World Championships in Underwater Photography in Madeira

World Championships in Underwater Photography in Madeira

World championships in underwater photography were recently organized on the island Madeira. You can find a summary of the competition and their diving in the Atlantic written by Niklas Nilsson here.

Off the coast of Morocco, surrounded by the vast Atlantic, lies the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. The 18th edition of the world championship in underwater photography was recently organized here. The second largest island in this group of islands is the golden colored island of Porto Santo. The competition was organized by the international sports diving association CMAS. Despite the current pandemic, 18 nations and over 100 divers had come to compete in photography and video.

The island of Porto Santo is relatively close to the equator and has an even temperature for most of the year. During our stay here at Port Santo in September 2021, we were treated to pleasant weather with 20-25 degrees in the air. The temperature of the water was around 23 degrees. The visibility was exceptionally good and on some days we had at least crystal clear water and about 40 meters of visibility.

The sapphire blue water was bursting with life. Above all, there were a lot of fish here in all different sizes. If you looked closely among rock crevices, colorful spider crabs and other small crustaceans also hid.

The structure of the competition

During the competition, each team has four dives to take pictures in 6 different classes. It is therefore important to be well prepared for the challenge and think about what pictures you can think of taking at the various dive sites. We were there a few days before the competition and were able to dive at several different dive sites to be as well prepared as possible.

The most interesting dive site during the competition was Cordeca. An 83 meter long Portuguese warship that was sunk under controlled conditions in 2016 after being cleaned up. She is today located on the sandy bottom at a depth of 30 meters and is a really beautiful wreck. She is located about 1,5 km off the coast to create an artificial reef for marine life. The wreck was impressive to say the least for us divers and a magnificent sight. Here we took several of the best pictures. In addition, there were large sea bass, tuna and shoals of hundreds of barracudas by the ship.

Despite the tough competition in the competition here on Madeira, both Swedish teams managed to win medals. Niklas Nilsson and Catharina Jostéus took silver in the wide-angle class. In the same photo class, Fredrik Blomqvist and Andreas Kron won the bronze.

Scuba Travel has assisted Niklas and Catarina with logistics for their trip to Madeira. If you are interested in diving in the waters around Madeira, you are more than welcome to contact Scuba Travel to book your diving trip.

Pictures with © approval from Niklas Nilsson