freediving image Archives - Fred Buyle - Nektos

The Click Effect, 360/VR documentary for the NY Times

Fred — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 01:02:33 +0000

For more than five years now we have been gathering 360° images and sounds for the Darewin Project.
New technology allows us to capture cetaceans’ sounds and behaviors like never before but the most important component remains freediving.
Freediving is the ultimate tool when it comes to observe and spend time with cetaceans to understand more about them. I’m always happy to see freediving reaching mainstream media. Qualitative media are being picky nowadays, not only you have to provide good content but it also has to be properly delivered into an interesting package.
Whale research made by freedivers filmed in 360° is a good start. We were then lucky to meet and start a great collaboration with film director Sandy Smolan who saw the potential of the story. He directed the 360° documentary for the NY Times and Annapurna Pictures known to find features films and projects that are off the beaten tracks and bringing them to a large audience produced it.
When the film was released, the NY Times ran a full page freediving picture everyday for five days.
Here is the link to the 360/VR film on NY Times website, words by James Nestor of course.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/16/opinion/sunday/conversation-with-whales.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

And a cool making of the project by Zach Rockwood:

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baja california expedition

Fred — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 01:40:41 +0000

I wanted to do that trip for more than 20 years, sailing down Baja California and stop at the mythical dive spots such as Benitos, Alijos Rocks, Thetis Bank…

A friend of mine, Nicolas Mouchart, is currently doing a round the world sailing aboard his 42 foot steel ketch named Perd Pas Le Nord. He left from Belgium 3 years ago, he does not sails full time and divides the journey in legs of various duration. So far his biggest achievement was to go through the North West passage in 2013, Perd Pas le Nord was the only boot to successfully doing the passage that summer. After sailing down Canada and California he left the boat in San Diego. I decided to join for the next leg which was a 3 weeks trip around Baja to end up in La Paz. Nicolas and his girlfriend Florence are keen divers and freedivers so we planned the route with the best dive spots in mind.

But this year we were not lucky, with an strong El Nino and a shorter time frame of 2 weeks we couldn’t dive all the dream spots. Benito was beaten up by 4m swells and 35knts wind. We sailed down directly to Alijos Rocks in big seas and wind hoping it would calm down when on site. The bet paid off and when we reached Alijos the wind had dropped. But the residual swell made our 36h stay the worst anchorage we had ever experienced! The place is stunning, some small rocks sticking out of the open ocean 300km offshore, crystal clear waters and tons of fish. We were expecting lots of sharks but probably because of the storm they stayed very deep and only a few Galapagos sharks paid us an elusive visit. Some sea lions seem to own the place, they were very peaceful and not bothered by us at all.
We left Alijos heading to Cabo San Lucas for a quick refuel and then headed to La Paz where the boat will spend a couple of months. When Nicolas and Florence left, William Winram an I stayed a bit longer in the area to dive Cabo Pulmo with the Pelagios Kakunja team to help them tagging sharks. Cabo Pulmo marine reserve is simply amazing. Not only it is full of life but it is extremely well managed by the local community. The diving is strictly regulated, limited and spread over the dive spots leaving them period of total “rest”. It is an example that all the marine reserve should follow: why create a marine reserve if hundred and hundred of divers are bothering the sea life and create an anthropic pressure that can sometimes be even worst than a well managed fishery…? A topic that should be raised more often.
We saw only 3 shy bull sharks and we eventually tagged one.
The best memory of that trip is for sure the giant school of jacks, we spent hours contemplating that tornado of life, one of my best freediving moment ever!

[See image gallery at nektos.net]

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Guadalupe 2015 expedition

Fred — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 07:26:13 +0000

Another great white shark tagging expedition to Guadalupe this fall, the 7thfor me over there since 2009.This year we camped on the island for two weeks, we had to shorten the stay due to boat logistical considerations though.2015 is another El Nino year and this truly effects Guadalupe Island. First the water was 25°c, almost 5°C above normal, this means that the white sharks were usually staying deeper where the conditions are more stable for them. On the other hand the amount of sealife was phenomenal: yellowtails, yellowfin tunas, mobula rays, wahoos and the week before we arrived 2 whale sharks were seen!Above the water the conditions were affected as well. The abundant rain changed the island from that dry and inhospitable gigantic rock to an almost friendly green landscape. And ofcourse the rain affected us as well,in our basecamp during the 3 first days,most of it has no more roof on top of the old walls and the remaining parts of it are leaking.
All the gear was soaked and we had tofight to find some dry places to put our sleeping bags.
This year we had to share the place with a lot more mices and cockroaches than last year and the mices were very very active at night and didn’t hesitate to climb on us when they were not making holes in our bags and food containers!
In the water we had many great whites, we could tag 6 of them and saw many with with tags we placed last year. We were working from Dr Mauricio Hoyos‘boat and we had to be ready andfast to get in the water as the sharks were not staying very long around it, we noticed that the bigger the boat is, the more they stay, the feel more comfortable and can take more advantage of the large shade area to make their approach more discreet. The more time we spend in the water with these animals, William Winram and I are more conscious of their abilities as apex predators, they learn about divers and their behavior adapts.
For that reason even though we know them better and better each year we are paying more and more attention to their behavior. I hope that the « expedition leader/photographer » who was performing outside of the cage stunts with his clients noticed that as well and will eventually give up doing it beforesomeone really gets hurt.
The Islander brought us back to the mainland, they have been supporting us since 2009, if you want to
book a Guadalupe trip do it with them, they are the best crew and from thei cages you’ll be able to observe more sharks than from any other boat.We are now back on the mainland and about to leave for our next adventure, a sailing/freediving/tagging trip we wanted to do for many years…..

