The Final Shoot of Season 3!

It is with mixed feelings that I report Cameraman Tim and I have just finished the final shoot of season 3 of Jonathan Bird's Blue World. On the one hand, I'm excited that we have finally finished and we will soon be releasing the episodes to public television, international television and the web. But on the other hand, it's a little depressing to be finished. After all, we had a lot of fun doing it! We have been in production for about 18 months on what will be 24 more segments (9 half-hour programs). The finished programs are scheduled for delivery to the closed-captioning service in June.

Anyway, the final shoot was a half day at Sea World in San Diego, following up on a stranded pilot whale named Sully. We first met Sully on Curaçao at the very beginning of our season 3 shooting in October, 2009. He had recently stranded on a beach there. After George Keiffer and his team of marine mammal specialists at the Curaçao Sea Aquarium nursed him back to health, they tried releasing him into a pod of pilot whales, but he wouldn't go! He followed the boat back to the aquarium, and set a new speed record! After multiple attempts to re-introduce Sully into the wild failed, they gave up and started looking for a permanent home for him. They just didn't have the space in Curaçao at the Sea Aquarium.

Sea World in San Diego volunteered to take the 1,000 pound whale. So they flew him to San Diego! There, after doing hearing tests, they discovered what was wrong with Sully--he couldn't hear very well. As a result, he could not catch his own food using echolocation. That was why he was starving and stranded, and that was why he wouldn't go back to the wild. Sully would die if released, and he knew it. So Sea World offered Sully a second chance at life.

We spent the morning with Booker Crenshaw (one of Sea World's PR reps) and Sully's trainers at Sea World, learning how they feed him, play with him, train him and rub him down. He has grown by several hundred pounds since he arrived at Sea World, and has become quite used to people. I actually think he is a ham on camera. He seems to enjoy sticking his head out of the water and looking at the camera. Once Sully gets to a certain level of training, he will be introduced to the other two pilot whales at Sea World. And they are females, so who knows, maybe in a few years there will be some little baby Sullys swimming around!

-Jonathan

Jake completes his training on Grand Cayman!

It all started nearly a year ago when 13 year old Jake Whitlock sent Jonathan Bird's Blue World a paper he had written for English class. He wrote about a dream to go diving with Jonathan Bird. We decided to get Jake certified and make his dream come true! (Read about our surprise film crew visit at Jake's house in this previous blog post).

After surprising him at his front door with a camera crew, he started his certification in Massachusetts where he lives. But for the final part of his exciting journey, we wanted to take Jake someplace amazing to complete his final checkout dives and go diving with Jonathan. Where? Grand Cayman of course! The Cayman Islands are a world-renown diving destination with warm, clear water, great reefs, coral, walls, shipwrecks and Stingray City! We contacted the Cayman Tourism Authority and they thought it was a great idea. They put us in contact with Sunset House—the perfect place to stay. Sunset House has been focused specifically on divers for 50 years!

So we let Jake (and his parents!) in on the secret. Last week we boarded a flight in Boston. Even with a huge delay due to a late season snow storm, we made it to Grand Cayman with our gear. But before we drove over to Sunset House, we made a stop at Divers Supply. What Jake found there was a special surprise. Thanks to the generosity of Sub Gear, Divers Supply and Sunset House, Jake was outfitted with a brand new set of Sub Gear diving equipment! How lucky can this kid get? Can it get any better? Yes!

Next, we headed over to Sunset House and checked into our rooms. Within an hour, Jake and his instructor Kathryn Apse were in the pool, reviewing skills (since his first two checkout dives were in the fall up in Massachusetts). While we were doing that, Channel 27 (Cayman News) came over to interview Jake. WATCH THE SEGMENT.

The next morning, after a wonderful Sunset House breakfast, Jake and Kat hit the water right off the dock to get in another check out dive. They intended to do both of them quickly and get them over with, but a curious sea turtle extended the dive to almost an hour, and Jake started getting cold, so the second checkout was scheduled for later in the morning off the boat.

After an early lunch, we hit the Sunset Divers boat and headed out to a nice wall where Jake did his final checkout dive with Jonathan instructing him on the proper method of blowing bubble rings and sneaking up on garden eels. The second dive at Eden Rock was spent swimming through the coral tunnels.

That evening, back at Sunset House, Jake was presented with his own certification card! He had become a real scuba diver! But the fun had only just begun, because Jonathan had another surprise: a brand new pair of Force Fin Pro diving fins for Jake--the same ones Jonathan wears. These were donated by Force Fin and also personally signed by Bob Evans, the designer of the Force Fin. Now Jake had truly joined the team!

