Beautiful Winning Images From Miami's Underwater Photography Contest...

The University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science hosts an annual underwater photography contest.
From its inception in 2005 the now increasingly popular contest is open to photographers who earn no more than twenty percent of their income from their art.
This year more than seven hundred entries were submitted by folk in twenty three countries.
There's more of the best here...

Christopher Swann's Incredible Underwater Photos Of Dolphins And Sharks Dining Out On Mackerel...

British wildlife photographer Christopher Swann went swimming in the Atlantic, off the coast of the Azores to record dolphins and sharks feasting on a  shimmering thirty foot diameter ball of Mackerel trying to protect themselves.
Did someone mention Fish Balls.
Moving closer to the surface makes it easier for the Cory Shearwaters to add mackerel to their menu, so the poor mackerel with no place to escape to are left to the mercy of the mauraders.
There's more merriment and feasting here...

Whale Watching Delights In The Kingdom Of Tonga...

Recent visitors to The Kingdom Of Tonga's Vava'u Island Group have been treated to some close encounters with thirty six tonne Humpback Whales and their calves during the mammals' annual five month sojourn in the South Pacific.
New Zealand Herald photographer Richard Robinson was, as you can see here, very up close and personal underwater.
The Humpbacks spend the months of July to November in the warm waters of Tonga before migrating south to spend the summer feeding in Antarctica.
Vava'u has some of the world's most beautiful cruising grounds as visiting yachties will attest to.
I spent many wonderful months there on my yacht Sofia some years ago.
But that's another story...