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mid atlantic freediving

Fred — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 08:11:20 +0000

When you are freediving in the Azores you are already at the western part of old Europe, almost mid distance from what they call the New Wolrd. But if you want to feel even more in the the middle of the Atlantic and in the middle of nowhere, go to Princess Alice bank, a pinnacle 80km offshore Faial island…the rock literally raises from the abyss to 35m deep! It is home to lots of pelagic life and in summer the migrating mobula rays (Mobula tarapacana) are cruising these crystal clear waters. In the past I had the chance to encounter mako sharks and large blue marlins over there. You can expect the unexpected everyday when you freedive that magical spot! Please note that we don’t touch the animals, the pictures showing a freediver with his hand on a mobula was taken to document a scientific study aiming at collecting mucus for a DNA/stable isotope study of the University of the Azores. That method is the less invasive possible of course.

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Darewin project on ABC Nightline

Fred — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:14:30 +0000

Here is a piece ABC Nighline did about our work with sperm whales for the Darewin project

ABC Breaking US News | US News Videos

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underwater underwater photography exhibition nemo33

Fred — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 13:08:58 +0000

Until mid april 2015 Nemo33 host an uw photo exhibition with my pictures. 14 large format prints are hanged from 1.5m to 10m. You can visit the exhibition in both freediving and scuba, it’s even possible to do a first experience dive or freedive with an instructor if you are not a diver yet.
I must say that I enjoy the project very much and I could rediscover my images as seeing them underwater send me back to the exact moment I took the shots.
So if you’re around Brussels in the next weeks give it a go!

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norwegian artcic adventures

Fred — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:00:06 +0000

This year all the ingredients were there for a successful Norwegian expedition: a good sailboat as base mobile base camp, a seaworthy rib, a great crew of 8 highly motivated and competent freedivers/sailors and of course a big chunk of luck! So far I’ve never been very lucky with orcas, only one elusive encounter in Antarctica in 2013 and a unsuccessful expedition last year. The luck turned around and we had real encounters, not just observations or animals swimming by. We gathered HD/4K videos, captured incredible 360° uw footage never seen before and tested new equipment for the Think! project . Some images will be forever engraved in my mind: a baby orca trained by adults to catch the herrings right in front of us, a pack of 5 humpbacks surrounding us while feeding, two gigantic fin whales stopping right under to look at us… the list of unforgettable underwater moments goes on and on. Maybe we deserved it a little bit as the conditions were very hard: the air temperature went down to -12°c , the water was at 2°c, the boat heating system died on the second day so we had ice inside the boat for the rest of the trip ,fortunately we had hot water to put on and remove the wetsuits. Oh and we also killed two drones…

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Lautlos unter Giganten on Servus TV 28sept 9pm

Fred — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:03:26 +0000

http://www.servustv.com/at/Medien/Lautlos-unter-Giganten

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whale newborn encounter

Fred — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:05:10 +0000

Today I probably had the most amazing experience I ever had in the Ocean. The funny thing is that yesterday I decided that today I’d post to a “blue” pic with nothing on it to show that for one successful day at sea, you’ll spend countless without seeing anything and not even mentioning that taking a decent pic of what you might see isn’t guaranteed either…
But this morning was just unbelievable: I got in with a socializing pod of sperm whales, and the reason of that big whale party was that a mother just gave birth to a calf a few minutes before…the water was still full of blood and the calf has part of its umbilical! For 30min we were in the middle of the celebration, feeling part of it, the mother was showing the calf to all the 20 others whales and even brought it to us!!!! These are very special moments happening in front of your eyes, you shouldn’t look for that because it might happen anytime, but the least you can do is to spend as much time as you can in the Ocean. Not more, not less.

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Hammerhead shark tagging, Bimini

Fred — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:23:49 +0000

Earlier this year I collaborate on a great hammerhead shark tagging project setup by the Bimini Shark Lab. Using freediving and modified spearguns together with William Winram we could place 17 acoustic tags and 2 PAT tags in the least invasive way for these fragile predators. The aim of the research is to gather informations about their local movements and the connection with the great hammerhead Florida’s population. Bimini offers the perfect conditions to conduct such a mission and I can confirm that the great hammerhead is still my favorite shark!

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