Pacific: An Undersea Journey

Pacific: An Undersea Journey by Doubilet, David. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780821219034.

From space, the Pacific dominates our planet - it is an ocean so vast that it makes islands out of continents. Beneath its surface lies a multitude of mysterious underwater kingdoms populated by creatures dazzling and diverse, often beyond imagination. In Pacific: An Undersea Journey David Doubilet, one of the worlds foremost underwater photographers, takes us on a spectacular expedition through this magnificent realm, presenting his finest photographs of the last twenty years, taken while on assignment for National Geographic. The journey begins off the coasts of California and British Columbia before turning outward to the Hawaiian islands and the Galapagos. Doubilet continues westward across the Pacific, passing by the tiny island groups of Palau and Kerema to Japan, where he explores the sheer submarine cliffs of Suruga Bay at Izu Peninsula. In Papua New Guinea and the waters of the Southwest Pacific - the most diverse coral paradise in the world - Doubilet captures the eerie remnants of World War II battles, underwater wrecks now softened by coral growth and inhabited by schools of glassy sweepers. Moving southward, he touches on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia and lonely Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea. The journey ends in the rich temperate waters of New Zealand. Doubilets mastery of the art of underwater photography is evident in his stunning color images of the world beneath the sea. We see California sea lions cavorting in kelp forests, a one-inch-long armored shrimp climbing up whip coral, brilliant red clownfish among bubble-tipped anemones, circling barracudas, a school of silvery cardinal fish hovering over a wire coral forest, the delicate beauty of a tiny, venomous juvenile lionfish, an exquisite Gorgonian sea fan garden, and divers silhouetted against the deep blue waters of a submarine cave. Also included are splendid above-water panoramas and dramatic split-level photographs. In anecdotal essays about each region, Doubilet describes his adventures while diving, giving voice to the otherworldly beauty of his undersea imagery.