One fish, two fish…

…rainbow-colored fish whose name I don’t know. It’s time for me to leave Malaysia again to renew my visa, so we’ve made plans to visit Chiang Mai next week, but first we’ve come back to Ao Nam Mao in Krabi for a few days.

After last visit’s frustration at not being able to photograph any of the beautiful tropical fish we saw while snorkeling, this time I brought a new camera: a waterproof DMC-FT3 from Panasonic. You can see from the photos below that the image quality cannot compare to even the low-end Canon 400D that I normally use, but that camera would not handle being submerged in the ocean anywhere near as well – being able to duck under the surface and snap away opens up a whole new world for photography that is incredibly exciting!

We arrived yesterday and immediately booked a repeat of the “four islands” tour we took on our last trip. Alas, it’s now the monsoon season and water conditions are not as perfect as they were in April, and sure enough the water was cloudy and visibility was down to a few metres. This was compounded by the tour operators shifting the snorkeling location to the less-pretty landward side of Koh Gai to avoid the rougher seas the current season brings.

Nevertheless, I saw most of the cast from last trip’s show, but the only fish that came out clearly were these little fellows who spend most of their time in the light near the surface. It turns out that our first visit to Krabi was pretty much perfectly timed, right in the middle of the clear weather season as well as having low tides in the middle of the day. I hadn’t realised how much difference there is in the size of tides from week to week, and on this trip we had high tides at exactly the time you would want to be on the beach, which combined with the stronger on-shore winds to make observing the local fish much less satisfying that it was a few months ago. I guess we’ll just have to go back again next year!

5 responses to “One fish, two fish…”

  1. tk

    photos need some post processing to get rid of the colour cast as well as some clarity enhancement. should be much better after that. fun camera i’m sure.

  2. Kerryn

    I like image 13 of 17 best. That little fish seems curious about you too!

  3. Kendall Lister» Blog Archive » Krabi Above and Below the Water

    […] for our return to Krabi. The camera’s image quality is not great, as you can see in my previous post, but unlike my DSLR it can record video, which was […]

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