the animals that can only be garnered in years of experience, often whilst spearfishing. No wonder that so many excellent free divers describe it as a transcendental experience!

And I may add: no wonder that many of them progress to become Shark divers - on SCUBA!
Just teasing!

Bottom line?
Like mountain climbing with which it shares many similarities, free diving needs to be tackled in increments - and if free diving with large pelagic predators can rightly be considered to be the Everest (yes I'm being facetious), it needs to be addressed in exactly the same manner: by experienced, well prepared and well trained individuals and with excellent guides.
With that in mind - may the expedition be a total success!

Beautiful!

I've blogged about him and here comes a short video featuring Frederic Buyle, the author of the stunning pic above.

Filmed by French underwater cinematographer Jérôme Espla, it has just won this year's Prix Spécial du Jury at the UW Festival in Antibes. English version (and a linguistic trip down memory lane...) here.

As to the touchy feely stuff, well, it may be justified in the context of the overall message... Just...
Plus, having dived with many a Frenchman, it just comes with the territory I guess. Looks like somebody will have to learn something the hard way - with the Industry having to mop up the mess & endure the consequences once it eventuates. Such is life.

Anyway: kudos - and Enjoy!

Absolutely Amazing Photography!

Have you ever dived the Pacific coast of the Americas?
As in Baja, Cocos, Malpelo, Galapagos, even the Marquesas?

If so, you may agree that diving there has a very special "feel" to its own.
The water is often black, the landscape is monumental but barren, there are ferocious currents and totally weird, and equally frigid multiple thermoclines, the weather is often challenging, the visibility often dismal. One would be tempted to argue that it's the very last place one would ever want to get back to, and yet I find myself going back time after time again.

Not only because of its absolutely fabulous wildlife comprising some of the most iconic animals like Sharks, big Rays, Sea Turtles and Billfish - but very much also because of the unique challenges it poses.

But despite squillions of dives and despite the fact that I've been an underwater photographer for decades before switching over to video, I've never quite been able to capture the eerie essence of those places. Yes, I have great silhouettes of schooling hammerheads and closeups of cleaning stations - but the reality is that most schooling hammerheads I've seen were not silhouetted, they were wandering along somewhere below in an spooky procession of tan bodies against a misty background, all much too difficult to be adequately captured I thought.

So far, that is - until I discovered this absolutely fabulous website.

Record free diver Frederic Buyle takes his images on a single breath of surface air, on available light and down to a depth of up to a whopping 55 meters.

Take for instance this picture of the Smalltooth Raggie from Malpelo: if you're very very lucky, you may see them at 200ft on the Bajo del Monstruo, a huge challenge for any diver - and yet Fred did obviously succeed in doing so whilst free diving!
Whow!

I'm quite frankly blown away.
I've taken the liberty of copy/pasting a few of my favorite images which you can click in order to see them in better magnification. Hopefully, they will result in some incremental business for Frederic.

Enjoy!