In a Sepian Mood

Even in moderate visibility, and outside the range of your strobe, you can still get some impressive photos. On this day the vis was just 40 feet, which is quite disappointing for Cayman
Brac, but the model was in a great position to provide a dramatic pose and when coverted to a monchrome sepia in photoshop the photo turned out to have it's own special charm and mood. Who needs all that color anyway?

Captain Joyce the Turtle Dancer (see story below)

Captain Joyce from Narcosis Scuba, Tarpon Springs, FL.

http://www.narcosisscuba.com/index.htm

See Story Below:

Turtle Dancer

Every now and then you come across a diver who has something special. In Tom Wolf’s novel, when he was talking about the best pilots, he called it ‘The Right Stuff.’ In diving there’s no phrase to describe the person who is as home in the water more than they are on land. I’ve used the term Transphibian – a fish trapped in a human body – as a joke, but whatever you call them, when you are in the water with one of these exceptional divers you know it in a moment.

It shows in their kick - effortless but powerful, in their buoyancy control – trimmed like a fighter plane, and in their attitude – which exudes comfort and the joy of being immersed in the liquid universe. I’ve authored courses to help divers get to this level, but for some it comes naturally and late last year, on Cayman Brac, I had the good fortune to share a few dives with one of these naturals, Captain Joyce French, a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer from the Narcosis Scuba Center in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
As an experienced dive instructor with five underwater rescues to my credit, I try to be very cognizant of the people that around me when I am underwater as you never know when someone who might be inexperienced or exhibiting a momentary lapse of judgment may turn your day into a roiling tempest. It’s not often that you find yourself swimming with someone who puts you immediately at ease and it’s hard to explain just what energy they put out that makes me feel that way, but kick, control and attitude are all part of it.

Still, there’s more, and rather than listening to an aging mossback wreck diver try to explain some esoteric feel that he gets when he’s in the water with an exceptional diver, you instead listen to the turtles.

That’s right, listen to the turtles.

I’ve seen it many times now. When a turtle swims through a group of divers, often they take a few moments to commune with them. But the turtles don’t pick just any diver. In my experience they always seem to take notice of the most comfortable diver in the group and swim side by side for a while, as if to acknowledge and accept them. Usually that is the most experienced diver, but every now and then you come across a relative newbie who simply belongs down there. They use very little air (mostly due to perfect trim and extreme comfort) and always come up glowing like a starlet in musical from the 1940’s.
So when I was in Cayman Brac, visiting the incredibly beautiful reefs right off the shore of the Brac Reef Resort in October of 2008, I wasn’t surprised to see a wonderful adolescent turtle moving through our formation of divers and turn to swim next me for while. I mean, I expect this. After all, I developed a PADI Distinctive Specialty called Mind, Body and Spirit Scuba more than ten years ago and teach people how to meditate underwater. I actually had deluded myself into thinking I had this little fellow hypnotized and posing for my camera when he suddenly stopped dead in the water and turned his head towards Joyce and bolted over to her, picking her out of a crowd of about eight divers.

The diver? Captain Joyce Hannaseck, owner of Narcosis Scuba in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Joyce is a multispecialty dive instructor with an overwhelming joy of life and an innate ability underwater. Joyce drives a 35’ Sportcraft and is an excellent teacher at all levels, specializing in children and teenagers.

Something about her caught his fancy as he first swam side by side with her, then did a couple of spins around her body. Personally, I think he would have given her a turtley kiss if she wasn’t wearing a mask and a regulator, but I can’t be sure. And though I was a little miffed that my turtle buddy dumped me for a hot blonde, I really can’t blame him. She is a force to be reckoned with both on the land and in the sea.

Mongo and lunch

Hand feeding bass in a Pennsylvania quarry is a lot of fun. Even if the owner of Dutch Springs will scream at you like the Seinfeld Soup Nazi that "it's a lake not a quarry", and even if the water is so cold your testicles may never descend again. (Sorry, girls.) and even if there really isn't all that much to see there that you haven't seen a dozen times before, you can still scare up some fishy fun in the shallows. Here's how you do it:

1. find a cray fish.

2. wave to a bass

3. hold the crayfish very bravely

4. don't let go. the bass will be happy to remove the crayfish from between our fingers with a (moderately) gentle tug.

