Waiting to Exhale...

(Click photo for larger image).

Wanted to provide the "story behind the picture" for this shot. Picture was taken in the Bahamas this past summer on a live aboard dive cruise. The first dive was a Dolphin dive - but no guarantees that they would even show up. As we motored through the area in about 40 feet of water with a nice sand bottom, the wild Spotted Dolphins started to appear and ride the bow wave. Sometimes they would join as a single dolphin, sometimes in pods of 3 - 4. Pretty soon, there were about 30 - 40 dolphins riding the bow wave.

We all got ready on the dive deck, and jumped in - snorkel gear only - and I probably took 50 pictures on that fantastic dive! Because the Dolphins are so fast in the water, I actually did not realize until reviewing the pictures that I had captured this Dolphin just starting to exhale before he broke the surface. The weather was a little rough that day (OK - really rough judging by the number of people that got sick) but a neat aspect of the composition is that you can see the choppy surface, and a slight reflection of the dolphin in the waves.

Only thing I would do different next time on the dive would be wear a weight belt with a couple of pounds of lead to offset the buoyancy of the wetsuit. This would have helped on some of my free dives to go deeper to get better angles shooting up.

So I thought the caption "Waiting to Exhale" was fitting. Taken with Canon A620 with Canon housing.

Enjoy, and dive safe.