Pfuller

Does anyone have any opinions on which Beqa lagoon shark dive is best? From my research the original shark dive is "the bistro" and the newer shark dive is at "the cathedral" - or "big fish encounters." Has anyone dived both and list the pros and cons?

Do a search for Bokeh on google.

I'm from Australia and will be in San Franciso for work in early October, and have two weeks free to travel. The Channel islands are on the list, and possibly Monterey Bay but where else should i dive?? I'm interested in unique wide-angled opportunities, either big landscapes or big critters. October doesn't seem to be the peak period for any big critter sightings but here's what i've shortisted so far: * Great White Sharks at Guadaulpe - Big females arrive around October apparently, however we do have cage diving in Australia and its pretty similarly priced (e.g bloody expensive). * Cancun/Playa del Carman - I'd love to dive some Cenotes and the ocean diving looks good too. What can i expect this time of year? Are there any good Manta or Shark photo sites around Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, etc? Will Mantas/Hammerheads be at Los Picos? Wrong season for Sailfish??? Bull Sharks? * Florida - Would Crystal River be the best for the Manatees in October? Is this a good time for reliable sightings? * Northern Channel Islands - should i do a liveaboard or day trips? Any recommendations? * Hawaii - Black Water dive and Manta night dive. * Any other Carribean sites? Any advice appreciated. I plan on travelling inland in my first free week to see topside wildlife such as Yosimite, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, (Las vegas) etc, then back to LA to dive the Channel Islands. The second week i plan to dedicate to diving. Would i be better to just focus on California? I'm very happy in temperate water and looking forward to the giant Kelp forests, but is there enough to keep me occupied around the Channel Islands and Monterey Bay? Thanks in advance! Pete

I just wanted to follow up this thread and say that we ended up staying on Mabul and felt very safe. We stayed at Scuba Junkie which exceeded our expectations in all areas. Lovely rooms, good food, good people and well organised diving with well controlled numbers. Night diving is still banned on the island, but there was enough to see during the day to keep us very satisfied. We only managed one day of diving on Sipidan and it was fantastic for wide-angle creature encounters (reef sharks, bumpheads, turtles, jacks etc) A big surprise was Si Amil which had world class muck diving. A dive on Meditation \Wall had me scrambling between subjects from Twin-spotted Lionfish and frogfish to a 20bar enounter with Flambouyant Cuttlefish. Then First Beach turned up a 20-bar Hairy Frogfish to make my last subject of the trip. Mabul and Kapalai also had great muck critter diving. I'm really glad we made the decision to stay on Mabul and visit Sipidan...it's very high on my return visit list. Mixed with the primate and other jungle life, Borneo makes a fantastic destination. Its just a pity the Palm Oil industry is so big...you have to see it to believe how vast the plantations are! very sad. Thanks for everyone's feedback.

Thanks for the reply drew! I know it's a fairly redundant question... I'm basically digging for a nugget that I can convince my partner with but I it will have to be a pretty big one! At the end of the day the risks are looking too great so we might have to stick to the west. One option I found on the net is Miri. It seems expensive but the oil rug dive sounds reasonable and some nice coral gardens. Have any wetpixelers dived out this way?

This is the latest travel advice from an Australian Government Website: We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to the coastal region of eastern Sabah due to the ongoing threat of kidnapping by militant and criminal groups based in the southern Philippines and violence linked to insurgency and terrorists. The kidnapping threat in eastern Sabah includes dive sites and associated tourist facilities. The kidnapping threat is highest in the area between the towns of Sandakan and Tawau due to its proximity to the Sulu archipelago in the southern Philippines. There are recent indications that extremists may be in the advanced stages of planning to kidnap foreigners from locations in this vicinity. On 6 May 2014, a foreign worker was kidnapped at gunpoint from a fish farm near the coastal town of Pulau Baik near Lahad Datu. In April 2014, a foreign tourist and a local employee were kidnapped from the Singamata Reef Resort in eastern Sabah. In November 2013, two foreign tourists were attacked in their room at the Sipadan Pom Pom Resort, off the coast of eastern Sabah. A male tourist was murdered in the attack and his wife was kidnapped and held captive for many months. These incidents highlight the ongoing risk of violent crime, including kidnapping, in eastern Sabah by groups based in the southern Philippines. The Sabah Government has introduced new security measures and access controls of waterways in the region.

We have a trip booked to dive sipidan staying at Mabul in two weeks time. There's been a number of kidnappings of locals and tourists this year around semporna and up the east coast of Borneo which was going to be focus of our travels. Is it safe to travel in this area at this time? Or should we just dive on the west coast somewhere? Any suggestions on west coast diving this time if year?