Simple, inexpensive underwater photography

Stunning shots are possible, even with inexpensive photo gear. Consider this flourescent coral shot with a 5 megapixel point-and-shoot camera and cheap INON strobe. In order to get best results, set your camera to manual, meter for midwater, and then set your strobe to fire at full. Adjust the strobe, if the first shot is too hot (you lose detail from overlighting the coral). Once you have the strobe setting worked out, take a few shots, firing for effect.

Soon come Bonaire

Well, I'm counting the hours until my next trip to Bonaire. Early March is a great time to be in the Islands, what with snow and freezing rain predicted in Philly and a general, miserable lack of sunlight. Hey, but things could be worse. Consider my editor from th PADI Undersea Journal. She just moved back home to Nova Scotia after spending years, maybe ten (?) in sunny southern Florida. Talk about a freeze-out.


Anyway, I can't wait to try out my new Fantasea strobe and strobe arms on my old and decrepit Olympus 5060 camera and housing. What a difference side and back lighting can make to an underwater image. I'm looking forward to posting the results. This shot is from the dock areas at Buddy Dive in Bonaire from a couple of years back. There's always a school of snappers there waiting to give you a photo subject.

Zen Diving in Pennekamp

An assigned dive buddy of mine from Tokyo, on vacation from a business school up in the northeast, were talking about my Mind, Body Spirit Scuba specialty. He decided to try MBS Scuba on this dive and came up smiling from ear to ear.

I don't usually recommend formal meditation poses for divers unless they happen to practice them on the surface, as well. This guy did.

He spent a lot of time upside down with his head in the reef, looking at the small critters. He may have been a novice, but his comfort levels were advanced.

I'm back. I've been off for quite some time as I have been on assignment in dry locations.

Stay tuned for more exiciting commentary on the state of the dive world.

-- Schultzie

Solo diving? Are you nuts???

OK, so I'm supposed to be this 'laid-back sport diver' and in no way a technical diver, so why on earth would I plunk down my hard-earned money to get a SDI Solo Diver certificate? Great question.

Zen diving is best done when you have the least to worry about. That means no logical ceiling - like when you are doing decompression diving - and no special depth limits - like when you are diving with Nitrox. That stuff creates diver stress and doesn't promote the Zen experience.

One thing that does promote a good Zen diving experience, however, are excellent self-rescue skills. Nothing is more comforting than knowing - from extensive training - that you can get yourself out pretty much any difficult situation that you might encounter while diving.

I have been diving for a few years. Back in the eighties, when I was younger and more adventurous, I learned New Jersey wreck diving from the old mossback divers like Gary Gentile and Evelyn Dudas. With these people you learned by watching and braving questions once in a while. They were early adopters, and often the original developers of a lot of the technical diving skills that are taught today. Redundancy, duplicate air supplies, gas management, navigation, unplanned ascents. etc. Back then, we learned way too much by trial and error and every diver was expected to be able to get back to the boat on their own, even if they had a catastrophic equipment failure and their buddy had wandered out of range.

"Even if you have a buddy," they would say, "you are still diving alone."

You can learn these skills in any of a number of areas including tech diving courses and wreck courses, as well as bits an pieces of advance PADI coursework, but the best individual certification that addresses individual competence and survivability underwater is the SDI Solo Diver Course.

I took the course with Nicola Martin on the Explorer Venture live aboard off of Turks and Caicos, not to learn the skills (I already used them regularly) but to get the C-Card. Pre-requisites to take the course were having at least 100 dives logged. For me, the key advantage of getting this cert was that in a lot of locations now, showing this card saves me from being assigned to an arbitrary buddy. As a photo diver, that means that I can concentrate on getting the shot, rather than keeping a stressed out divemaster happy that he or she is being followed by all of his or her ducks.

Even if you never want to do a decompression dive, get technical, or penetrate a wreck, even if you never want to actually dive alone, I highly recommend this program. You'll be a better diver for it.

OLYMPUS USA - let the buyer beware.

What can you do when you feel as though a camera company that you trusted sells you a defective product, refuses to honor its warranty, and calls you liar? If you are like me, and you are dealing with OLYMPUS USA, you pay up and shut up, like a sucker. But at least I can tell you the story so that you don’t have to make the same mistake.

I bought an OLYMPUS PT-020 Underwater Camera case for my OLYMPUS C-5060 Wide Zoom Early last year. After the third use, the bolts that hold a base plate to the bottom of the camera broke free. It seems that the Lexan that supported the bolts crumbled.

