40: BONFIRE OR BLACK WATER DIVING - THE NEW RAGE? We try it in Anilao and it was FREAKY!!!

Anilao is easily one of the best places in the world for macro photography as well as blackwater diving, and now bonfire diving. Bonfire diving is a relatively new experience offered to divers. Rather than venture out into the deep black water, suspended by a tether to the bottom of the drifting boat (think pelagic magic in Hawaii) usually quite a distance from shore above a mile+ deep trench, bonfire dives are quite the opposite. You pick a location with little current, in about 35-40 feet of water and suspend a bright light system from a mooring line. This serves as the attraction for the plankton which is drawn to the light and brings lots of critters to you. The challenging part, as a diver, is to remain suspended at around 20 feet, typically 20-25 feet away from the lights with no landscape to help with your bearing. At times I followed critters to 38 feet and up to the surface! The plankton is moving at incredible speeds and it's difficult to hover, hold a light just enough to illuminate but not burn out the subject and hold a camera steady to capture video. It's truly a miracle that as many video segments turned out and were more or less in focus. Brown did an INCREDIBLE job slowing down most of the critters by 90% so that you can actually experience their outer spaciness! Make sure and watch the end of the video where he gives you his GoPro Hero 7 underwater settings that he used to capture the bonfire dive video. We hope you enjoy this video as much as we enjoyed the dive! It definitely opened a new frontier to us in diving! This dive was orchestrated by the capable and good people at Blue Ribbon Dive Resort in Anilao, Philippines. Following is a list of the animals featured in our video: Larval Pearlfish Tube Anenome Larvae Fire Worm Scale Worm Sea Walnut Jellyfish Sea Elephant Juvenile Box Jellyfish Juvenile Pufferfish Juvenile Peacock Flounder Juvenile Diamond Squid Zooplankton Phytoplankton Plankton Phronima Pram Bug Mola Mola Larvae Mantis Shrimp Larvae Wormfish Red Banded Coral Shrimp #china #qingdao #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #quarantinelife #scuba #scubadiving #bonfirediving #blackwaterdiving #anilao #philippines #nightdive NEW TO OUR CHANNEL? We are Eileen and Brown Councill. Welcome to our channel and a glimpse into our life adventure! 2020 was a year of uncertainty and change (for all of us, right?), but we overcame the challenges and decided it was time to chase our dream, to sail around the world! Did I mention that we had very NO sailing experience? Before leaving Qingdao, China, our home of 4 years, we sold almost all of our earthly possessions and started our international search to find the right sailboat that we would call "home." After 5 months of unanticipated twists and turns, we found what we were looking for, a used Leopard 44' Catamaran located in St. Lucia. So, here begins our journey, filled with unmatched excitement and honestly, a bit of trepidation as well. We have much to learn as we travel the world on our floating home and we intend to document that journey and share it with you. We are so glad you have decided to join us, and we hope that you will find our story so compelling that it will inspire you to chase your dreams too! As a viewer, we consider you to be part of our family and look forward to getting to know you. Don't hesitate to comment on our videos and ask questions. We will do our best to answer every correspondence! All we ask is that you have patience with us as we work really hard to improve our camera/video techniques and ability to tell a story. Hopefully, you will be as BLOWN AWAY from watching, as we are in experiencing and producing our adventures! HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT US? If you wish to support our video efforts, all we ask is that you SUBSCRIBE, give a THUMBS UP, SHARE our videos with your friends, AND COMMENT! WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET TO KNOW US MORE DEEPLY? It would be an honor and pleasure to deepen our relationship with you as a Patron. Please click on the following link to see how: https://www.patreon.com/sailingblownaway WOULD YOU LIKE TO FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY? https://www.noforeignland.com/boat/6040796987916288 WHERE CAN YOU FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA? Instagram - @sailingblownaway Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SailingBlownAway Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/eileen.dietrich/ YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/sailingblownaway