Great view of a sand tiger shark. This big boy was about six feet long and he looked hungry. Nice set of choppers, too. All in all, I'd like to avoid him as a dive buddy but I'll be looking into the volunteer process at the Aquarium next week when I'm back from North Dakota. Maybe I will be swimming with this cuddly fellow after all. 

Another great reason to use the Olympus c5060 Wide Zoom Camera. - It's small enough not to be a pain in the butt when carrying it around a park all day, but still diverse and advanced enough to get great shots, like this one of what seems to be a penguin flying through the air. Actually his is underwater and I was lucky enough to catch him where there weren't too many smudges on the tank glass. 

New Jersey Mall Rat Harbor Seal - You don't see a lot of these little guys in the water off of New Jersey, but they are great to watch at the Adventure Aquarium. Talk about a turn-around. It went from the most boring aquarium that I've ever visited to a great adventure. Bring the kids. Bring the pets. Bring your camera. 

Adventure Aquarium in Camden New Jersey - Well Worth the Trip. - This school of fish is actually a mobile in the main atrium of the new aquarium. 

Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom Camera, Housed, Rear View - Note the view finder in the rear and all of the controls available for underwater composition. I have a 1.5 GB of memory in the two slots available in this camera allowing for 1200 photos - or something like 1/2 hour of video - before I have to change the memory cards. The battery lasts a long time. On my last trip, one charge lasted four dives.

Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom Camera, housed in a PT-020 Olympus Underwater Housing, with Ruler for Scale - Front View 

Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom Digital Camera, PT-020 Underwater Housing and a ruler for Scale. Note how many control buttons and knobs are situated on the back and top of the unit. Still, it can be set to work like a point-and-shoot camera, if you want.

Olympus Underwater Camera – Land Photography – Quality, Capability, Adaptability and Ease of Use, All for a Low Price.

Zen Diving is all about relaxed, gentle diving that causes minimal stress for the diver. Underwater Photography however, is a very equipment and cost intensive dive specialty. Still my creative side demanded that I get involved with underwater photography – especially for this Weblog. My problem was, “How could I get involved in quality photography without spending an arm and a leg (stressful) and having to lug around tons of equipment on every trip (stressful).

I did some research and quickly realized that I needed to use a good camera for underwater photography so that I could eventually grow into manual composition and advanced photography – IF I wanted to – WITHOUT having to buy a new camera. I also wanted a camera that I could use on land to take pictures of the wild life on the islands that I visit, which I absolutely love to do. I did not want to lug around two cameras, however.

I started researching on the web and found out very quickly that the Olympus was branding their own underwater housings for their C-5060 Wide Zoom camera, which was a Consumer Reports best buy camera that I was able to get for less than $500 at Walmart. I was surprised because I had thought a good land camera that put out enough megapixels for my purposes (which I had set at 5 megapixels), was going to cost me at least $700.

The real shock came when I found out the Olympus housing for the camera, good to 130 feet of sea water, only cost $200. Custom made underwater camera housings can cost well over $1000 and usually start in price around $500. I was blown away.

I did a final check with an underwater photo pro friend of mine – Dr. Alex Mustard - who said that this is the best value in underwater photography that he knows of, and that he has a lot of photos published that he took with a housed C-5060 Wide Zoom.

In the end, I purchased the Olympus and the housing. I have had it in the water several times since. The photos are excellent and it’s very easy to operate. Many of the underwater and surface shots that you see on this blog are from that camera.

A summary of the Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom and housing:

It is very compact – easy to travel with. (reduces stress)
It has more controls for more specialized photo features than I could ever use, but it’s easy to use and produces great photos in the easy, automatic mode, which allows you to concentrate on enjoying the dive.
It is a great land camera as well as underwater camera so you don’t have to travel with two cameras.
You can take underwater video with it, as well.
The price makes it the only near-professional quality underwater camera that you can get, fully functional, with housing for $700. Saving money is good for the soul.

Have you noticed? I love this camera.

Val and Josephine: Pre-Dive Meditation

Pre-Dive Meditation

Pre-Dive Meditation is a Mind, Body and Spirit Scuba skill that is about getting yourself calm and into a relaxed place in preparation for the best possible dive. All of the world’s best breath-hold free divers use similar skills to relax and prepare for their deep dives. Scuba divers can use the same breathing and concentration techniques in order to use their air slower, approach sea life closer, and provide for a more enjoyable dive.

