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travel / landscapes

Light Lust

To satisfy my lust for light, I traded my dive vacation with another trip to Norway. Same place, different experience. Instead of a largely guided tour last October, I opted for a self drive (which was quite an experience itself). Stayed far away from Tromso city itself and somehow landed there during the full moon period. We didn’t see as much as we hoped due to some really bad weather. The newspaper reported that it was the worst weather to hit northern Norway in 50 years. I guess 50 years is quite a universal benchmark for bad weather these days. After some driving marathons, we managed to catch some glimpses of dancing lights near the Finnish border (I found out that crossing the border to Finland is easier than going to Sentosa). For some reason, the lights seem to dance alot quicker this round. I’m not sure why, but I’m not complaining.

Northern lights at the Norwegeian-Finnish border. It’s almost like a peep show. The clouds parted like a curtain. The lights appeared, did a really quick routine and retreated back into the skies. The clouds then closed in and the skies turned grey. Still pretty mind blowing.

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posted by wansheng on March 1st 2013 in images, personal, travel / landscapes, voices





The colors of the lights

Some pretty surreal colors of the northern lights. Looks like one trip is not enough.

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posted by wansheng on October 25th 2012 in images, travel / landscapes, voices





Somewhere over the aurora

There is the milky way and the stars.

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posted by wansheng on October 24th 2012 in images, travel / landscapes, voices





Till we meet again

The 4 days of northern lights chasing were great. With all great trips, it had to end somewhere.  We will be heading back to Singapore in afew hour’s time. Here’s a photo taken outside our campsite where we spent the night in a modern lavvu in Senja, battling the intermittent waves of hail, rain and snow in sub zero temperatures.

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posted by wansheng on October 23rd 2012 in images, travel / landscapes, voices





Starry night

On the 2nd day of the hunt, the northern light were obscured by some low clouds, leaving edges of the clouds with a hint of green turquoise hues.

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posted by wansheng on October 20th 2012 in images, travel / landscapes, voices





The northern lights

Some images from the 1st day’s trip.

The day started rather slow with extremely faint sightings of the northern lights. In fact, this light is barely visible through naked eyes, but the camera was able to pick it up with a long shutter speed. I like how it’s hanging around beside the milky way.

Occasionally, it got a little more intense. It was like this for almost 5 hours.

The Milky Way. Prior to this, I didn’t know the Milky Way was that huge. I’ve always thought I needed a telephoto lens for it, but I was wrong.

The lights constantly teasing us.

Sometimes the streak of lights appear really long, stretching across the skies like a rainbow.

And without warning, things just exploded. Within minutes, we were surrounded by explosive bursts of the northern lights.

They were everywhere. It’s hard to pick the one you want to shoot. At some point in times, you can see the lights ‘racing’, somewhat like electronic equalizers.

These lights have a life of their own as they danced in almost unpredictable patterns.

The reds were hard to see with the naked eye and are more obvious on the camera.

The lake in a distance illuminated by the lights.

Massive burst of lights.

The lights running slightly below the clouds. In minutes, they were completely covered by the clouds and the entire area was blanketed with an eerie glow.

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posted by wansheng on October 19th 2012 in images, travel / landscapes, voices





The greatest light show on earth

It’s 6am here and I’m too excited to get to sleep. Writing this from Tromso, Norway with a growling stomach.

I’ve always loved auroras since young. I remember first seeing them in a Japanese movie about the sinking of Tokyo. I made a mental note that I must see this phenomenon when I grow up. Today, my dream came true.

We took a 20+ hour journey from Singapore to Oslo with an 8 hour transit in Qatar followed by another hour’s flight to Tromso. When we arrived, the weather looked pretty cloudy but we kept positive, believing that it will be a good night. As the sun sets, the skies cleared and we met up with our guides for the aurora hunt. We were pretty happy that we were the only 2 people on that tour and therefore would not be rushed or compromised with our timings. The guides told us that there was a massive solar storm last weekend and they got some really awesome sightings (with images to prove!). But they also said that it’s not likely that there will be another today. I was a little disappointed, but was happy to make do with whatever kind of light I can catch.

We dropped by a few scenic sites before finally stopping on a high vantage point surrounded by hills. Here, we waited and saw some faint traces of the elusive northern lights which the cameras were able to pick up, but appear really faint to human eyes. To cut the story short so I can catch some sleep, we waited for a good 5 hours and was almost on the verge of going back to the hotel when things took a turn for the better. Out of nowhere, a streak of light appeared and both me and William scrambled for our cameras in darkness and left the hot tea that was served to us on the roof of the car. One streak extended into two, and three … and a formation. It hit us so fast and before we know it, the entire sky was lit up by the greatest light show on earth. The lights came in fast and furious, with portions of it dancing like electronic equalizers. I forgot the biting cold on my hands and was busy wiping off the ice that were forming on the lenses. After taking many many shots and running between cameras set up at different directions, I slowed down and took time to appreciate nature’s beauty unfolding before my eyes. It was truly a sight to behold.

