In July 2004, my friend Corey Ridings (a Coastal Resource Management volunteer from my Peace Corps batch) invited me to her site in Bicol to take photos of the San Miguel Island marine sanctuary. The local barungay captain was under pressure to open the sanctuary up to fishing, and the photos that I took would be used to give the local decision-makers a view of the undersea world located just in front of their doorsteps.

The Sunday edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on August 22nd included five of these photos on the front page to accompany an article written about the local islanders working to protect their marine sanctuary on San Miguel Island.