Your Chance to Dive with Eric Cheng and Douglas Seifert!

[martys 0]

Hey Eric - I'm out of town for the weekend at Mt Ranier but should be back early Sunday afternoon. I'll try to come by the meet and greet to say Hi since I haven't seen you for like 2 1/2 years. Lots has happened since Palau. Safe diving in the sound, hopefully you'll find some of our great octo's and wolf eels to capure. Rick and Banditos are great, I used to use them alot. Have fun out there.

[ornate_wrasse 0]

I hope everyone checked Bandito's site and is aware you should be bringing your own tanks and weights.

 

I'm in Cozumel right now and will be flying back to Portland tomorrow arriving about 7:30 PM at PDX. Thankfully, I already picked up my tanks and weights before I left for Coz

 

Ellen

[bmyates 3]

Looking forward to seeing everybody - both diving and at the meet & greet! BTW, I just picked up a s#*%load (squidload) of brats and burgers (including veggie, turkey and good ol' cow-flesh) for the meet & greet, so there oughtta be something for everybody!

[ornate_wrasse 0]

Is anybody driving up from Portland on Sunday in time for the Meet and Greet and returning on Monday after the dives on the Bandito?

 

If so, maybe we could drive up together and share expenses.

 

Ellen

[NWDiver 42]

Hi all,

 

Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow! Looks like it will be a hot one, the good news for those coming to the Meet and Greet is we have AC!

[photomrw 0]

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to make sure the Meet & Greet is still on for this evening. Yes, AC sounds great. My phone is (425) 896-8113 if anyone can give a quick call to confirm.

 

Michele Westmorland

[martys 0]

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to make sure the Meet & Greet is still on for this evening. Yes, AC sounds great. My phone is (425) 896-8113 if anyone can give a quick call to confirm.

 

Michele Westmorland

would be great to post up a confirmation, I'm heading over from the eastside as well.

 

thx - Marty.

[echeng 0]

YES, we are still on. See you soon!

 

(I called Michele to confirm)

[echeng 0]

Photos from today's diving on Bandito Charters are below. Special thanks to Martin Heyn for organizing, and to Rick and Jackie for helping to make it all happen!

 

According to Martin's list, today's divers included:

 

Eric

Matt

Carol

Jon

Bruce

Greg

Martin

Simon

Linda

Pgundersons

Pgundersons

Johanna

Zebulen Pike

Kevin Mount

 

Greg Bang, RJ, Matt Segal, Simon Rogerson

 

Carol Grant and Linda Cline

 

Martin Heyn, Bruce Yates, Dave

 

Zeb, Kevin, Johanna, Linda

 

Wetpixel represent!!

 

Rick of Bandito shows off his birthday gifts

 

More birthday gifts for Rick

 

Bandito and friends: Greg, Tom, Rick, Courtney, Jackie, RJ

[echeng 0]

I've created a video of me exporting these images. Here are the images:

 

(Note -- this post will be used in a demo video where I show how you can post images onto Wetpixel from RAW files in just a couple of minutes)

 

Simon Rogerson sleeps

 

Matt Segal sleeps

 

Kids jump off of a bridge

[segal3 0]

I'm not actually asleep there .

[echeng 0]

I know -- I had to think of captions instantly, and was unable to be creative when forced.

 

The video is being encoded by Vimeo, which they estimate to take 45 minutes. Since we have to leave for the meet & greet now, it won't be posted until much later tonight.

 

Not even sure if anyone is interested, but... it's what I do.

[martys 0]

Big thanks to Martin & Julie for hosting a great social event at your beautiful home tonight. It was great seeing familiar faces again and meeting some new ones. The food was delicious, the conversation engaging and just a fun time overall. Eric, Matt, Simon - enjoy the rest of your time up here, hope to see you again some time.

Edited August 18, 2008 by martys

[echeng 0]

I have some photos from tonight that I'll post when I have time. It was a really great event at Martin & Julie's place -- thank you so much!

[echeng 0]

Here's the video. A bit unrelated...

[bmyates 3]

I agree with Marty - it was great to meet a bunch of folks I hadn't met before - and see a few (like Eric) that I knew. Big thanks to Martin for all his work organizing and hosting (with Julie) the meet & greet at their lovely home. I'm at work today (can't you tell?!), so won't be joining everyone diving again, but I hope you all have a great day diving, and once again, it was great seeing you all!

