Joe Robinson Productions

I am staying in a cabin in the temperate rain forest at the base of Mt. Hood Oregon.  It’s one of my favorite places and always makes me appreciate mother nature.   I feel so blessed to have this life – this living, breathing life and yet so often get caught up in selfishness.  Concentration on areas of lack in my life.   I think about me most of the time and what I want or don’t have, instead of thinking of others or of all the blessings I have in my life.  It’s easy in our modern day life of consumerism and constant messages of needing this or that to be okay.  If I buy the right car, clothing, after shave, beer, fill in the blank — then I will be okay, then I will have arrived.  The woods slow me down and help remind me of what is important.  People are what is important and if I can slow down and feel the blessings then I have a chance of reaching out to others and having an intimate connection with them that has depth and meaning.  A connection that celebrates life and lets us share our humanity and imperfection and realize we don’t have to do this thing called life alone – we are all in this together to the extent we allow ourselves to open up and embrace each other.

A simple story this morning also caught my eye.  It focuses on a group of people who built “Vaka’s” — canoes used by the peoples of the south pacific to travel the oceans long ago.  This group traveled from the south pacific to San Fransisco in an attempt to show that use of old traditional methods of communal effort could provide lessons to us all in how we approach many of the problems affecting us and our environment.

The organizer of the voyage, Dieter Paulmann noted “The vaka is safe, it brings solidarity and joy, it’s driven by solar power, it’s simple, and it brings us back to our roots”.

It makes me think we would all be well served to return to our basic roots of co-operation and community in an effort to help the earth and each other in this wonderful experience we call life.

I was reading several worthy articles published by the Pew Environmental Group this morning and two of them caught my eye.

The first of these concerns new proposals for oil drilling in the Artic Sea.

Given the disaster in the Gulf Coast I think we all have a more realistic view of the potential devastation of large areas of our oceans from an accident involving ocean drilling rigs.  The Pew Group is submitting letters to the decision makers and it is literally will take you 15 seconds to add your signature.   This link will take you to their website and the right side of their webpage contains the “Take Action” link to add your signature.

The second article concerns overfishing in the Atlantic Ocean and positive steps being taken to address this situation. Several fish species have declined to alarming levels and last week the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which sets fishing policies in federal waters from North Carolina to Florida approved a plan to set catch limits on dozens of species before they plummet to dangerously low levels.

Hopefully, if we all raise our awareness and take even small actions, we can begin to make a difference in protecting our oceans and the beautiful creatures that inhabit it.

A friend just sent me this link from the International Programme on the state of the Ocean to a world report on the dire state of our oceans. A short article with an overview of the report can be found at this Huffington Post link for those who don’t want to digest the entire report.  For those of us diving these oceans regularly, this is hardly new news but it is so important for us to continue to educate others. I find so many folks who have no idea what is happening in overfishing, acidification, coral bleaching, CO2 emission harms, bycatch fishing practices, to name a few of the stresses on our fragile waters. Education and action are our only hope to change this before our children and grandchildren face a far different world than we now have – one of dead oceans. It’s already happening and this report is just the latest of many saying so.

I was in a head on car crash a week ago. Totaled my car and probably the other one. I don’t know if it’s just me but my immediate reaction is that it’s not a big deal. I was in a car crash. The car was smashed up and I walked away from it so let’s not make a big deal about it. Life goes on.

Car crash 1

But the truth is that it is a big deal. It is a big deal for a lot of reasons.

Three years ago this week I survived an airplane crash. My airplane, me flying, lost an engine at 400 ft on takeoff and I somehow righted the airplane from a spin and drove it into the ground. The airplane was totaled and I walked away intact. Well not quite intact. The aftermath of that crash still rumbles around in my psyche – part of me stayed in that airplane for a long, long time – maybe still. I thought I was dead as the airplane plummeted and when I wasn’t . . . well, I guess maybe part of me was.

Car crash 2

This car crash brought back those thoughts and emotions with a vengeance. The moment of impact was so similar – the difference this time was I didn’t move in slow motion and think, “So this is how I die – hmmm. In an airplane crash, how interesting.” Instead in this crash the impact was swift and then the car filled with the smoke from the airbag. But I didn’t realize it was the airbag. I thought the car was on fire. The battery was damaged so the electric windows and door locks didn’t work and for a few seconds I was dominated with the fear of burning alive. Just when I thought I should kick out the window, I realized I could manually unlock the door. And when I did the rush of fresh air filling the car sent waves of relief and release through my veins as I realized I would survive, I wouldn’t burn. Instead I stepped back in that familiar place climbing out of the airplane cockpit. My life had suddenly changed completely. Again. Within a couple of hours the tears would rush over me just as they did so many times after the airplane crash.

