karenp

I can really appreciate this topic because even though my daughter is not yet 2 years old, I have been dreaming of the day when she can dive with me. I've begun taking her to swim lessons, we're members at our local aquarium and she has fallen in love with the ocean and can already identify sharks, seahorses as well as "fish." Several of you have brought up the stark reality of the physiology involved with diving and how little we really know about it's impact on developing bodies and it has made me really think about what kind of risks I'm willing to expose her to at such a young age (8 - 12 years, not right now.) I imagine what little info there is on kids diving there is even less on girls but I'll have to look into that. If it means that I wait until she's 16 or 18 before I dive with her I'm okay with that. I'll just have to find other water activities we can share.

Last time I went to Hawaii here's what I did. I checked my housing, extension rings, strobes and arms in a hard shell suitcase. I insulated everything with my wetsuit, towel and some packing material and said a little prayer. I carried on my camera body, lenses and my regulator in a camera backpack and my glass dome port in a pelican carry-on. Everything arrived just fine and I had a layover in Honolulu on my way to Kona. I'm about to head out to Grand Cayman and I think I'll be doing something similar. You might want to check to make sure your airline doesn't have weight restrictions on the carry on, I remember reading somewhere that they are starting to enforce this.

My favorite boat is no longer in operation but the dive shop we used to book the trip was excellent. They are located in Patong Beach. I dove with them two years in a row in 2004 and 2005 in March/April. I would recommend booking beforehand as I don't recall if February is still high season or not. If it's not high season then I would wait - they'll probably have good discounts however, diving in Thailand is pretty cheap (or it was.) Here's a link to their website: http://www.scandinavian-divers.com/liveaboard_list.php I have fallen in love with Thailand and hope to return to dive soon!

Great question! I'll be there the week after next - can' t wait to see some pics!

Thanks for the great suggestions! I'm actually getting excited now that there seems to be some healthy reefs out there. I had thought perhaps they'd been mostly trampled. I'm going to check out Dive Tech and Ocean Frontiers. I'll let my friends know about the beach dive off Turtle Farm Reef and will probably be my first dive. One of my friends is "dying" to do the Sting Ray City dive. I'm not really interested but is this something I should see? Karen

Thanks Giles! I'm planning on doing some easy dives to ease back into the water and perhaps will leave the more interesting stuff for a later during my stay. This may not be the time to also try to re acquaint myself with my camera though. Karen

Hi Folks, Well, I've been out of the water for a couple of years due to the birth of my lovely daughter but now I'm getting ready to get back in the water. I'm going with a group of friends to Grand Cayman (also with hubby and daughter) and was hoping for recommendations on where the best diving might be or for any dive operator recommendations. I suspect the East End is where the best diving is - is that true? I'm on the fence as whether to take my u/w setup but as this will not be an exclusive diving vacation I'm thinkin' it may not be worth lugging all that weight around. I have an aquatica housing for my Fuji S2. Anyway, any pointers, suggestions etc about diving or good eats, or just about anything is appreciated. B) Dive away!

Strobes for sure, you'll want those wide angle shots as mentioned in the previous post. Just a quick note on the dome port - just be extra careful as you may hit some pretty bad currents. I dive with an Aquatica housing and my dome port is HUGE. Not sure how it compares to yours but I had to be careful to not let it bang against the reef with one hand as I held onto dear life with the other. The current was so strong it plastered our bodies flat against the reef, but I expect you may already be aware of that. Topside on Cocos, they don't really let you spend too much time on the island although we snuck away from the group and went exploring. Nice river near the main camp you can swim in but can't remember too many other photo ops. If you are doing in rafting on Costa Rica - you can get some beautiful river/waterfall shots if you're willing to risk your camera getting wet. You can keeping it in the housing but someone in our party had problems with it fogging. Have a great time!

Hi, My husband and I are going to Bali in September and I could use some suggestions for making the most of my limited diving opportunities. My husband is not a diver but I've managed to wrangle diving for 3 days out of the 7 we will be in Bali. I can't go there and not dive! The perils of marrying a landlubber ;-) Anyway, we will be staying in Jimbaran Bay which is a bit far from some of the dive sites as far as I can tell, but I don't care how far or how long the drive is to get to the better dive sites. I prefer wide angle but do have a 60mm lens I will also take along. I will try to see if I can get in three dives per day if I can but will definitely do no less than two. Any suggestions on "can't miss" or "you'll regret not going there" sites would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Karen

I personally hate to carry heavy carry-on unless I have wheels. I've had to run from one terminal to another too many times ;-) I pack both my macro and dome ports in a pelican case with all the arms, sync cords and gears. I then put that inside a big gear back with my housing wrapped in my wetsuit, strobes and my clothing and scuba gear. This is checked. I carry on my camera, lenses, computer in a backpack and my regulator and dive computers in a smaller carry-on. I know I risk getting hosed if it's ever lost or stolen but I find carrying the Aquatica housing and ports too heavy. I guess I must be a wimp ;-)

I have had no problems with my housing and have been diving in challenging conditions with ripping current and in nice calm waters. I've had no problems on land or underwater. That said I do have my rig insured.

I was in Cocos last July and I took my 17-35 as well as my 50mm. Unfortunately, we did not have good luck in spotting too many hammerheads. Lots of silkies and silvertip sharks, rays and a couple of mantas. Unfortunately, I must have had bad picture Karma because I could not get close enough to get any hammerhead shots with my 17-35, but I would definitely take your wide angle lens. I did get some neat shots of marble rays and sharks with that lense. I'd just like to give you a heads up that the currents are incredible and sometimes diving with the large dome port was tricky. Trying to hold on to the reef and keeping the dome port from smashing into the reef took some doing. It was exciting! Because of the scarcity of schooling hammerheads or whalesharks, I did end up getting more shots with my 50mm than with my 17-35, but some of that is just luck. Good luck!

You might be interested in Photo Mechanic. I tried it on my Mac and it was faster than Photoshop CS for browsing. You can try it for a short period of time to test it out before buying it. The link to it is: http://www.camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html Good luck and let me know how you like it; hopefully this will be helpful to you. -Karen

Thanks for the advice! I was planning on diving with Dive Makai and some shore diving. I think I'll go with the macro set up. I'll post some pics when I get back. Karen

I'm traveling to Hawaii this upcoming weekend to get some diving in. I'm only going to be there for a couple of days so I'm considering only taking either my wide angle set up or my macro set for my Fuji S2 in order to keep my luggage load lighter. Can I get away with just my macro set up? I know not having a wide angle lens virtually guarantees big animal sightings but is there a good variety of macro shots I could take? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Karen