From the field

Decompression depression Apr 9 2008

Hatched turtle eggs?

No. Imploded ping pong balls. Another one of my “home-cooked” inventions went wrong yesterday as I landed on the sand next to the Black Coral tree in 30m (98ft) of water off Sodwana Bay.

I had relied on a string of ping pong balls tied around the heavy glass port of my camera housing to provide compact and efficient buoyancy. This feat of micro-engineering had worked like a charm at depths down to 20m (66ft), but today they met their end.

As I was lining up for a macro shot of a longnose hawkfish (Oxycirrhites typus), sitting delicately on a frond of rare black coral, I heard what sounded like a brief gunfight. A rapid series of explosions, or rather implosions, were the results of my ping pong balls giving in to the pressure of all the cubic metres of water above.

Back to the drawing board …

– Graeme Duane, Earth-Touch

Image © Earth-Touch 2008