I sent the camera housing back to Olympus for what I thought would be a quick repair as the camera housing broke under normal use. But then, I had expected OLYMPUS to support its warranty like the reputable companies with whom I normally deal.

I received a letter back that stated my the damage to my “Camera” was “..not covered under warranty” and that I could have my housing repaired for twenty dollars less than what I paid for my housing new.

Of course this had to be mistake, I thought, and I called Olympus. As it turns out, I was not allowed to speak with the department that supposedly evaluated my housing, but seeing that they called it a camera and not a housing, I doubted if it was ever seriously looked at it. In the end, after 7 phone calls and more than three hours of time trying to get someone who looked at the housing or had any authority on the line, I got a Customer Service rep name Lori, who was at least honest enough to tell me that the technical people at Olympus said that there is no doubt that I tampered with the screws and broke the housing myself.

I assured her that I did not do that and had no reason to do so. She told me, “These are the facts. You broke the housing yourself and that is not covered by Warranty.” But it was simply untrue. I had never touched the screws that broke. She stated that there was no possibility that the camera could have been defective.

In the end, it seemed almost as though I had to “buy back” my housing from OLYMPUS. I wouldn’t call what they did overt extortion or theft, but as I was heading out on assignment to Grand Cayman Island in three weeks and I had already purchased spare lenses and strobes for this camera, I was in no position to do anything but give in and send them more money to get the housing fixed.

Needless to say, I will never buy another OLYMPUS product. Not a camera, not memory, nor even a battery. A company that doesn’t honor it warranty, no matter how nice their products *seem* to be, is just too risky to do business with. And even more than that, there is the question of honor. I never do business with people that I can’t trust. I feel the same way about corporations.

Let the buyer beware.

Final Note: As much as Olympus claimed there was no problem with their housings one of the ultimate authorities on undewater photography, Cathy Church, reported this EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!! Now how can OLYMPUS claim innocence on this one? I smell a class action law suit!

From Cathy's web site (http://www.cathychurch.com/latestdv.html):

Olympus systems--housing tips for older compact digital housings
Be careful with plastic housings. Sometimes screws have been over-tightened at the factory and they develop stress cracks. I recommend that you loosen all screws at least very slightly. Some people even remove the accessory fitting on the top. Beware of using the Ultralight trays with a riser on the back. If not positioned clearly away from the edge of the back door, they will cause a major flood. Be sure that the lip of the tray is either fully between the two rear feet and the tripod foot (i.e. under the housing) or outside of the door completely, holding it shut, but not under the door pressing the door upward. Also, watch the red back-door o-ring. It can jump out of its groove and cause a major flood. Visually check the seating of the O-ring as you close the door, and again after it is closed, especially if you have any difficulty closing the latches. As with all cameras, check it carefully in a tub of fresh water before heading underwater.

Air Jamaica comes through!!!

We were headed to Bonaire with the gang from Adventure Scuba, located in Conshohocken, PA and after paying my way, realized that we were traveling on the dreaded AIR JAMAICA, an airline that I did not trust, not by reputation, but by prejudice. How could the flag airline of such a poor country, with such a limited infrastructure, be reliable or even safe? Boy was I nervous. I had images of the cockpit full of dreadlocked Rastafarian fighter pilots smoking spleefs, and doing loop-de-loops and drag-racing their hundred million dollar Airbuses. And that was just on the runway.

The flight down to Bonaire was problem free, and the stay at Buddy Dive was wonderful. It was on the way home that the problems started. We checked the weather on the Internet prior to departure. It seems a 'bad-assed blizzard from hell' was working it's way up and down the east coast and our connection back in to Philly from Kingston would definitely be questionable.

Still, Air Jamaica Mon, took off on the first leg with hearty, "No worries, Mon." Being a flock of mostly neurotic Northeasterners, we did plenty of "worries, Mon" and low and behold, as we were approaching Jamaica we were informed that our connecting flight home was cancelled, due to weather.

If you happened to be on a container ship anywhere in the Caribbean at the time of that announcement you could have looked up towards a speck moving across the sky and wondered what that agonized groan was that was coming from the heavens. Had all of the frustrations of every Philly sports fan of the last 100 years collected into a living, whining entity? Was it a badly constipated choir of angels? Nope, it was about 200 dive travelers realizing that they would now be stuck in the Kingston Airport until the east coast recovered from the storm.

