EcoTours Photography

The weather this past week has been pretty good, which means that Ecotours is actually sending out tours, which makes me happy. I did two tours on Wednesday, both of them training for photography, then yesterday I went out on a tour as the only photographer. It was interesting, considering that photographers take their own boat, and I had never driven one, but aside from some issues parking the boat back at dock (I eventually decided it was easiest to just hop out of the boat wherever on the dock, and then drag it to its mooring spot), it wasn’t too traumatic.

As a photographer, I get paid based on the number of CDs that I sell, which is good and bad. Good, because I only have to sell 5 CDs to make what a guide makes on a good tour, bad, because if nobody buys a CD I am out of luck (ie, it is a no salary, no tip position). Guests get the lowdown on the pictures at the beginning of the tour (I tell them that if they let me take all the pictures for them, they can concentrate on enjoying the “very interesting flora, fauna and geological features, as well as listening to all the wonderful information the guides have to offer”.) Anyway, we saw some interesting stuff on the tour. Yesterday was a boat/hike/snorkel tour; out to an island know as Cas Cay.

This Sunday is the big 5 mile swim race. Kendra says that a bunch of people at her work are “praying for us”. I hope we don’t need it!

I'll leave you with some pictures from my work:


These are the boats that we take out.


This squirrel fish is flashing its yellow dorsal fin to scare off other fish from his hideout.


This is a bunch of fish by an old chunk of boat wreckage.


These are mangrove jellyfish, which live symbiotically with algae (a bit like lichens which have fungi and algae) on the bottom of the lagoon. They spend their time upsidedown, pulsating about once a second to stay on the bottom. They have a mild sting when stirred up.


This is a shot of the kayak dock/rack. We stabilize the kayaks with our feet/hands, and the guests plop into them right at the dock. Getting out is a little more diffcult, especially with very large guests, or kids who like to get in and out while being "helpful".


This is a partially hidden eagle ray.