edpdiver

I just returned from a very nice trip to Little Cayman. My wife and I stayed nine nights at Little Cayman Beach Resort, where we have been twice before. Little Cayman has my favorite Caribbean diving. The Bloody Bay Wall has wonderful healthy reefs, and incredible topography.

 

Here are some pics from the trip, a few macro and a few wide angle to give a sense of what it was like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

and here is the link to the whole set: Flickr set of Little Cayman pics

 

 

 

One of my pictures was published on the Smithsonian Institution's website. The title of the article was

 

   Surprising Science: The Ten Best Ocean Stories of 2012

 

and the picture that they included was the one shown below.

 

 

- Erwin

I saw this interesting critter on a muck dive in Raja Ampat at a site called Algae Patch II. It was at a depth of ~12 meters, probably about 5 cm long. It looks like some sort of dragonet?

 

My wife and I took a 14 night trip on the Seven Seas through Raja Ampat. It was our third trip to Raja Ampat, and the diving was excellent, as was the boat. The crew on the Seven Seas was uniformly good. The dive guides were helpful and knowledgeable, and the rest of the crew were also good at their jobs. There were 14 passengers on our trip, 12 divers, and surprisingly, 2 snorkelers (who also had a great time). The boat was comfortable and the food was very good. I would strongly recommend going on this boat. We did three or four dives per day, which is less than some liveaboards, but just right for me. Basically, the schedule alternated with eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, etc., starting with a pre-breakfast between 6 and 7:30am and the first dive typically starting at 7:45am. One bit of interesting information that we learned is that this is the last season (for the time being) that the boat is going to cruise Raja Ampat. They feel, justifiably, that the region is getting crowded with liveaboards, so they are going to substitute a new dive region into their plans starting next year. Specifically, they will dive the South Komodo region, and they are confident it will be a great area to dive, with aspects similar to Raja Ampat diving. Should be interesting.

 

Here are some pics from the trip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the whole set can be found here: 2013 Raja Ampat photos on Flickr

 

-Erwin

I just got a Nikon D7000, Nauticam housing, and Inon Z240 strobes (changing from D200 in a Subal housing). I took it for a dive in Florida (Tracy wreck in Fort Lauderdale, aka Ken Vitale memorial). Here are a couple of shots I took. It is going to take a while to get comfortable with the changes, but I already like it.