There were a lot of experienced travellers on board and we never expected what happened next. Immediately there was an announcement: We were to be put up at an all-inclusive resort, on the ocean, with the stay, food and drinks, all provided for free and flown back to Philadelphia the next day, at no cost.

If this had happened with any US flagged carrier, make that any other carrier I could think of, we all would have been left to sleep in the airport and maybe given a food voucher. If it was US Air, I could imagine that they would have a Customer Torture Representative deliver a hearty slap to each passenger as the de-planed.

But this was Air Jamaica, who I would fly again any day. And then even they apologized for our inconvenience. Bravo!

Olympus Finally Responds...

So after three emails and two phone calls (total wait time so far: 20 minutes), I have and answer from OLYMPUS regarding my request for repair of my PT-020 Underwater Housing.

It seems that they think that I sent them a camera, not a housing, and that the materials that the housing is made of is not indeed the materials part of "materials and workmanship." Sure, that's counter intuitive and makes no sense whatsoever, but there's more. There is also some confusion - from the wording of "Aneel"'s letter - about whether the damage of my housing was inside or outside of the product.

What I am beginning to suspect is that Aneel did not actually read what my concern was with the product and simply put out a form letter saying, "NOT COVERED BY WARRANTY".

I'm hoping that speaking with a live human might get my concerns addressed, but my confidence is low, and I am now pricing out options for replacement of the housing by HELIX and Ikelite. Sure, they are more expensive, but I never heard of warranty issues with these guys.

I'll try again tomorrow and report back how it goes.

OLYMPUS: Not Covered by Warranty!!!

Does Olympus stand by their products? It looks like not. I received back the reply from Olympus Service after they received my PT-020 Camera Housing for my camera and this was their reply, “The terms of warranty coverage does not apply to this situation. The fee to repair this product is $135.68.”

This is, of course, outrageous. The unit cost $175 to begin with. The pieces that broke were made from the lexan shell material. The screw holes stripped because the material was not strong enough. If this happened to me, I wonder how many other consumers have had the same experience. I’m completely astonished.

Worse, if a company does not support their products and honor their Warranty, how can you justify buying their products, at all? I have heard horror stories in the past of fly-by-night, small companies pulling this kind of deception and unscrupulous behavior, but I never thought that company of the size of and with the reputation of OLYMPUS would try this.

Are they in financial trouble? Can they not afford to stand by their products? I have sent a response to them urging them to reconsider via email. It’s been three days now and I have not received a reply. I’ll be sure to post their answer, what ever it might be.

Any company that does not stand by its products is not worth doing business with. Let’s see how Olympus responds.

This Slipper Lobster was posing on a sea fan for me. He was very patient as he saw I was using a housed Olympus camera and he knew that I would experience shutter lag. I was cursing through my regulator the entire time I was shooting this series because I wasn't sure if any of the shots would come out OK. I think this one did. It's amazing how a camera system that at one time seemed so great can now be such a let down. Next time... get a better camera! 

Super Product? Olympus PT-020 Falls Short

Maybe you do get what you pay for. I have had my PT-020 Olympus Underwater Housing for about half a year now and I've only had it on a few trips, but already the rubber stoppers has fallen off on the inside of the unit and the Lexan screws that hold the counter weight have cracked and stripped. And this was not under very heavy use.

I've sent the product (it has a 2 year warranty) to Olympus for repair. We'll see how it turns out.

I'm still pretty happy with my Olympus Camera - the CW-5060 is pretty darn good for the price, but it still has some very frustrating lag times between the time you push the shutter button and the time the photo is made, but that's another story. Let's just say I could have won a Pulitzer with the photos that got away...

Night of the Nurse Shark

I was doing a night dive off the M.V. Turks and Caicos Explorer (which I loved) when I hear a shout through a regulator behind me. I turn - in the dark mind you - to see a three foot long shark swimming between my fins and towards my torso. Immediately, my sphincter tightens and nearly swallows my wetsuit. Then I take a good look and I realize that it's just a dumb ol nurse shark, and a small one, at that, and that he's swimming lazily up the length of my body, towards my head.

I figure he somehow got caught up in the pack of divers and just wanted to swim by, so I do a barrel roll to let him pass, but he stays right with me, like a synchronized swimmer. He's still swimming up my body and now he's getting close to my mask and regulator, so I roll to the opposite side, but he stays with me again. At this point he is getting too close to my face and I take my camera and put the strobe right into the middle of his snout and gently push him away.

