ocean

Aliens of the Lembeh Strait

It was just last week that I posted a video about the Lembeh Strait and already I have found another beautiful video highlighting the wildlife found in the area. This one is a cephalopod lovers dream. The film, entitled “Aliens of the Lembeh Strait”, by Sascha Janson, won Gold in the 2017 Our World Underwater International Imaging Competition.


Nearly 200 more incredible videos of the bizarre and wiggly marine life in the Lembeh Straight can be found on the Critters@Lembeh Resort’s Vimeo page where Sascha Janson is the photo pro.

Dramatic Aerial Thunderstorm Photos

Aerial Lightning 2

Aerial Lightning 1

As an official member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, photos like these make me swoon. These shots are from Ecuador Airlines pilot Santiago Borja. The first was captured through a Boeing 767-300 cockpit window at 37,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. The second was taken last October along the coast of Venezuela.

In the Washington Post, Borja explained the obstacles he met when taking these types of photos. “Storms are tricky because the lightning is so fast, there is no tripod and there is a lot of reflection from inside lights,” he said. Turbulence and near darkness also added complications to the shot.

View more of Borja’s travel and storm photos on Instagram.
via Colossal

Fish Trapped Inside A Jellyfish

Fish In A Jellyfish

Australian Ocean photographer, Tim Samuel, captured these astonishing photos of a fish swallowed whole by a jellyfish near Byron Bay, New South Wales. The fish is possibly a juvenile trevally, which are known to use jellyfish stingers as protection. On his Instagram account Tim says, “He was trapped in there but controlled where the Jellyfish was moving.” The photographer had initially considered trying to set the fish free, but ultimately determined “to let nature take its course.”

Fish In A Jellyfish

Teahupo’o From The Sky

Surfing Magazine has released this spellbinding drone footage of surfers charging the infamous Teahupo’o wave break in Tahiti. The footage provides a new beautiful perspective of this powerful surf spot.

The name ‘Teahupo’o’ loosely translates to English as “to sever the head” and is regarded as one of the most challenging surf breaks in the world. The wipeout 3:17 minutes into the video helps explain why. The drone piloting at the 3:30 mark, when the camera films two waves in a single sequence, is incredible. And to top it all off I’m pretty sure the surfer at 3:53 is lit on fire!

The moody music is a song by Brigitte Fontaine called “Le Goudron”. Do the video justice and watch it at full screen with volume up.

Via Metafilter

Flooded Google Street View

Flooded street

This is what my street could look like according World Under Water. It is a Google Maps powered website (Chrome only) that it lets you pick any Street View location and see what it will look like after sea levels have risen. The site was created to bring awareness to World Environment Day on June 5. Unfortunately it uses the same effect for every location and the sea level doesn’t change depending on your geography. Regardless, it’s an admirable idea and the illusion is fairly believable.

An Ocean Of Polystyrene Packing Peanuts

Artist Zimoun has filled the windows of the Art Museum of Lugano in Switzerland with ventilators and 4.7m³ packing peanuts. When the large fans are turned on the packing chips create a cloudy ocean of polystyrene swirls. The turbulent kinetic work is especially striking when viewed at night and is oddly soothing to watch. An excerpt by Guido Comis and Cristina Sonderegger, published in the exhibition catalog says,

“Even though the swirling of the polystyrene in the depth of each of the windows is actually limited to that space, we have the impression that the movement is propagating to the whole length of the Limonaia. To the visual effect adds the ticking of chips on the window panes, which could remind a thin but insistent rain. If, instead, we cross the threshold and get inside the space, the perception produced by the ebb and flow of the chips changes radically becoming more abstract; the movement appears mechanical rather than natural, the buzzing of the ventilators covers up the ticking of the polystyrene on the windows and thus reveals the artificial origin of the motion.”


via Creative Applications

McNamara Breaks His Own Record By Surfing Terrifying 100 Foot Wave

100 Foot Wave

Last week Garrett McNamara broke his own record by surfing a 100 foot wave off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal. Garrett is that tiny speck seen in the terrifying photograph above.

Forty five year old Garrett doesn’t seem too sure about the validation of the record because the wave never actually broke. It lurched, capped, feathered – and then backed off. It never fell forward. He is quoted as saying, “How do you measure a wave? I don’t know who measures ’em. I don’t know how. All I know is that I love surfing and I love sharing what we do and learning and experiencing new things. And a bunch of the waves ridden on Monday were bigger than the one I rode last November.”

Regardless of whether or not it’s a new record, the man is insane.

Teahupo’o

Teahupo’o is the name of a large reef break in Tahiti. Named after a village on the southwest coast of the island, the break is renowned for its consistent barrels, heavy waves and shallow shoreline. An extremely shallow coral reef, which ranges up to 20 inches beneath the water’s surface creates an unusual wave shape with an effect of almost breaking below sea level. The wave’s unique shape is due to the specific shape of the reef beneath the wave. Its semi circular nature, which drops down sharply creates a ‘below water’ effect and the extreme angles in descent create an instant instability to the wave.

TeahupooImage via Surfblogspot

According to Surfing Atlas:

The extreme angle creates instant instability in the wave. The second stage of the reef proceeds uniformly down to the 300 metres contour in about 50 metres of distance, or a ratio of about 1/6 (.1667). The maximum steepness a wave is able to endure before it breaks is .17. So when height (h) is > .17 of wavelength (λ) then the wave will break. The reef at Teahupoo moves the entire available energy mass of the wave all the way from 300m to the 10m mark of the first stage of the reef at the maximum angle permissible prior to a wave breaking. Then at 10m prior to reaching the surface it puts up a steep wall of reef that causes the entire mass to fold onto a scalloped semi-circle breaking arc.

The result is an incredible moving wall of water. The video below was taken August 27th 2011 during the Billabong Pro waiting period. The French Navy labeled this day a double code red prohibiting and threatening to arrest anyone that entered the water.

Surf Is Waaaaaaay Up

Garrett McNamara recently broke the world record for largest wave ever surfed. McNamara was towed into a 90-foot wall of watery death at Praia do Norte, Nazare, on the southern shores of Portugal. The previous record of 77 feet was set by Mike Parsons in 2008.

Gnarly!

And in case you were wondering, the biggest wave ever recorded by scientists measured 1,720 feet in height and killed two fishermen as it slammed down into Lituya Bay, a fjord located on the coast of Alaska on July 9 1958.

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