Sunday morning was a typical beautiful Cayman day—warm and sunny with poofy white clouds. We left the dock with Sunset Divers right after breakfast on the boat and headed to Grand Cayman’s newest wreck, the USS Kittiwake. And what a wreck! Sitting on the sand upright in only 60 feet, it’s a jungle gym for grown-ups! Already the wreck has a huge school of jacks and two Goliath Grouper residents. Jake and I swam through and around the wreck while Cameraman Tim filmed everything. We had intended on doing only one dive on the wreck, but it was too much fun. So we did a second dive too. On the second dive, a huge school of reef squid had moved in and surrounded the upper structures, so we spent some time filming them too.

After lunch, we piled into a van and our Sunset Divers crew drove us across the island to the marina up in north sound where they keep another dive boat for Stingray City. Twenty minutes later we were splashing into the 10 foot deep water while curious stingrays came over, looking for a handout. Divemaster Andy had given us a lesson in the proper way to feed the stingrays without getting a hickey. As soon as we hit the water, Jake eagerly accepted some bait and started feeding like a pro. He quickly became the most popular guy on the sea floor with 5 stingrays taking turns eating from his hands. And yeah, we got it all on camera. This is going to be a fun segment. Congratulations on your new c-card Jake and welcome to the world of scuba diving!

Blue World filming at the Mystic Aquarium!

It all started a little over a year ago when Cameraman Pierre and I were filming in the Galapagos. We got some amazing footage of sea lions playing, hunting and even barking underwater into my camera. We thought a segment about sea lions would be interesting, but the footage from the Galapagos wasn't enough. It was neat, but didn't tell a story. We thought maybe we should visit a big aquarium that trains sea lions to learn more about how smart they are and how they can be trained. But where? Fate had plans for us. At an educational ocean conference a few months later, we bumped into some biologists from the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, only 2 hours from my house! We asked if we could visit and learn a little about sea lions. They checked with the PR department for us. "Sure, come on down!" was the response.

So yesterday, after months of trying to get several schedules to line up (mine, Cameraman Tim, and several of the trainers at the aquarium) it all finally worked out. We got up early and drove down to Mystic. Soon we were met by Erin Merz from the public relations department. She had tirelessly put the whole thing together for us. Soon our motley film crew was introduced to four lovely sea lion trainers who took several hours of their time to walk us through a day in the life of working with sea lions.

They started with food prep. I spent half an hour washing, inspecting, and sorting fish for the sea lions to eat. They are fed six times a day so food prep is a large part of maintaining their 6 California sea lions.

Next I donned some big rubber boots over my sneakers and went out to meet the sea lions. Over the course of several hours I learned how they train the animals with positive reinforcement and even got the chance to learn and use a few hand signals myself. (The more experienced animals in the aquarium know over 100 hand signals! That's smart!) I also learned that all their sea lions are either rehabilitated animals that were stranded and which cannot be released to the wild, or animals that were born and raised in captivity. They are like swimming puppy dogs--eager to play and interact with each other and their trainers. They seem to love to show off and goof around. And they eat a lot of fish in the process.

Of course all that fish eventually comes out the other end! So I got to experience the not-so-glamorous part of being a sea lion trainer--cleaning sea lion poop. Ick.

Later in the day we filmed one of their daily sea lion shows with a big crowd watching. It was interesting to see how the trainers run a show so flawlessly with the sea lions doing all their tricks and flips all cued by subtle hand signals that the audience doesn't even notice. But I had an appreciation for how long it takes to teach the sea lions all those signals. Even though they are very smart, 100 hand signals is a lot! I'm not sure how long it would take me to learn that many!

This will be an amazing segment in season 3, combining what I learned about sea lions at the Mystic aquarium with what I observed in the wild. We can't wait to get started editing this segment!

We would like to extend our gracious thanks to the Mystic Aquarium, and in particular Erin Merz, and sea lion trainers Deborah Pazzaglia, Jen Reo, Kristen Patti, and Julie Formanski for a great day!

-Jonathan

Back from the Silver banks!

The Blue World crew has just returned from the Silver Banks where we filmed Humpback whales for the third season! We chartered the Turks & Caicos Aggressor for a week and spent all week trying to sneak up close to whales. The female Humpbacks in the north Atlantic migrate down to the Caribbean in the winter to have their calves in the warm, calm waters. The males follow along, hoping to mate with the females.

One of the largest gatherings of Humpbacks occurs in the Silver banks, a shallow area about 80 miles north of the Dominican Republic. It is protected by fringing reefs and coral heads, creating an isolated area, far from land. Although there is nothing to eat for the whales, they have calm, warm, clear water where they can give birth to their calves.

