Underwater Photography

Mario Vitalini explains why a rather humble dive site in the Egyptian Red Sea ranks highly among his favourite dive locations

Photographs by Mario Vitalini

The last 18 months have certainly been challenging

For me, The Barge in the Northern Red Sea is one of those places. What makes this rather average-looking dive one of my top photo spots? Let me explain why I love diving here so much. I’ll introduce some of the subjects you are likely to find, and show how I like to shoot them.

The Barge is an Egyptian photography favourite, located on Little Gubal island in the Gulf of Suez. It is a must stop for any liveaboard running a northern itinerary. As its name says, the site is marked by an old barge. Very little is known about the vessel’s history. Some theories say it was used to salvage the cargo of the Ulysses, a beautiful wreck located just around the corner that sank in 1887. Other people are more inclined to think the barge went down in 1973 during the Egypt Israel war. The truth is, there is not much left of the old wreck. Laying on a gentle slope between 9m and 15m, it offers plenty of bottom time and the deep waters north and east of the island ensure a constant flow of clear water. Currents are normally mild, but they can be a bit strong. If this is the case, just move to the shallow and more-protected areas.

What’s left of the wreck is home to a great number of species of fish and invertebrates. Because it is a regular stop for many liveaboards, the marine life has become used to divers and is relatively easy to approach. The surrounding area is packed with marine life and the drop off is regularly visited by dolphins. Cardinalfish, nudibranchs, octopus and scorpionfish are among the many friendly subject that make The Barge their home. It is this abundance of life that draws us, and why photographers now consider this site one of the highlights of any Northern Red Sea trip.

Cardinalfish - After jumping from the boat, swim towards the wreck and quickly find large numbers of tiger cardinalfish and bigeyes. They hover next to the hull very close to the bottom. Look carefully and you may see some of the cardinalfishes with distended jaws. This indicates the fish is guarding its eggs inside its mouth, a great photo opportunity for portraits.

Patience is key. Once you have chosen an individual, move slowly and let the fish get used to you. Try to approach them from the front to get a good look at the eggs between their sharp teeth. Occasionally cardinalfish spit out their eggs and then grab them again. This is to allow better oxygenation. Be ready to capture the moment.

Lighting can be tricky. Because of the cardinals’ size, you will need to stay a bit further away than what you normally do for a traditional macro subject. If you keep your flashguns close to the housing, you will end up lighting the water column in front of the fish. Instead, push your strobe arms forward, straight in front of the housing as far as you can so your strobes are positioned closer to the subject at either side.

If you want to achieve a soft background or shallow Depth of Field, you will need to open the aperture This will let more light through, compensate by reducing the power output of the strobes and reducing the ISO on your camera. Alternatively, you can try a snoot to helps concentrate the light on the subject. Or, if possible, to frame the fish against the blue background.

Morays - One moray has become a symbol of The Barge, and it has been affectionately named George. It’s been living on this site for years and is one of the biggest morays I have ever seen. George often hides in or around The Barge. There are in reality several large morays around the barge, who are easy to approach and offer great wide angle and portrait opportunities. They are great to use cross lighting or even inward lighting to great effect.

Peppered morays are also very common here. They tend to live on tiny holes and cracks and separate them from the messy background is challenging. A bit of spotlighting, perhaps with a torch or snoot helps to isolate them. Given the white colour of their body, backlighting can be very effective. Lionfish, and scorpionfish are easy to find all over this site. One curious thing about all of them is the size. For some reason, fish and critters in this site are consistently bigger than everywhere else.

Swim away from the barge heading towards the shallows. You will see a sandy alley and a small shallow gap on the reef, this will lead you to a shallow lagoon. The corals around this small channel are gorgeous and being incredibly shallow it is a great place to try some split levels or dappled light photos.

Swim into the lagoon for a few metres in you will see a lonely coral tree. This is home to several lemon gobies. These beautiful little fish are relatively rare and very shy but here is not difficult to photograph them. Toward the back of the lagoon, in just 3m of water, there are some old dead coral heads, in there you can spot a relatively unknown species of blenny, known as unicorn blenny. Its funny face is great to practice your super macro skills.

Right before dusk, hundreds of fusiliers start gathering around the wreck creating clouds of fish. These schools are not easy to photograph but if you jump at the right time and with a wide-angle lens, you can experiment with very long exposures to great effect.

If you prefer a more straightforward experience, there is plenty around to keep you entertained. Many species of nudibranchs crawl along the bottom and small morays that hide during the day are now out and hunting. Night is also a great time to look for the resident octopus and try to get some great shots of their eyes (Please be kind to the creatures and do not blast them with hundreds of flashes, they do not have eyelids to protect their eyes).

On the sides of the wreck, you can see some beautiful soft corals, look carefully between the branches and you may spot a candy crab. These little guys are relatively common in the Far East but not so much in the Red Sea.

A word of advice: when diving at night at the barge, be extremely careful with your buoyancy. Hundreds of long spine urchins crawl around and if you get too close to the bottom there is a risk of getting stung.

In the afternoons, keep an eye out for dolphins, these magnificent creatures live in the area and after a day hunting in the open water they generally come back to spend the night in the relatively protected waters. Is not uncommon for them to pay a visit and play for a few minutes with the divers.

The Barge may not be known as one of the best dive sites in the world. Let’s face it… it lacks the adrenalin or drama of other well-known locations. But this humble site is a photographer’s one-stop shop in every aspect. It has an impressive variety of subjects all year round, the marine life is relatively friendly and relatively easy to approach, the visibility is good, and the shallow depths give us plenty of bottom time. For this reason, I always make The Barge a mandatory stop on all my Red Sea workshops. I can’t think of a better place to dust off those cobwebs from your kit and get back to take some great underwater photos. n