Oceanic datamask - used on about 10 dives and near new. Comes in original box with air integrated transmitter that screws into your first stage and all accessories. (Data transfer cable, mask case, instruction manual, mask cleaner etc.) $650 + postage. Prefer australian buyer but will ship OS at buyers expense. (Paypal only). An air integrated computer with display in lower right hand corner of the mask. Ideal for photographers immersed in their subject and getting close to deco time or low on air. Just a glance downwards gives you all your dive details without having to take your eyes off your subject or scaring it away with wrist or console check.

I'm interested in the housing. Please PM me.

From what I understand, getting the correct exposure is not the issue with using lights, its the ability to stop motion in fast moving subjects. This is to do with the duration of the strobe burst. Strobes allow high intensity light to be emitted with a relatively short duration, thereby achieving correct exposure in a short enough burst of light to stop motion. If the intensity of light is not strong enough, you have to use a longer duration to "burn" in the exposure, thus creating light trails on faster moving subjects. Has any tests been made to measure the duration of these lights?

There's a keyword that hasn't been raised yet...Respect. Respect for the situation your in underwater. Respect for the laws your body is governed by. Respect for your equipment. Respect for ocean ecology. Respect for your subject. Respect for your buddy. Everyone on this forum would be guilty of being a bit of a dive paparazzi from time to time. But the more aware of your surroundings you are without a camera, the better you'll be with one.

If your shooting full manual (and dont need ttl) you can bypass the chipboards as a workaround. From memory, in the hotshoe, the centre pin is the trigger and the outside of the hotshoe is the ground. There is a small chipboard inside the hotshoe that will make the connections via springs to the hotshoe. You'll just need the trigger wire solded onto the centre pin point on the board correctly, and then have the ground wire solded onto the little metal spring clip that makes contact with the outside of the hotsoe. Make note of these two wire colours and run these to the trigger/ground of the bulk head using the following diagram. http://www.ikelite.com/faq/faq_syncwiring.html

During my visit earlier this month, i was told that seraya secrets has really deteriorated over the last year with many critters leaving the area. Is there an truth to this?

Hi Ken, Thanks for the comprehensive description of the problem. I've just bought two D1's plus a dual Ike to Sea&Sea Sync Cord so your post may be very timely if i encounter issues. I have only used them on four dives(successfully) so far, and have only attached the sync cord once and have left it attached. This was a deliberate act, since as soon as i saw the sea&sea connectors on the sync cord, i got a little bit worried about the build quality and the stability of the connection. I've only really ever worked with the metal ikelite connectors before and they are as sturdy as metal threaded systems can be. The plastic thread of the sea&sea worries the hell out of me for many reasons, but the most concerning was the firmness of the pin connection and the general seating of the O-ring. When i first put it together, i felt i had to be extra cautious to align the pins, get the o-ring into postion, and get the thread started correctly and tightened. I pushed the 'core' on the connector down firmly while tightening the thread fairly tight (with the apprehension of cross threading a plastic thread) and vowed that i'll try minimise the need to connect/disconnect these connections as much as possible, since there is too much room for error. Even with the thread firmly in place there is way too much wooble in the connection for my liking. I'm just hoping its not enough to break the seal of the oring in water if knocked. In regards to the spring loaded screw, i believe these strobes are equipped with a mechanism to detect whether a sync cord is attached, and if so it deactivates the optical sensors. I'd say that this screw would be the switch for this mechanism. It may be that this screw switch can be backed off or tightened (using a phillips head) to adjust for any slight differences in size of the sync cord. Perhaps your cord connector has a couple of extra millimetres of plastic on it, and the switch is sitting out a couple of mills creating the push back on the cord??? You could try adjusting the switch inways and see if that takes the pressure of. I dont have my rig in front of me so i'll check to see if i can replicate the same problem tonight. I have to declare with all this, that i'm coming from a fairly old school setup...the use of big heavy robust Ikelite SS200's with metal sync cords connectors and bulkheads, that could generally take a beating. So this modern use of plastic and small delicate light-weight strobes is new to me, and i'm going to have to change my style of diving to suit these strobes. Cheers, Peter

Thanks for the replies Daniel and Dangerzone. I've settled on flying into Denpasar and doing a few days around tulamben.The diving sounds great and it looks as if it can be done independently on a budget. Picking a liveaboard is my next step. I really want to get to Raja Ampat, but the liveaboards seem very expensive (and i've left booking one very late...i'll be there in the first two weeks of October.) Anyone got any tips on last minute liveaboard negotiations? Is a liveaboard essential to experience the bounty of raja ampat? Komodo is the fallback plan.