DiveFilm Podcast Video

In this fantastic short video, underwater filmmaker Richard Brooks presents a glimpse of Palau's vibrant and beautiful underwater world. Micronesia has some of the world's most beautiful reefs and offers fantastic diving. Richard, underwater imager with Fish n' Fins in Palau, has the enviable opportunity to dive these waters and experience the marine life there on a regular basis. You can see more of his work in the Photoshop section of the Fish n' Fins website: http://fishnfins.com

Dr. Stacy Kim is a Benthic Ecologist and diver who studies sea floor creatures in Antarctica waters that are below freezing. Her research team has developed a cool new ROV named SCINI (Submersible Capable of Under Ice Navigation and Imaging) for deployment beneath the ice to study depths below where divers can go. In this video, Stacy tells about diving the extreme cold water beneath Antarctic ice, and how SCINI makes possible even greater capabilities to explore and record the sea floor life in polar regions. Video includes wonderful underwater footage by Henry Kaiser of Stacy with SCINI diving beneath the Ross Sea ice near the Antarctic Base, McMurdo Station.

"Choice for Change" features manatees and their vocalizations. It garnered filmmaker Mark Santa-Maria showings and awards at the prestigious International Wildlife Film Festival, Our World Underwater Film Festival, Beneath the Sea Film Festival, Grays Reef Ocean Film Festival, the San Diego UnderSea Film Exhibition, and several others. His work has also appeared on several broadcast and cable channels. This film received the First Place Award in the Conservation Video category of the 2008 Our World Underwater/Wetpixel/DivePhotoGuide competition, and has led to heightened attention being brought to manatee dive operator procedures and safety guidelines, and an outpouring of support for increased protection of these amazing animals. For more information on award-winning filmmaker Mark Santa-Maria, please visit the Filmmakers Page at DiveFilm.com.

The coastal waters and diverse marine life of Western Australia are the subject of this award-winning conservation film from the 2008 OurWorldUnderwater/Wetpixel/DivePhotoGuide Competition by underwater filmmakers Paul and Kelly Wags. Paul and Kelly Wags, based on the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, are producing some of the best underwater video available today. Wags is also a video forum moderator at Wetpixel.com. For more information about Wags & Kelly, and to see more of their work, please visit their website, www.hdvunderwater.com .

In this wonderful video, Guille Cervera takes us to dive the Illes Medes National Reserve in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea off the Costa Brava of Spain. The Illes Medes archipelago is located just off shore from the seaside resort town of L'Estartit, Spain, and is a world-renowned diving location with protected National Park status.

Resort videos are an art form in their own right, and many underwater filmmakers get their start creating short dive resort promos. In this episode, Jon Shaw has crafted a fine example of this video format in his depiction of what it is like to dive the waters of Papua New Guinea, and experience the surroundings of the Tufi Resort located there (http://www.tufi-experience.com). About this video Jon says, "the location is idyllic, you can only fly in to TUFI, [and] the resort sits on top of a 1000 ft deep Fjord with access to pristine untouched diving. From the ‘muck’ of the fjord with fantastic macro life, to the coral bommies with hammers, grey reefs, silver tips, white tips and fantastically diverse coral life." The resort itself is gorgeous, staff fantastic, amazing food and to top it off you have the history, the culture and the surrounding villages to experience and visit. All in all an absolutely breathtaking experience." For more information on Jon Shaw and his work, please visit his website at: http://ginclearfilm.com

Invented by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Jean Mollard, the Soucoupe plongeante or "Diving Saucer" was a small two-person submarine that could dive to depths of over 1000 fsw. Back in the early 1960s, Professor Emeritus Dr. Doug Inman of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other deep diving scientists from Scripps explored the deep underwater canyons off the California coast in the famed Cousteau Diving Saucer. These explorations led to a better understanding of how these deep canyons are formed over time by powerful "turbidity currents." Combining vintage underwater film footage from the 1916 silent film "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" with Scripps Archives images of the Cousteau Diving Saucer and underwater images from deep water canyon dives, Dr. Douglas Inman tells some of the stories of these historic scientific voyages into the deep water canyons.

An audience favorite at the recent 8th Annual San Diego UnderSea Film Exhibition, "Green Water, White Mirth" is a delightful look at the mischievous antics of juvenile Harbor Seals on one of Mike Boom's dives in the colder waters of the Monterey Bay along the Northern California Pacific Coast. "I shot this video on a single dive in April of 2006 in Monterey Bay with friends from my dive club. We were in sight of the Monterey Bay Aquarium when we dropped in. We had 3 or 4 juvenile harbor seals who checked us out for the first half of the dive, then decided to come in and have their way with us during the second half. It was hard to shoot much video because 1) the seals kept me too busy (one tucked his head under my arm asking to be scratched) and 2) I was laughing too hard." Mike is an underwater filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. His short films have delighted audiences at numerous underwater film festivals and gatherings around the United States. To learn more about Mike and his high definition underwater video work, please visit his website, www.LaughingEel.com.

In this newly revised version, legend Stan Waterman narrates, as only he can, this beautiful and moving new film by Leandro Blanco. This powerful and provocative masterpiece is quite possibly Leandro's best work to date. It speaks clearly from the heart about the one ocean on which we all depend, and yet so far have failed miserably to care for. To learn more about Spanish filmmaker Leandro Blanco, please visit Leandro's entry on the Filmmaker's Page at DiveFilm.com.