The questions from the airplane crash were many and the same ones came back. Why did I survive? Am I supposed to do something in particular, given this second chance? What kind of life am I living? What are the choices I have made and am I at peace with those choices? Am I happy? Am I doing fulfilling things in my life? Am I a kind person to others? Who is in my life that I want to share these questions with? Who are my friends? Do they represent the values of compassion and kindness I think is important? How do they treat people? How do I treat people? What is important? My family? My business? My house? My neighbors? My possessions, cars, boats, computers, cameras, yoga mat, silverware? What do I really want to do with the rest of my life – regardless of how short or long it is?

When I boil down all the questions, at the heart of it all is this: Am I living a life of meaning?

Am I?

I think I am. I am trying my best and hope I don’t have to go through another crash of any kind to dedicate my life daily to the important questions, actions and lifestyle where living a life of meaning is the main focus and not a philosophical afterthought. And being kind, caring and loving to others – everyone I come in contact with, is the beginning of living a life of meaning. For me – this is what is important. I hope I do it most days. I know I won’t do it every day but if I talk about it out loud and write about it and if I slow down and think about it every morning, maybe I will do it more of the time. I am committed and dedicated to trying.

NOW seems really, really important. My lover Suzanne said years ago on her death bed – “Pay Attention”.

This time one message is abundantly clear to me – Slow Down. Slow down in every area of my life and Pay Attention.

I’m trying.

21 May, 2011

Back in Port Lincoln, Southern Australia on Saturday morning, riding out 30 ft swells and wind gusts to 40mph for the next 48 hours.  Glad to have a port in the storm.  The first 7 days of the trip were spent at the Neptune Islands diving aboard the Princess II with the great white sharks.  Amazing, amazing animals.  Graceful, sleek, formidable, gliding through the water effortlessly and undeniably the apex predator of the oceans.  They are so beautiful and unpredictable.  We are with Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions and Rodney and his son Andrew were both on board for the first week, with Rodney sharing stories of his exploits with sharks both water based and land based.  You can’t help but fall in love with Rodney.  He is warm and kind with an engaging smile, a kind word and a slap on the arm to make you feel like you have known him a long time when you have in fact just met him.  Rodney survived a great white attack in the 60’s and after 400+ stitches to his torso has gone on to start a foundation to protect and research these wonderful but threatened animals.  His son Andrew is no less engaging with a wry grin and infectious laugh and it is he who has really taken on the research of great whites and growth of the foundation.  After most dives, Andrew can be found late into the night documenting and cataloging the photos and “fingerprints” of the various sharks seen on the days dive and compiling this information with a determination that is remarkable.  After seeing the sharks and listening to Andrew talk about them like family members, I have a new appreciation not only for him but for his company and foundation.  This is not a commercial venture built to exploit this species but a true labor of love built to help all of us hopefully appreciate and preserve this great shark.

The shark dives happen each day, beginning about 9:30am when the first cage is lowered to the seabed with 3 divers and one dive master where the cage rests on the ocean floor or on some days when the seas are too rough to sit it down, it simply swings back and forth with the movement of the boat.

Cage about to descend

Water temperatures are in the low 60’s and visibility ranges anywhere from 20ft to maybe 60 ft on the best day.  The sharks eventually arrive and we have been very lucky, seeing 4 to 10 sharks average per dive.  They will circle the cage, some coming in for a closer look and at times to munch on the cage,  to see if it is edible.  Like people, they each seem to have a different personality and the overriding feeling of them is one of awe and appreciation of their magnificence, rather than fear of them.   Make no mistake, they are unpredictable wild animals who can change with the introduction of one new member who somehow “sets them off” into a much more aggressive behavior pattern, nosing between the bars of the the cage or banging it around eating the tuna heads attached to draw them in close to us, but the shark of “Jaws” is nowhere to be seen, wildly attacking with a single purpose of devouring us humans at any cost.

Andrew will tell you that these are not the great white sharks to dive with in open waters.  Some other locations in the world may offer this opportunity.  Places where the huge sea lions proliferate and allow the sharks a constant food source.  But here, at the Neptune Islands, the sea lion population is small and the seals themselves are not the huge ones you see elsewhere.  So these sharks are hungry and because of that are possibly more aggressive than their counterparts in South Africa or Guadeloupe Islands.  But then, so little is really known about great whites that any of this is conjecture – but I trust Andrew when it comes to knowing and understanding the sharks here.  I trust him enough to go down to the ocean floor in a cage with him and slide open the door to get better shots and know that if the situation changes with the temperament of the sharks, Andrew will sense this and instruct all of us in how to stay safe in a hostile environment.

