Deep wall diving is a blissful soup of emotions - excitement, wonder, great visuals, and peppered with a touch of vulnerability just to keep things interesting.

Roca Partida is a partially submerged volcano is in the middle of open ocean, a 20 hour sail from the nearest landmass of Cabo San Lucas. The first arrival here typically brings some puzzled looks, as from the surface, one of the “Top 5 Dives In The World” presents itself as a 300 square meter island no taller than 114 feet, completely covered in bird crap. Underwater, it’s an upside down conical shape that bottoms out around 6,000 feet. It’s an amazing feeling to look down a sheer wall like that, and daydream about what it would be like to explore just a little further down.

The site is unique due to strong currents in all directions: including up and down, and convergences creating vortexes. These currents, along with cold temperatures and ample prey, result in in a location that is a mecca for sharks. A typical dive here will see 5 or more species of shark all together, and in numbers large enough to school. If that weren’t exciting enough, it’s fairly common to have a Humpback or Whale shark simply materialize out of nowhere. For such little real estate, it is non-stop action.

But this dive was strange. We were over twenty minutes in and it was eerily….empty. Pretty reef fish, cleaners, and the resident little white tip reef sharks doing business as usual, but that was it. It was like walking into a what is supposed to be the raging party of the year, but the only people there are a couple of your kid sister’s friends and a bowl of stale Cheetos.

Where did everyone go? More time passed, and at this point we were exchanging looks - do we just venture out into the Blue? Wait? We decided to do one more side of the wall and then head to the Blue if there was nothing.

As soon as we turned the corner everything changed. A school of baitfish in the hundreds was in a frenzy, changing directions just below. It was a wall of fish. We were at our depth limit of 114 feet, so we couldn’t see what was chasing them, only that it was big, fast, and we had just stumbled onto a hunt! Every second was a new direction, flashes of silver, the school breaking and then regrouping, frenetically trying to escape.

The image from this dive, “Running Deep” has has received some exposure via exhibitions and photographic awards, but I usually do not have an opportunity to tell the story behind it, which feels so in contrast to such a quiet scene. It is one of my favorite images from my series on oceanic Hope Spots.

Editing other shots later, I accidentally overexposed an image to find 10 sharks in a single frame.

At the end of every dive we would venture into what is known as “The Blue”.

You slip away from the reef, and let the currents take you out into open ocean. You are quickly over 6,000 feet of depth, miles from any nearest land source, and in eighty feet of water. It is a form of sensory deprivation, surrounded by three hundred and sixty degrees of monotone, rich, empty blue. All of your senses are diluted because of submersion, you are weightless, and very exposed.

It is a very vulnerable feeling.

But this is where magic happens, as although you can’t see them, the wildlife several miles beyond your scope know that you are here, and are on their way.

Sharks in numbers which won’t be a sight in five years, dolphins playfully teasing your clumsiness, a 40 foot whale shark passing through, or a solitary turtle cruising past - all are on the biggest highway on the planet. What makes these encounters so incredibly special, is that it is always the animals who have decided to spend their time to investigate you. They may be timid or bold, but they are here because they are curious. Sometimes they stay for a only a moment, sometimes for twenty minutes or longer. You never know what the gift will be, or how long it will stay, but always in the blue it is a gift.

In some ways this is very passive, as all you can do is remain still and wait, staring into an empty void of blue. You manage your expectations by continuously scanning above, below, and around you for a shadow, a glimmer - anything that breaks up the featureless horizon, just waiting to receive whatever comes your way. There is absolutely no action which can be taken which will alter an outcome; you have to let go of all control.

In reality, blue water diving is anything but passive. You have to be willing to expose yourself to the epitome of the ocean - vast expanse - there is no reef, wall, or ocean floor for visual reference or an appearance of security.. This is the unknown - and anything can come your way here. There is nothing to be afraid of, as that’s not how the ocean works, only a thirsty anticipation of the possibilities. The work is to remain present for long periods of time in nothingness, and manage expectations of an outcome.

The absolute best dives I have ever done in my career have always been in The Blue. The encounters are the unicorn kind, where they are so magical that you will remember every detail like a movie for the rest of your lifetime.

For me, the magic of the blue is a metaphor In the benefit of allowing yourself to be vulnerable and exposed. Much of the magic in life happens just outside of comfort zones.