I mean, it wasn't like he was aggressive, it was more like he was needy. The shark swims away from me to the nearest diver, John, who is from, of all places, Philadelphia. John sees the shark and freaks. All of a sudden he is swimming on his back kicking with his legs spread like he is at the gynecologist's office and the shark is the doctor. And the shark keeps coming towards him, lazily, with not the slightest hint of aggression. And after all, it's just a Nurse shark.

It's starting to look like the shark just wants to rest his chin on the John's belly but John is flailing away with his arms and legs trying to get away in the most desperate and spastic backstroke that I have ever seen in my life.

Suddenly, things took a turn for the worse. I'm in real trouble because I'm laughing so hard that I'm getting water in my mask and regulator. As I'm choking and laughing and swimming over to John in order to push the shark away, I see him pull his arm back and punch the shark - right smack dead-on in the middle of his nose.

Nice punch, but the shark barely slows down. John keeps trying to work away, but the shark keeps up with him and this time, John, who is about 6'2" tall, in his early 20's, and quite muscular, takes his time, winds up and proceeds to punch the shark as hard as I have ever seen a punch delivered underwater. The shark was clearly stunned. It may have been the punch or it may have been the rejection, but at this point the shark swims off, clearly dejected.

After we surfaced and debriefed, it turned out the guy who yelled through his regulator to warn me about the shark pushed him away first. This shark had molested three divers in one dive. We weren't sure what he was doing, but he never bit or even bumped us. In a conversation a month later with Alex Mustard the biologist, he suggested that this nurse shark may have learned how to use divers lights to hunt for prey like Tarpon do in Florida and Jacks in Belize.

That was the only explanation that made sense of this sharks behavior save one; maybe he just liked boys. In any event, I was sure to thoroughly wash my wetsuit.

Ocean Frontiers on the East End of Grand Cayman Island is consistently one of the best regarded dive operations in the Caribbean. In September, 2005, I worked with co-owner Steve Broadbelt to create and promote a new PADI Distinctive Specialty that was written specifically for the unique environment of the reefs off of the East End.
The full scope of the success of this distinctive specialty remains to be seen. Just based upon attendance, it has already brought new students and divers to Ocean Frontiers. But due to the originality of the program and the buzz that it has generated, the team at Ocean Frontiers fully expects the program to be even more popular next year.

Turks and Caicos Sponges -

I just spent a week on an incredible live-aboard dive boat - the M.V. Turks and Caicos Explorer II. I didn't know what to expect because these guys don't advertise as much as the Aggressor Fleet and therefore they aren't seen as much in the scuba press for hire.

What I found was an incredible and wonderful surprise. An outstanding and professional crew, amazingly good food and great diving, to boot. I was lucky to have been ship board with some of the nicest people that I have ever dived with. And I also had a great chance to test out my new INON D200o Underwater Strobe. After working out some settings it performed very, very well. Expanding my photo capabilities and adding color to my underwater creativity (Check out the shot, above). And at decent price, too.

Next Up - The Turks & Caicos Explorer II - I'm heading out Saturday, August 6, for a week at sea with a new undwater strobe for my housed camera. I should be able to bring back a bunch of new shots and topics for discussion of relaxed diving techniques.  

Spa and Scuba - what could be more perfect together? A great day in the Caribbean sun, interactions with beautiful exotic sea creatures, and a professional deep-tissue massage to work out those last tweaks and twinges left over from your day-to-day tensions from back home. Sunscape Puerto Aventuras has found the mix. Pro-Dive Mexico is their on-site dive operator. They get consistent 5-star ratings from travel reviews on the web.

Their brand new spa is top notch as well - outfitted with masseurs, facials, hydro-treatments, pedicure and manicure, and much, much more. I sampled their Hot Stone Massage and I have to say that it was -without a doubt - the most relaxing massage that I can remember.

A week of diving with Pro-Dive Mexico and a few treatments from the Sunscape Puerto Aventuras Spa were all it took for me to melt into the ocean and forget all of my aches, pains and cares.
 

Where's Waldo? - Can you pick out the peacock flounder in this photo? He takes up most of the frame, but his camoflage is outstanding. This was shot at El Castillo, a dive site that is about a 10 minute boat run from Pro-Dive Mexico's slip at the Suncape Puerto Aventuras.