As the calves get a little older, they get rambunctious, eager to explore and have fun. Their mothers want to protect them, but at the same time, need to allow them to swim around a little. To film them, we get in the water near the whales very slowly and quietly, and wait for them to come over and give us a look. Sometimes they are too scared and skittish. But sometimes, the curiosity of the calf overcomes its apprehension, and the calf swims over to us, under the watchful eye of mom. These experiences can only be described as magical. The animals are magnificent, tremendously huge, and extremely gentle around us, always moving with care.

Although the first couple of days were slow with the whale action, it really picked up later in the week. Pierre and I were able to film mothers and calves, as well as sleeping whales, and even a “Valentine” which is a female and a male engaged in pre-mating rituals. We got so much footage that I felt comfortable taking my still camera into the water a couple times and managed to get some very cool images! (Anytime I get to shoot some stills on a trip, it’s a good trip!)

This is going to be one of the best segments in season 3 and I can hardly wait to get started editing it when I get back!

-Jonathan

The JBBW Team goes to the Riviera Maya

As part of production for season 3 of Jonathan Bird's Blue World we headed down to the Riviera Maya region of Mexico last week to shoot a couple segments. We had an optimistic plan to shoot three segments. Last year we heard about a cool dive with Bull sharks that is organized by Phantom Divers in Playa Del Carmen. Then we heard about a nearby adventure to swim with sailfish feeding on baitballs organized by Solo Buceo up in Cancun. So we thought we could try to shoot those segments, plus another segment about cenotes. (I can't go to Mexico and not dive a cenote. I love those things!) To add to the fun, Todd Kelly was with us on his first Blue World shoot (talk about being thrown right into fire!) So, Mia, Todd and I headed out and landed in Cancun to mild, cool weather and strong winds. This was to be a theme of the week.

Unfortunately, right before we left Boston, we found out that fishermen had killed all the Bull sharks. We're not sure if they did it to get back at the dive shops (jealous of their success in turning shark tourism into money) or if they just saw it as easy money. Either way, it was very sad. Apparently some of them were finned and thrown back alive to die. Cruel, wasteful and shameful. We still hoped there would be enough left to dive with.

We had the chance to try the sailfish trip early in the week as it looked like our only weather break for the week. It was rough, but we still made the run out there with Solo Buceo in a trip organized through Jorge "Chino" Loria of Phantom Divers. In spite of heavy sea conditions, we jumped overboard into bait balls with 25-30 sailfish zipping around eating the fish. I looked at those long sharp bills and tried to put it out of my mind as I hid behind my video camera and kept it rolling. Swimming with the sailfish is hard work because the baitfish are trying to get away from them so they keep moving. It's all about swimming as hard as you can while trying to shoot steady video. Good exercise!

The next day we went out with Phantom Divers to find some Bull sharks. Unfortunately, in spite of a lot of chumming and waiting, we saw nothing. It looks like the fishermen did get them all. Hopefully in the next few months some more sharks will come to the area and Jorge from Phantom Divers can work a deal with the fishermen to protect the sharks.

The wind kept getting higher every day and by the middle of the week we couldn't do any ocean dives. Fortunately, you can dive cenotes anytime. For our first cenote, we joined cave diver Carlos "Charlie" Estrabeau from Phantom Divers diving a private sinkhole called Muyal-ha. At the bottom we found spooky sulphur layers that looked like clouds, mastadon bones and interesting "pillow" rock formations. Very cool!

The next day we joined Christine Loew, a cave diving instructor from Yucatec Divers to explore a cenote/cave system called Pet Cemetery. Our goal was to find and film a Blind Cavefish, which we did thanks to Christine's knowledge of where to find them. This is going to make a great segment.

The next day we headed down to Akumal and did a dive at the popular cenote Choc Mool, led by Alvaro Roldan of Akumal Divers. Choc Mool often has a lot of divers, and for a good reason--it's a really nice cenote. We got lucky and managed to do our dive between large groups so we mostly had the place to ourselves.

We expect that even though we got no Bull sharks, we have 3 nice segments from this shoot (2 cenote segments and a sailfish segment.) Now we have to get to work on editing these.

We stayed at two very nice properties on this trip. Unlike the last time we visited when we stayed at a huge all-inclusive resort out of town, this time we stayed right in Playa Del Carmen in two smaller places. We really loved being within easy walking distance of great restaurants and things to see. I really recommend staying in town when you visit. We stayed at the opulent and high end El Taj for a few days, and then at the charming and delightful Casa de Gopala for the rest of the week. Casa de Gopala is owned by the people who own Yucatec divers, so if you are visiting the Riviera Maya to do some cenote or cave diving, this is a great place to stay.

