To those that have joined me on adventure

    I want to take a quick minute (or minute 40) to thank all those who have joined me on my adventures over the years. I have been diving for 8 years now and it hasn't even felt close to that. I've gotten the pleasure of diving with so many amazing people over the years and have made lifelong friends doing what I love. Nothing really compares to it. 

    So, thanks to all of you who have followed me into the abyss, crazy cliffs, camping in remote areas, and indulging my adrenaline addiction. Sometimes it was for fun, others were for projects, but all were memorable. I've recently logged my 300th dive and I have journal entries describing each one and who I've dove with. Can honestly say its over 100 people, so there are many left out of this little edit. This is just some B-roll footage of all these crazy adventures over the years. 

    I also wanted to use a song I have been listening to on repeat. Listening to John Frusciante is like listening to a phoenix. Someone who was great before the fall but needed to crash and burn hard before he really rose up to become amazing. This song was from his darkest time in the mid 90s and features his late friend River Phoenix. A beautiful song that helped me through a dark time a while ago. I only wish we could have heard more. 

Song: Height Down feat. River Phoenix by John Frusciante 

If you want to be removed from this video just send me an email and I'll change it for you.

Pederson's Shrimp (Ancylomenes pedersoni) Cleaning Dance

 

 

Sometimes there are unusual behaviors that you don't notice until you read about them. My friend Shoju Shi introduced a paper about this little shrimp, Pederson's Shrimp (Ancylomenes pedersoni) and the dances they do to indicate to reef fish that they are willing to clean. This then pairs with the reef fish color changing to a darker tone to indicate to the shrimp it is ready to be cleaned.

Back in 2017 when I took a trip to Belize, I had recorded this little fella while on a dive around the Blue Hole, specifically near a reef called The Aquarium Wall. It was insanely clear but I had unfortunately broke my deep water filters. This was the last dive of the day but the water was warm and there was still so much to see. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice this small shrimp near an anemone swaying back and forth. The current didn't seem to be that strong so I took a quick recording and moved along.

Knowing what I know now, this was actually a pretty cool behavior. The shrimp typically does the tail wagging and antennae whipping as its signal to fish it wishes to clean. I had gotten up close to this little bugger so he probably was offering a clean. I should have taken out my reg and opened my mouth for a little tonsil cleaning.

Read more here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2018.0800

Song: Reefs by fujitsu