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.