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Feeling a strange mixture of apprehension and glee, I watched a trio of black, triangular fins slice across the glassy surface, gradually closing on our position. We were floating in a chum slick, hundreds of feet off the bottom, enveloped by a frigid, planktonic soup that reduced visibility to less than 10 feet. Several sharks were nearly within touching distance, yet the murky conditions precluded seeing anything underwater, adding to our sense of unease. Trying to ignore the adrenalin surging through my system, I scanned the depths, straining for any sort of visual clue. Finally, a sleek shape... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

With strong trade winds blowing in some cold rain as I start my hike to the active lava flows of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, I am reminded of how most of my adventures have begun for the last 16 years. My past experiences have taught me that I like to initiate my hikes around 9pm. Most people who were there for the sunset have gone home and many times I have the place to myself. The terrain at the lava flows is like no other place you will ever hike. Repeatedly you are going up and down 5-10 foot mounds of old razor sharp lava or making your way around them. Everything looks the same in... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Finning as gently as possible, I slowly made my way across the muddy bottom, trying not to kick up clouds of silt. We were diving in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea—one of the richest marine environments I’ve encountered anywhere. I was just settling down to photograph a ghost pipefish when my wife Suzy swam over, gesturing emphatically for me to stop whatever I was doing and follow her. I really wasn’t inclined to leave such a photogenic subject, but experience has taught me not to ignore such messages.  We swam a considerable distance until Suzy stopped and pointed to a pair of unusually attractive... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Scuba diving, once considered a dangerous sport for adventurous explorers, is now viewed as a popular family activity, suitable for young children and the elderly, and certainly not the sort of edgy, extreme sport that young people like to watch on cable television. However, within the sport of diving are niche specialties that continue to push the envelope of acceptable risk. Over time, the boundaries of what constitute the extreme edges of diving have changed dramatically. Once, a dive below 100 m was considered insane. Now free-divers routinely pass that mark, and tech divers have been three times... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Up to our knees, and elbows, in intertidal mud we realise that it's tough work trying to be a dugong. For this is the realm in which they feed, spending most of their day uprooting and consuming seagrasses, and creating serpentine trails 20cm wide and up to several metres long in seagrass meadows. In contrast to our clumsy and messy efforts, dugongs are superbly equipped to do an efficient job – underwater. The dugong (Dugong dugon) looks rather like a cross between a rotund dolphin and a walrus. Its body, flippers and fluke resemble those of a dolphin but it has no dorsal fin. Its head looks somewhat like... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

The coconut described a high lazy arc over the tropical reef, framing a small island on the barrier reef before plopping into theTF shallow cerulean water on the outside of the lagoon. A split-second after impact, a geyser of water and foam erupted from the ocean, as if a grenade had exploded. This was no ordinary coconut. It was loaded with cesium 137. Coconuts like this one had been responsible for completely de-populating Bikini Atoll. The evacuation of the Bikini Islanders in 1978 due to the hazards of ingesting radioactive coconuts was their second exodus from their traditional homeland. The first... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Parents of the current crop of tattooed, pierced, and branded teenagers may take scant comfort in the realization that assisted self-mutilation has been practiced in various human cultures for thousands of years. In fact the practice may have arisen well before the appearance of humans on the planet – perhaps even before our primordial ancestors crawled out of the ocean onto the shore. Consider the beaked whales. These mysterious creatures... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

It’s festival time in Malapascua, and the number of people crammed onto this 2x4 km dollop of sand just north of Cebu, in the central Philippines, is amazing. The return of natives working off-island, along with extended family, friends, and bon-vivants, has swelled the normal population of 3,000 or so to roughly double that. It seems that nearly everyone is crowded into a single street coursing the length of the small town of Logon, where a stage and bandstand have been set up for the evening’s entertainment. Beer in hand, Paul Foley is giving me an informal tour. We stop to pay respects at... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Even the victim was laughing, but Dr. Steve Oakley was not amused. He’d spent hours waiting for the perpetrator at its "love nest" that morning, then gone down to one of its nighttime hangouts to look for it in the afternoon. Sure enough, as soon as he left, the "Spratly Killer Wrasse" was back at the "bachelor pad," and everybody had seen it but him. Some of the divers got a little closer look than they were expecting. One of the guests, a gentleman from Scandinavia, described how the giant humphead wrasse had responded to the discharge of photo strobes by dashing forward and striking him... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Slowly the great fish turns, responding to the sound, which was imperceivable at first but now clearly audible. With long gracious sweeps of the crescent-shaped tail the huge spindle-like body moves effortlessly towards the source that has attracted it. From 20 metres below the surface the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) begins to angle itself upward toward the surface with ever-increasing thrusts of its huge tail. Now rapidly the source of the sound and vibration is becoming clearly visible, the shape and sound that 60 million years of evolution have taught it represents food and survival. The small... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Transmitted through the dense medium of seawater, the syncopated percussion is both deafening and terrifying, like a bombardment of artillery. It penetrates the body and seems to come from all directions at once. The noise is exactly the sound that I imagine would be produced by plucking a very taut metal bass guitar string as long and as thick as a telephone pole – the loudest, deepest twang you have ever heard. For the rapidly diminishing number of small silvery fish in front of me, it is the twang of death. The sound is generated by the impact of missiles striking the water at various angles, revealing... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Parents of the current crop of tattooed, pierced, and branded teenagers may take scant comfort in the realization that assisted self-mutilation has been practiced in various human cultures for thousands of years. In fact the practice may have arisen well before the appearance of humans on the planet.

Consider the beaked whales. These mysterious creatures are large enough... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

In these days of "stalkarazzi" and tabloid journalism, admitting to being a photojournalist is something akin to announcing that you have AIDS, but it’s a title that was once worn with pride. Journalists commanded respect, and adhered to a code of professional conduct. Some still do. One of the prime tenets of this code is "non-involvement." A journalist is supposed to report on an event, not participate in it. I’ve always tried to follow this rule, especially when it comes to dangerous activities, and particularly those involving the possibility of loss of major body parts. I include the handling of mature lemon sharks... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!

Fact or Fiction? Fiction is most likely the answer when it comes to this great animal, Carcharodon carcharias--the white shark. It is the most featured animal where descriptions don’t match the truth. No other animal has so tightly captured our fascination and imagination over decades like this super predator: a perfect model of speed, power and hunting skills. Because of its overwhelming features, white sharks trigger fantasies that hardly fit the real profile of this amazing... Contact us to read the complete story and publish it!