BirdLife South Africa is not only doing a fair bit to improve the conservation plight of birds, and especially seabirds, but they are now giving away a Canon 5dII + 100-400 L IS USM Lens (link at end of post) for the best photo of any flying, crawling or swimming ocean beasties. That's R42,000 of very nice kit, and not even an entry fee required.
Sadly I don't think I have competition winning pics. But while despondently scratching through some 2002 slides from Ecuador I did come across these rather delightful Blue-footed Booby photos from Isla de la Plata in Ecuador - not doing anything interesting enough to win me a prize, but hey, they've got blue feet. They were nesting, some right next to walking trails, so it was possible to get some great portraits. Note the very pretty ragged pupils.
At the time I was on the bones of my arse, plus I detest guided tours of any type. I remember considering very carefully whether I could afford the (tens of dollars) boat ride out to the island from Puerto López. Luckily it was incredible, and at the time, virtually untouched by tourism, so the few of us on the boat had the whole island to ourselves.
If you have stunning pics of ocean creatures of any type, and from anywhere, I've uploaded the BirdLife South Africa competition PDF for your convenience here. Entries close 19 September 2011.
Update: made it into the final 50 with the bottom pic, no mean feat considering the incredible quality of the entries. I actually thought it was the worst of the 5 photos I sent them, but still a nice surprise.
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