I had a really wonderful opportunity on my dive trip to Los Roques, Venezuela in May, 1999 to be part of a research group from 
. We were honored to have Paul Humann, the most widely read author of books on fish, coral, and critter identification in the world, with us on our trip. Every night he gave lectures on species identification. It made the diving alot more interesting. Our goal was to do a fish count of the Los Roques marine sanctuary, as Los Roques is an area that has been almost untouched by divers, and there is much that is unknown about the dive sites. At the end of the week, we tallied 203 different fish that were spotted. I acquired a deeper knowledge of the fish that I photograph. The corals were in beautiful condition, and quite varied. There were also tremendous amounts of gorgonians, which in some places formed a beautiful forest. It was a thoroughly enjoyable trip. Our liveaboard was the Antares Dancer, previously called the Antares III, which the Peter Hughes company has recently purchased. Peter will be updating and sprucing her up in the near future, but we found the ship comfortable and the crew absolutely caring and friendly. We did all our diving from a small outboard boat that was fitted out for diving comfort. Our gear stayed on the boat, and the tanks refilled in between each dive. Rides to the dive sites were short, since the Antares Dancer was able to get close to the areas.