Shark circles cage

We stay down on the bottom for about an hour – depending on depth and air consumption.  The cage is fitted with backup air tanks should be run out of air before our deco time and I must admit to using them on more than one occasion, proving myself the air hog of the cage.  On a good dive we had several shots where the sharks were within a few feet if not inches from our cameras and there wasn’t a dive when we weren’t all jazzed to be here, having this opportunity to witness them in their home environment.  There was also the chance to get into surface cages and see the sharks at the top of the water but it is a bit more unnatural to have them here at the top, cruising around bait attached to lines.  It is the stuff of tv drama – the shark following the bait pulled toward the camera and I admit the rush of having one inches from my domeport, teeth gnashing, sent chills down my spine and a rush of adreneline.  But I realized that this is us producing this look, not the shark.  They seem much more natural on the sea floor where they glide along and hunt on their own accord.

Great white from cage

In the last few years, 90% of all big fish in the oceans have been fished or destroyed for sport by man.  We kill somewhere around 75 million sharks per year.  Many of the shark species teeter on the brink of extinction.  Most are caught for shark fin soup, their bodies dropped back into the depths once the fin has been removed – where they die without their fins.  Some are fished and killed as trophies, out of the mania brought about by Jaws and other movies where they are portrayed as cold, ruthless killers.  What people don’t realize is if we destroy all the sharks, our reefs will die and the domino effect on the oceans and the fish in the oceans will leave us with a much different world.  One in which the oceans we know now will no longer exist.  Maybe it’s time to pause and reflect before we kill all of them in an effort to feed some cultural ritual or to rid ourselves of the fear of something we don’t understand.  If you are interested, Shark Savers and Wild Aid are two organizations that can provide more information about the continued decimation of the world’s sharks; it’s effects on the world’s oceans and how you can help.

The Princess II with cages mounted on stern

I fell lucky and blessed and thankful to Andrew and Rodney and the entire crew for this opportunity to see these amazing animals and meet people dedicated to their survival and protection.

I am a bit late in posting this but wanted to get it down before any more time goes by.  I traveled to Dumaguete, Philippines in March with a group of underwater photographers hosted by Backscatter – a purveyor of all things to underwater photographers and videographers.  We stayed at the Atlantis Dive Resort – a paradise, tucked away off the main road.  Full of wonderful lush gardens with rooms surrounding a pool, a camera room that is to die for in terms of size, layout, lighting, power strips – everything an underwater shooter could want.  No disassembling your rig on the side of the bed in a poorly lit room – not this time.  The resort was awesome – incredible food, great – GREAT dive guides, unusual 40 ft outrigger dive boats.  The diving is muck diving.  Some people may not have heard of muck diving.  It’s not pretty coral, giant sea fans, large pelagic creatures such as sharks, rays, dolphins or the like.  It is the world of silt bottom, low visibility and small, small macro creatures.  Most of these varied in size from a few inches to the size of half a pencil eraser or smaller.   A tripod is a must if you are serious about shooting these guys – especially video.  I mentioned we had great dive guides.  I swear, they were just as alien as some of the creatures we shot.  Wing-wing – our dive guide for the entire trip, would spot something ¼ of an inch long from 20 ft away, take me over to it, point at it repeatedly with his pointer, me shaking my head trying to figure out what in the world this fragment could be.  This happened over and over again.  I would finally give up, set up the tripod, zero in my macro lens, sometimes have to use my 2x macro mate wet lens to magnify it twice and voila – a creature so unusual and beautiful that I was sure I was on another world.  And I was – the world of muck diving, macro shooting, hanging on the bottom in low vis – with the payoff being the privilege of entering this shadow world.  It was a great two weeks – shared with 12 other underwater photographers/videographers who shared my sense of awe and amazement and laughter topside at getting to do this thing we all love so much.  Besides the incredible beauty of the diving – sharing this with like minded folks who are as geeky as I am was as amazing as the creatures themselves and only reminded me that it is always about the people.  Sharing with others makes this life worth living.  Living now – and this practice certainly brought me into the now – being alive at this moment and paying attention to it.  Here are some photos from that trip to Dumaguete and the creatures and a few people who call it home.

Here are some of the photos from the trip.

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