(see the full-size close-up below)

This is the 45-foot catamaran Stingray I chartered in Belize, Central America, to sail me down the barrier reef to the southernmost dive resort at South Water Cay. It is skippered by a married American couple from Colorado. They had picked me up at Turneffe Island atoll. I was going to South Water Cay to dive a recently discovered hole in the bottom of the ocean that descended into an Ice Age Cavern over 100 feet deep. But all of that is in my book, Diving off the Beaten Track. (AquaQuest Publications) We had many nights like this but none were suitable for taking photographs of this kind. So I worked with what I had.

From Stingray’s rubber boat I photographed this scene into the sun at high noon. After scanning the transparency at a high dpi, I moved the graphic into Photoshop and added the rest. The moon was a separate scene photographed with a 400-mm lens and sandwiched to the original. I have made variations of this with golden sun and red sky, and others. Each is spectacular in its own right and each casts it own spell according to the setting.

This is a close-up image from the full-size print, showing the detail involved