On the right in this photo is Val Y., a formerly nervous diver who overcame her equalization problems with a little direction from MBS training. Now she is an outstanding diver who can handle just about any conditions. On the left is Josephine M. who was has learned to conquer pre-dive jitters with a little help from MBS scuba.

In the middle is a frog. Frogs don’t scuba dive.

Happy Diver: Val Improvising Pre-Dive Stretches
Mind, Body and Spirit Scuba – A Case Study

Two years ago, a co-worker of mine, Valerie Y., and I were talking about scuba diving. Val, it seems had passed her certification a few years back but no longer had a dive buddy and wanted to start diving again. She also had problems equalizing on her last dives and was concerned that she might not be able to dive, even if she did find a buddy.

I taught Val how to visualize herself completing the dive and the equalization perfectly, as a way to practice and prepare herself for her refresher dives. This visualization is a skill that is part of the Mind, Body and Spirit Scuba program. It worked, and Val and I have been diving together a few times a season ever since. She even took a three week dive trip to Australia and Palau. Yesterday we were at the Dutch Springs quarry practicing underwater relaxation breathing, hand feeding wild bass, and staring at the ‘Nuclear Goldfish’. At one point, we were sitting next to a woman who was concerned about having difficulty equalizing. Val helped her out with some expert advice, and when we asked the woman later, it worked like a charm. You go, Val.

If you haven’t been diving in a while and feel that you don’t have a dive buddy to get back into the water with, contact your local dive shop for a refresher course and ask if there is a dive club that might provide you with an experienced buddy. It’s a lot better than not diving, and who knows, maybe you could make a new friend.

Spawning Coral

This photo of spawning coral was taken last year during the annual Caymanian coral spawn by Dr. Alexander Mustard, Marine Biologist. Dr. Mustard is the first biologist to be able to predict with accuracy when the corals will spawn and which species will be doing the spawning. Dr. Mustards photos and research have been regularly posted on the Ocean Frontiers website.

www.oceanfrontiers.com

It's an Orgy!!! A coral orgy!

It's getting close to spawning time for the corals on Grand Cayman Island and there's incredible sexual tension on the reef. That's because during the second week of September, when the coral spawns, Marine Biologist Alex Mustard, Ph.D. will be leading the Eco Week at Ocean Frontiers. I will be down there as well certifying divers in my new PADI Distinctive Specialty - Coral Reef Naturalist - which is based on findings from Dr. Mustard's research into coral behavior.

Today, I completed the course outline and will be sending it off to PADI, the scuba certification agency for approval tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to working with Alex and Ocean Frontiers, which is one of the best dive operations in the Caribbean. Rodale Scuba Diving keeps rating them the top outfit on Grand Cayman.

And Dr. Mustard tells me that these exhibitionist orgying corals don't mind the
attention (as long as you don't shine lights in their eyes). It's going to be a
great week on Grand Cayman.

For more information, check it out at http://www.oceanfrontiers.com/.

Just Float - Lose the Stress 

The Dangers of Skinny Diving

What it’s about is fun. Diving in Tahiti or diving in a swimming pool, the reason you trained and bought all your gear, travel and read magazines about diving is to have fun. Sometimes we forget that.

Underwater photography is a great case in point. A few years back I was using a housed Minolta SLR to shoot photos on just about every dive. I spent hours making sure that the camera was ready, the lenses and ports were ready, batteries for the camera and strobe, enough back up film and batteries. Everything clean and lubed and ready in its case. Then when I got in the water, everything was about the shot. Finding it, setting it up, taking it, re-thinking the shot and then wondering where the fish got to.

Sometimes I’d go through an entire dive trip and it seemed like I had never taken my head out of the viewfinder. The specialty was eating up the joy of diving. I stopped diving with a camera for a long time.

Recently I bought an Olympus C-5060 Digital Camera and housed it for underwater photos. Now when I go down with the camera I make sure that I spend as much time concentrating on breathing and meditating while underwater as I do working photos. It’s a lot different – more enjoyable now – and the photos are better, too.

Every dive should have a certain amount of where the diver is dedicated to simply being underwater. Breathing right, purposely clearing the mind, and getting back in touch with the self. No where is this easier for a competent diver than when underwater. The water relaxes the muscles by negating gravity and the water insulates us from the stress and ambient microwave energy that flows though us when we are on the surface. It’s like a mini-vacation for our bodies.

Sometimes that’s all you need for a great dive.