DearDiveBuddy.com

On our first dive we are so occupied with ourselves that we don’t notice the sea life to much. The person that saw a whale shark on his first dive only told his wife later that he had seen something big and his ears hurt.

As we gain experience we get more attention for the surrounding. We tend to go closer and closer to the sea life and most divers even have a “touching” phase. They luckily grow over that after being better informed about the possible damage to them or the involved creatures. Touching may provoke a defensive reaction resulting in nasty bites or injected venom, damage the protective mucus layer most fish have making them subject to parasites or giving them a traumatic experience so they lose fertility for a long time (turtles). Some creatures can seek contact and even court you (dolphins, turtles, napoleon wrasse). This is okay but take a quit passive role. It will last longer this way.
Touching can result in a nasty bite... ...damage the mucus layer... ...make them infertile for a period.

Starting with (macro) photography makes getting close indispensable. Not a big problem with a nudi-branch, but have you ever tried to make a picture from just the head of a sand eel? You’re a genius if you manage. They retract into the sand as you close up. Important in getting near is not to make any bubbles, but this means holding your breath if you don’t use a re-breather. As a beginning diver you should stick to the rule you NEVER hold your breath, to avoid lung overextension injury. With more experience and taking care, you can hold your breath, as long as you don’t fill your lungs completely and keep a steady depth or descent. Take care in mid water. As you take a normal breath to get closer to a fish starting from being neutrally buoyant, you will become slightly positive. Compensate for it by deflating a bit. In the video of the cleaner fish you can see that the last person taking the reg out goes up a bit. Luckily he breathes out before it becomes critical.

Sneaking up strategies can be useful, but being dressed like an army soldier like some spear fishers use to do is a bit excessive, unless of course you want to give your fellow divers a laugh. Just use black, blue, grey and green and avoid the bright colours or shinny parts. Stay low, hide behind objects. Swimming along sideways with barracuda against the current, approaching it slowly, bit by bit, is better then coming on the front of it. Keep in mind most predators have a narrow field of sight frontward, though some of them can even detect your heart rate with their other senses.

Some fish you can attract so they come to you. If you hide you may get more attention of a shark that just checks you out. Dolphins can stay with you as long as you can manage to “entertain” them. Imitate them, be unpredictable. If they get bored, they vanish. The napoleon wrasse often gets attracted by a ping-pong or golf ball, thinking it’s an egg. In fact, this way you de-condition them from the divers that really feed them eggs. Feeding in general should be avoided, although effective for attracting fish. Moray eels can get so used to it, they also swim up to divers without food, biting in everything they think is a sausage (fingers). Napoleons can have their internal organs destroyed by the overload of eggs. Already our presence down there is an interference in the natural underwater habitat. Lets try to limit the impact as much as possible.

Kill only time, take just memories and leave nothing but bubbles!