-Jonathan

Our Newest Segment: About a 13 year old JBBW fan!

It all started when Jake Whitlock, a 13 year old ocean-lover from Massachusetts got a writing assignment for school. His task: write about something he would love to do. His finished paper was 3 pages of underwater adventure centering around his desire to go diving with some guy named Jonathan Bird. (Hey, that's me!) He e-mailed it to us--and we loved it. Then we started hatching a plan to make his dream come true. With his parents' permission, we enlisted the assistance of Katherine Apse, a scuba instructor working for United Divers in Somerville, MA. Kat specializes in scuba certification for children and young adults. Because Jake is 13, he can be certified with a full adult certification. Kat and I met up one morning near his house and hiked up the street with Cameraman Tim and Production Manager Julia Cichowski for an "Ed McMahon Moment." Jake's parents knew we were coming, but Jake didn't.

I knocked on the door and Jake answered--and his expression said it all! He was shocked and thrilled! The Blue World film crew was at his front door! I introduced him to Kat and explained that she was his new scuba instructor. You have never seen a 13 year old light up more than to discover he is getting certified to dive, and he will be going diving with someone he watches on TV.

Over the next few weeks, we showed up randomly during his scuba course. We filmed him in the classroom, his first breaths underwater in the training pool, and even his first dives in the ocean. We dove together in some murky water in Nahant, MA on his first open ocean training dive. His certification at this point is almost done, but the adventure is only half over. We plan to take him to a tropical island for his big dives with the JBBW team. But which island? Well, that's a surprise. Can't give everything away just yet.

This will be a fantastic segment for season 3, especially for the younger viewers in our audience when they realize that they too can become scuba divers!

-Jonathan

The Blue World Crew Heads to Bonaire!

In search of the elusive coral spawn, Mia, Cameraman Tim and I headed to Bonaire last week during the time of the predicted coral spawn to shoot a segment for season 3 of Jonathan Bird's Blue World. Some of you may recall that we struck out on the coral spawn on Curaçao last year. We were there in October and the big spawn happened in September. The coral typically spawns twice per year, once in Sept about a week after the full moon and again a month later in October. But one of the two is the "big" spawn, with the other one being smaller. You never know which will be the big one. So last year, we got very little on Curaçao. We were lucky to have a couple of backup segment ideas though.

This year on Bonaire, we didn't have a back-up plan, so we surely hoped the coral would spawn! We started our dive trip at the always enjoyable Captain Don's Habitat where we had beautiful, large, well-appointed rooms in bungalows with seriously cold AC. We dove at night off their dock, starting on Monday night. We did two dives per night, starting at about 8 and going until around 11:30, to be sure we wouldn't miss anything. A typical evening would have us in the water by 8 or so, out at 9:30, change tanks, and back in until 11:30. We kept the dives shallow so we could have nice long dives. On each dive, all we did was swim up and down the reef looking for signs of corals getting ready to release eggs. Kinda boring actually!

On Monday we saw nothing. On Tuesday, we saw one coral head spawn and I filmed it but I only caught the end of it. Wednesday was the peak, with about 5% of the reef spawning. That's when we got most of the best shots. But we were still short a few tight close-ups I needed. Fortunately, just one more coral head spawned on Thursday night and we were able to get the much needed last few shots. Whew!

Clearly, we did not have the "big" spawn this year either. Looks like it will happen in October. I'm not sure if we are really unlucky that we missed the big spawning event two years in a row by being there the wrong month, or if we are really lucky that, in spite of that, we got the shots!

We also did some day dives looking for some other critters that will be featured in season 3, such as sea horses, frogfish and cleaning stations. Our divemaster Lutty from Captain Don's found us some great sea horses at a site called "Oil Slick." Thanks Lutty!

Halfway through the week, we moved to the lovely 5 star Harbor Village Luxury Hotel, and wow, what a nice place! Beautiful accommodations, incredible beach (especially for Bonaire, which is not known for beaches) and a fantastic staff. The only downside is that they do not have a house reef like Captain Don's, Buddy Dive, and the other resorts that cater more specifically to divers. So we ended up driving over to Captain Don's house reef for the night dives.

So in a 6 day trip (4 dive days), we did 7 night dives and believe it or not, only 5 daytime dives. (We spent a lot of our days shooting topside stuff). With 90 minute night dives, we managed to stuff a lot of diving into only only 4 diving days! And yes, we pulled off a cool segment that I'll start editing soon. When you watch a 9 minute Blue World segment, you are often watching something that took quite a while to shoot. In this case, it took two trips to the Caribbean over a year to finally get the shots. That's the way nature sometimes works!

-Jonathan