Bud Hedrick - Blog: June 2016

Someone asked me how many hours I had logged under water. Having worked as a commercial diver for some years and a sport diver much of my adult life I have no idea. We never kept that kind of data. Time and depth on bottom was a daily consideration but we were not interested in the hours logged over years as are aviation pilots.

How many hours have I slept in my life? I am at this writing 86 years old so at 8 hours a night I may have slept one quarter of million hours. Well that is a very interesting statistic that I really didn’t care to know. That’s a lot of sleeping and I don’t remember any of it.

However the thousands of hours spent under water were most of the time a delight and I was wide awake. Here are some photos taken during that time in the waters of California, Hawaii, Tahiti, the Caribbean, Florida, the Bahamas and the Turk and Caicos.

The reflective surface of the water has always attracted me.

Shallow Tahitian Reef

Palancar Reef Cozumel Island, Mexico

Friend Bill Martinelli shooting video at Palancar

Casi collecting coral samples

Sea Fans in California waters

The bright bits of color are small sponge growths.

Cozumel's clarity of water and multitude of sponges is impressive.

Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins - We are three we are one!

Spinners performing a Dolphin ballet.

Giant Kelp forest in California - Miacrocystis - The harvesting of kelp used to be a huge market in California. Big barges worked the Channel Islands and the coast cutting the floating tops or surface canopy and taking it to San Diego.

There it was processed for marketing. Its uses were many including food preservatives and pharmaceuticals. Do to the warming of the ocean and dumping of chemicals and sewerage into the sea the massive kelp beds have diminished.

Crashed, abandoned and probably stolen too, a drug smugglers plane sleeps in the deep..Actually in this case in the shallow waters of the Bahamas.

Sleeping fish enjoy shelter in one of the many caves of Cozumel.

During a night dive in Bora Bora Lagoon we swam with this big fellow.

A 15 foot Manta Ray seen here vacuuming plankton for a late dinner.

Casi investigating Pipe Organ Sponges

On another night dive and we found an octopus that we considered to be

Too large for our dinner table.

Sea fans and odd shaped sponges

A mother Humpback Whale and calf. After giving birth to their calves in Hawaii during the winter they usually stay for some weeks to allow the young to fatten before the long swim to the northern Arctic waters.

When photographing whales under water I used a fast rubber boat. Once they were sighted I would observe the direction of their path and motor ahead of them. Stopping the boat and letting it drift I would slip into the water and let them approach me. They proved to be curious about the stream of air bubbles rising from my regulator but not fearful of me or my clumsiness. Often they were releasing bubbles of their own which stream-lined down the huge back and then rose toward the surface. If the female supported a calf she usually swam just under it gently lifting it with her nose at times as if reminding it to take air. Often they passed close enough that we locked eyes and neither they nor I showed any aggressiveness only curiosity.

One day I was trying without success in get close to a full grown pair. Twice I entered the water ahead of them but they chose to avoid me. They knew where I was but I couldn’t see them and they would pass unnoticed. We were getting farther out in the 'Au'au Channel but I decided to give it one more try. While standing in the boat and searching the horizon a pod of dolphins suddenly appeared and then the two humpbacks breached in the middle of the pod. Following for a while it became apparent that they were swimming together, diving deep and staying down about 3 to 4 minutes a dive. Goosing the motor to top speed I got well ahead on the direction their path was taking. Stopping the engine I threw over an anchor on 60 feet of line, not near enough to reach bottom but it would be my observation post while awaiting their hoped for arrival and if I swam off too close with the whales the hanging anchor would be a help in relocating the boat.

While pulling on swim-fins and swinging the air tank onto my back I checked the horizon again. Both wind and sea were calm with little chance of the boat drifting away. The pod was not in sight and I felt that probably it would avoid me again. Slipping into the gin clear water I followed the line down passed the anchor to eighty feet. The bottom still wasn’t in sight but this was a good place to wait and watch from. If they were going as deep as I thought they might I could close the distance by descending or ascending as needed. Stretched out, relaxed, just floating, I waited several minutes looking into the dark blue trying to not think about Tiger Sharks and suddenly there was the pod coming into sight way down below me. The whales were gliding smoothly while the dolphins blitzed in circles around them leading the pod on.

Coming out of my hibernation I descended hoping to cross paths. At 180 feet I leveled off. The pod was still below me and getting closer and it was apparent that they would pass under me leaving me with the disadvantage of having to shoot into the dark. And then good fortune occurred, the lead porpoises turned toward the surface starting a slow ascent and presenting me with a shot.

We ascended together, they effortlessly although I couldn’t keep up with their speed.. By the time I got to the surface they were gone without a goodbye.

This occurred during 1972 and I had several friends that were enthralled with diving with whales and they were also out there photographing sometimes. Often we went together or sometimes Casi went with me to run the boat and she swam with the whales too. Now there are laws in Hawaii to protect the whales and outlaw boats from approaching them and that’s a good thing because commercial tourist boats do often infringe on the birthing and nursing females and calves.

The Whales and Dolphin pod ascending.

All Photos By Bud Hedrick

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In the late summer there is often a congregation of blackbirds over the fields of Napa Valley. Included in the gathering are Red-winged, Tricolored and Brewer’s Blackbirds, some Cowbirds, and an occasional Great-tailed Grackle, but mostly European Starlings.

Standing on a bit of high ground one can see the sky’s over Vallejo, Sonoma and Napa counties at once. Over the plains and mountain ranges flock formations of Starlings are diving and rising, turning and twisting in unison and changing shape constantly. Separate flocks join together and then suddenly split apart making new patterns. At times the flights connect forming massive flocks.

The question soon comes to mind, “Who’s driving this bus?”

How do they avoid crashing into each other like humans on highways?

What governs the collective coordination is every man’s guess. But there are outside influences that alter the flight patterns and they are the Falcons. By observing the flocks with binoculars or better yet a scope you can see that many of the flocks have a falcon or two mixed in. They work the flocks like a sheepdog or as dolphins do when they round up a school of bait. In this case they often drive the starlings up to higher altitudes affecting the ever changing shape.

But with or without the Falcons the playful flight of the starlings goes on and their lovely formations undulate and surge like waves in the sky.