New Hobby and Juvenile Catfish

Adding to my bazillion number of hobbies is SCUBA diving which I started in February 2011… I’m now a certified open water diver through PADI. So I can go diving anywhere in the world up to 18 meters under water (cuz there’s totally a police-diving-officer at 18 meters telling me not to go further so I’m told).

Each time I go diving, I always regret not having a camera down there with me.

Then I realised this might be a good chance to push myself to do some artwork, even if it’s a crappy little doodle. At least one image – about the most interesting thing I saw/experienced during that dive.

Yesterday was team dive day with Frog Dive at Captain Cook’s landing spot in the National Park. It was my 7th dive. The most interesting thing I saw would have to be the beach-ball-sized swarm of catfish I saw.

A swarm of juvenile catfish

So I’m swimming along and I see this blob swaying on the floor between some rocks and think, “Meh, just another weird blob of seaweed.” Then my assigned buddy, Daniel takes a particular interest in it with his flashy underwater camera so I decide to take a closer look… and behold a swarm of heads. AAUGHHH! Freakiest surprise. It’s like a ball of faces wriggling at you. I did feel tempted to stick my hand in it… and I did have gloves on. But they say not to touch anything underwater and I do my best to respect that.

Later I was told that they were a swarm of juvenile cat fish and they actually excrete a chemical poison so people who swim through it come out with a lovely swollen face. ^^;; Good to know. I definitely won’t try swimming through them. (NOT THA FACE!!)

I want to paint a blue groper in honour of all the 3 gropers I’ve seen so far.. and an octopus. Let’s see if I have time. Hopefully I’ll catch up by then and from now on do a drawing/painting/doodle every time I go diving. (Cuz it’s cheaper than buying all the camera gear anyhow!) And maybe my illustration/rendering skills will improve too and I’ll be pumping out better art as well! Win win!