I’m not sure if we are going to chase the lights tomorrow. For now, I’m going to to enjoy some nice sleep.

A Northern Lights self portrait.

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posted by wansheng on October 18th 2012 in images, travel / landscapes, voices





Malapascua in and out of water

So, this is it. From Malapascua.

When I first saw it underwater, I thought it look like a cathedral. I have another not so colorful print on my wall. Someone told me it looks like the earth breaking up or something.

The beach outside Exotic Resort where we stayed. Dive resorts line the beach along the island. Exotic is one of the more established ones in the area. The food at the restaurant was simply spectacular. We spent most of our non-diving hours sitting at the restaurant pigging out and wifi-ing:D

Catching waves at the beach. You can also find souvenir peddlers along the beach. They sell some pretty nice woodwork. I got my wooden Manta and Thresher shark there. Pricing wise, it’s considered expensive there, but you probably won’t get it at that price in Singapore provided you can even find it.

Loading up for the next dive. Resort staff loading equipments up the smaller boats which will ferry them to the bigger dive boats.

Every morning, we gather around 5am in the morning for the dawn dive to wait for the Thresher Sharks at Monad Shoal. Whether or not the shark shows up, we still get to see the beautiful sunrise. During the 20 min ride to Monad Shoal, we just stone or have coffee onboard.

Taking the giant leap off the boat. Amos giving a positive demonstration:D

Kelvin checking out the strange looking jellyfish. While we were there, the seas were filled with tiny jellyfishes or their dismembered parts. It’s not uncommon to get stung, but nothing too serious.

A lone batfish patroling Monad Shoal.

A lone Thresher shark appeared on the first dive of our second trip. Unfortunately, that was our only Thresher sighting that trip.

A flatworm during the night dives.

Whip coral shrimp.

It’s the same one, just a silhouette. It’s interesting that part of the body seem to glow in green.

Bubble coral shrimp. That’s one of my favorite subjects.

Sometimes the mornings can get rather cold. On this day, the waves were pretty bad and we had a bit of difficulty getting up the boat using that narrow plank, especially with the heavy camera. Good thing the guides are always there to assist. The guide for my first trip was Paul and the second one was Wilmar.

Getting your morning facewash at the bow of the boat.

At some sites, the current can be extremely strong. We took a trip to Dona wreck and were swept left right center by the current. I left my camera onboard after the first dive. It’s just not worth fighting the current with the camera. Tien Beng holding the rope during the surface interval. The bubbles were going sideways here.

While descending, I spotted this jellyfish and decided to take “a few” pictures of it, forgetting that the current was pretty strong. Within seconds, I lost the party but descended anyway. Got to 30m and did not see a single soul and the surrounding didn’t match the ones mentioned during the dive brief. I was thinking “where the hell is the plateau? what coral garden?! all I’m seeing is SAND!” So I ascended and found the boat more than 100m away.

So here’s the boat on it’s way to pick me up. Sorry guys, my bad.

The ‘feeder’ boats ferrying stuff to the bigger dive boats during low tide.

An approaching storm.

Swimming around this school of tiny fish while trying to get a decent shot. It’s fun to see how the flash lights up the water from beneath.

While waiting for the Thresher shark, I stayed relatively motionless and this lionfish was so attracted by it’s reflection off the dome port of my camera. It literally stuck it’s face on the port and looked left and right. Just like how you do in front of the mirror.

Probably the first time it saw it’s own reflection.

The Thresher shark doing it’s rounds while Andrew took the videos.

A headshot of the Thresher shark.

Sometimes they get rather close.

The tail is just amazingly beautiful.

The pregnant (?) nurse shark at Gato Island. That’s quite an incredible dive site. You also get to swim through a mini cave which was kind of fun.

Squid protecting it’s eggs nearby.

Frogfish looking devilish here. This was at the Exotic Resort’s house reef. which is pretty darn amazing for a house reef.

Juvenile Lionfish.

And finally, the mantas decide to make an appearance. These are huge, probably in the range of 5m.

Wave. This one’s good for facebook covers:D

Outriggers outside Wilmar’s house. He invited us for dinner and also to watch some cockfighting as there were some festival going on.

The last night on the island.

Outrigger.

The spotlights from the resort lighting up the outrigger.

Finally, on the second trip I managed to blow perfect bubble rings. All thanks to Paul, who was very patient despite me pestering him every now and then to teach me.

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posted by wansheng on September 17th 2012 in Diving, images, personal, scuba diving, travel / landscapes, underwater photography, voices





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