In 1969, I moved my family to the Caribbean and took up residence on the island of Curacao, off the coast of Venezuela. For three glorious years, we went diving every day on Curacao or Bonaire, learned photography and welcomed groups of divers sent to us by Dewey Bergman's See & Sea Travel Service in San Francisco.
The reefs were rich in marine life and had superbly dramatic dropoffs all around the islands. There was even a challenging wreck deep off the southwestern coast of Bonaire, on which I made one hundred and one dives.
It was during the three years we lived there that I learned my techniques of stalking small fish to entice them into posing. I learned deep diving, breath holding, using light to bring out the texture of my subjects and a great deal about the behavior of the marine life. I watched them feeding, breeding and evading predation.
Everything I learned during the three years I spent in the ABC islands served me well after Dewey Bergman invited me to join him in ownership of See & Sea to develop dive travel around the world.
In 1972, I moved to San Francisco to join See & Sea. From that base, I was fortunate to dive most of the tropical world over the succeeding quarter-century. Still, I frequently visited various Caribbean islands during my entire career, and it always had a soft spot in my heart.
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