Busting the Turtle Jinx: Photographing Caribbean Sea Turtles

Photographing sea turtles underwater has been a challenge that has long taunted me. Over the years I’ve had a few opportunities but they just never seemed to pan out.

Sure…I’ve gotten some decent above-water shots…like this “Honu” on Kona’s famous black sand beach at Punalu’u …but whenever I slipped below the waves, I seemed to be jinxed.

That streak of bad luck seemed to continue right through last week. My wife, Anita, and I had done some research and learned that scuba divers often saw turtles at Buck Island National Wildlife Refuge near St. Thomas in the American Virgin islands. That sounded great to us…so we planned a vacation with the goal of diving at Buck Island.

Last month, we were in St Thomas and it was finally time to go! It was early morning when we made our way to the port, dragged our gear down to the dock and climbed aboard the dive boat ready for our adventure!

..And then the Captain informed us that he was cancelling our dive because one of his engines had just failed. I shook my head. We were only going to be on St Thomas until nightfall so it wasn’t like we could just book a dive with another company the following day. The jinx was still alive and well.

Some folks would have just figured that the gods were against them and headed to a bar to find comfort in a large quantity of tall, cold and wickedly alcoholic drinks crowded with little umbrellas. Actually, I considered this option for a second or two…but I knew it was impossible. Because I know my wife. Anita had her heart set on turtles and I knew she wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer. As we feared, all the other scuba tours were booked for the day but within ten minutes she had found a snorkeling tour and we were climbing onto a catamaran by the name of “Virgin Breeze”. No, it wasn’t what we had planned…but at least the day wouldn’t be a total bust. Then things started looking up when the crew told us that they were heading to ‘Turtle Cove” on Buck Island…the exact same spot our scuba tour had been going to dive at! That sounded promising but we were determined not to jinx things by getting our expectations up. But that determination crumbled when we spotted a turtle surfacing for air just as we entered Turtle Cove.

As soon as we anchored, Anita and I hit the water and immediately spotted two turtles about 25 feet below. That’s a difficult depth to reach without weights and I watched a few folks try…but none of them even got close. Fortunately, my camera weighs a ton (well it probably tops out at 15 lbs or so…but it feels like a ton when I’m lugging it around all day). I took a deep breath and let my ‘Nikon Anchor’ pull me down. I dropped like a rock and within seconds I was face to face with this Big Kahuna:

I think he was kinda surprised that one of those silly humans flopping around on the surface had actually gotten to the bottom. He stopped eating, slowly raised off the sand and turned his head to take a good look . I was able to get a few portraits before I had to head back to the surface…dragging that dead-weight camera the whole way.

I dove a number of times but the turtles were already bored of the guy with the big camera. They just kept eating the grass and totally ignored me…which meant no eye contact (and boring photos).

There was a small reef nearby with lots of colorful tropical fish which attracted a lot of the snorkelers but I stayed with the turtles as was rewarded with a few more solid images:

I had hoped to photograph turtles near the surface but other than the one we had seen when we first arrived, they all seemed pretty happy staying on the bottom (I later learned that they can hold their breath for 4-7 hours while they sleep although they breathe more often while awake). I was starting to think that the tour would be over before a turtle would need air…but then this one headed up:

As it surfaced, I was able to squeeze off a number of shots that captured Anita and the turtle in the same frame.

Before I knew it, the crew was blowing the whistle to get us all back on the boat. Like usual, I was the last one out of the water (a fact my wife never fails to note). As we dried off, Anita and I caught ourselves grinning like a couple of kids. It had taken a long time, but we finally had broken the jinx and got our chance to get up close and personal with sea turtles.

The next day, we were in St Kitts diving on the wreck of the M.V. River Taw (we were on a cruise vacation so we scheduled dives at every island the ship docked at). We were running low on air and about to finish the dive when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and…you guessed it…another turtle! Clearly the jinx was totally busted. This green sea turtle was skimming over the wreck in about 40 feet of water.

It was headed in my direction and I got off a flurry of frames before it saw me and curved away.

Luckily, Anita had spotted the turtle before I had and quickly positioned herself in the background for this shot.

Within seconds the turtle gracefully glided over the wreck and faded into the deep blue.

Although we dove another five times over the next week, this turned out to be the last turtle we would see….but we weren’t going to complain. Years of ‘near misses’ and missed opportunities had been put behind us after two unexpected and thrilling encounters in less than 24 hours.

Photography is like that. You can plan things to the Nth degree but sometimes they just don’t go the way you anticipated…you just have to go with the flow. I guess life is like that too. Funny the things you learn as you grow older…

Jeff