DiveFilm proudly presents filmmaker Leandro Blanco's latest masterpiece, "Uno Para Todos," or "One For All." This beautiful, powerful and provocative film is quite possibly Leandro's best work to date. It speaks clearly from the heart about the one ocean on which we all depend, and yet so far have failed miserably to care for. To learn more about Spanish filmmaker Leandro Blanco, please visit the Filmmaker's Page at DiveFilm.com.

In this poetically beautiful short film by Irish nature filmmaker and illustrator, Vincent Hyland, the plight of the Atlantic Salmon in Ireland is dramatically depicted from the Salmon's point of view. Recently, a ban on drift net fishing of these magnificent fish was enacted in Ireland. The drift net ban originated by pressure from the European Union which is taking the Irish Government to Court over non-implementation of laws to protect wildlife and habitats based on scientific research showing a near fatal collapse in Salmon stocks and a very persuasive game angling lobby - who are powerful, well-financed and organized. Their argument is that catchment management, conservation, bag limiting and catch and release are the best way to manage Salmon stocks. They also point out that a Salmon caught on rod and line bring far more revenue into the local community than those caught commercially. Even though the Government created a hardship fund (known as a net buyout fund) so that Salmon drift net fishermen would cease fishing and hand over their nets, to date no Salmon fishermen have received compensation due to the Government dragging the issue out. A number of Salmon Anglers in the South

Clown Fish are a loved and dissed subject for underwater imagers--we have great difficulty admitting our attraction to filming and photographing these little guys. And yet they are a delight to viewers young and old. Leandro Blanco, one of the best and most creative underwater short filmmakers working today, turns his artistic attention to the world of Clown Fish. And true to his passion for the conservation and respect of marine life, Leandro also makes a powerful statement about the adverse effects of unsustainable practices of the aquarium trade. It is an honor to present Leandro Blanco's wonderful short film, "Clown Struck." For more information on Leandro and his work, please visit the Filmmakers Page at DiveFilm.com.

Hagfish are amazing ocean fishes! They are found nearly worldwide mostly in deeper ocean environments, and are some of the most primitive fishes in existence today. They feed primarily on dead or dying fish and mammals on the ocean bottom by burrowing inside and eating from the inside out. Hagfish are blind, although they possess eyespots on either side of their heads. They have a unique defense mechanism of sliming. If moved, disturbed, or bitten by a predator, Hagfish can very rapidly produce copious amounts of slime from glands along the sides of their long, eel-like bodies. This slime allows them to escape potential predators, and consists of a filamentous protein that is highly hydrophilic. Scripps Institution of Oceanography Marine Technician, Eddie Kisfaludy, introduces us to the weird world of Hagfish, in particular that of Eptatretus stouti, or the Pacific Hagfish, found off the coast of La Jolla, California. With the help of marine biology intern Lily Bolig, we get a first-hand account of Ha

In April of 2007 the Nautilus Explorer took a group of dive explorers, scientists and underwater imagers from Mexico, the United States and Canada to the remote and uninhabited Clipperton Island located some 500 nautical miles off the coast of Acapulco, Mexico. Clipperton has a long and fascinating history, including two Scripps expeditions with research diving pioneer Conrad Limbaugh in the 1950s. In 1956, Connie Limbaugh described the sharks of Clipperton Island as so numerous and aggressive that researchers had to cut short their diving operation. Limbaugh returned in 1958 with a number of other scientists as part of the Scripps Doldrums Expedition, this time bringing with him shark cages in which to safely dive and study the sharks. In part one of this two-part podcast, Mary Lynn Price discusses some of the history of Conrad Limbaugh's visits to Clipperton Island in the 1950s and what the 2007 Nautilus Explorer expedition discovered diving the reefs of Clipperton for five days. Historic images and footage from the Limbaugh Collection at Scripps Archives, as well as rare 1958 news footage from San Diego's KFMB TV Channel 8, depict the Limbaugh expeditions in the 50s. Current underwater video and images by Mary Lynn Price, dive explorer Roberto Chavez Arce and nudibranch scientist Alicia Hermosillo show what the marine life of Clipperton Island is like today. What the divers find is abundant healthy coral, numerous small and medium-size fishes, a variety of colorful nudibranchs, and the beautiful endemic Clipperton Angelfish (Holacanthus limbaughi, named in honor of Conrad Limbaugh). However, the divers are struck by the sad reality of very few sharks--and old long-line from commercial long-line fishing criss-crossing the otherwise pristine reefs nearly everywhere they dived. Without conservation protection and enforcement, it is likely that the sharks of Clipperton Island will not have much of a future. For more information on the Nautilus Explorer, and to read the Clipperton entries in the Captain's Log, please visit www.NautilusExplorer.com. Part two of this two part podcast will include interviews with scientists, dive explorers and longtime fishermen about the issues facing the sharks of Clipperton Island, and what might be done to better protect them.

Featuring some of the best underwater images being produced today by Paul and Kelly Wags of Exmouth, Australia. Ningaloo Reef is the location for this video, and includes some of their footage of turtles, nudibranchs, whale sharks, mantas and reef fishes of many varieties. We know you'll enjoy this taste of Ningaloo--naturally! For more information on Paul and Kelly Wags, and their HD underwater images and filmmaking, please visit their website, www.hdvunderwater.com. To watch this in high definition on your HDTV using AppleTV, please visit our new DiveFilm High Definition Podcast Video available for free at iTunes!