[Alex_Mustard 0]

Looks like great fun. Any UW pictures from the dive to share?

 

Alex

[bmyates 3]

Looks like great fun. Any UW pictures from the dive to share?

Alex

 

I'm sure someone will post some photos, although vis wasn't great so I'm guessing only macro stuff will be very decent. I didn't take ANY photos because my housing is off being modified, so I was diving sans camera! First time in 5 years or so I've been on a dive without one - I felt practically naked!

 

I saw a 3-foot ling cod, and rather than just enjoy the moment, all I could do was think, "If I had my camera, I'd try to shoot him at this angle, etc..." Very sad, really.

[martys 0]

Hey, what was Martin & Julie's gigantic dog's name? She was the life of the party at times ;-)

Edited August 18, 2008 by martys

[davehicks 63]

Looks like great fun. Any UW pictures from the dive to share?

 

Alex

Thanks a lot to Martin and Julie for opening their home to a bunch of fellow divers and hosting a really nice get together. It was a lot of fun to meet everyone.

 

The dive outing Sunday was nice, but water visibility conditions were pretty poor. The summer heat results in alge blooms in Puget Sound and the vis was VERY chunky. The 1st dive was on a wall and we had at best 10' vis below 50fsw. The 2nd dive was to a set of sunken barges and vis was only 3 to 5 feet most of the time. On the plus side, the water temp was around 53-55F so it was actually pretty warm.

 

I did a quick dump of my photos from Sunday's dive outing. Here are a couple of snaps and a link to the gallery.

 

[ Wolf-Eel on North Wall - Tucked into a sandstone ledge ]

 

I switched from wide to macro for the second dive.

 

[ Nudibranch on Maury Island Barges ]

 

[WetPixel - Puget Sound Dive Outing ]

http://www.pbase.com/davehicks/wetpixel_ba...;view=slideshow

 

 

Dave

[martys 0]

I'm sure someone will post some photos, although vis wasn't great so I'm guessing only macro stuff will be very decent. I didn't take ANY photos because my housing is off being modified, so I was diving sans camera! First time in 5 years or so I've been on a dive without one - I felt practically naked!

 

I saw a 3-foot ling cod, and rather than just enjoy the moment, all I could do was think, "If I had my camera, I'd try to shoot him at this angle, etc..." Very sad, really.

it's a very freeing experience to be in the water sans camera. you just kind of cross your arms, hang out and enjoy the scenery. I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it when I did that on a couple of dives towards the end of a week long trip a while ago. I already had several hundred images from the trip and I wanted to just enjoy the scenary and collect the memories.

[bmyates 3]

it's a very freeing experience to be in the water sans camera. . .just enjoy the scenary and collect the memories.

 

Clearly, Marty, you have not yet reached the "highest" level of underwater photography, where it's not a real memory unless you captured it with a photo or video!

[mandarinfish 0]

I too enjoyed meeting everyone and diving yesterday. And I'm sorry to have had to miss the Meet & Greet last night, but I had to drive back down to Portland and get back to the Intel grind today. Sounds like it turned out to be a wonderful time. Thanks to Martin for organizing the day, and to Carol and Johanna for diving with me.

 

As mentioned, the viz was pretty poor yesterday. I'm trying out a new Seatool D300 housing, but struggled with the AF-ON button, which is just too far for me to reach, especially with gloves on. I'll have to think of a way to modify that for easier access.

 

Here are a few photos from yesterday, though they are still due a bit of touchup and some fine tuning..

 

Carol found this lovely little octopus, not much bigger than a large blue-ring (not sure if this was a small red, or a really young GPO; I'll take a closer look later) Update: this was a red octopus, and not a GPO:

 

 

There were lots of these janolus fuscus around, so a hatch must have taken place recently. This one was on a nicely dark algae frond:

 

A little crescent gunnel:

 

The Indo-Pacific has some great decorator crabs, but we have some cools ones too in PNW waters:

 

I hope we'll see more stuff from the folks who are back out on the boat today.

 

Linda

 

Edited to clarify octopus was a red and not a GPO.

Edited August 19, 2008 by mandarinfish

[Alex_Mustard 0]

Thanks Linda and Dave.

 

Great to see what you saw.

 

Alex

[martys 0]

Clearly, Marty, you have not yet reached the "highest" level of underwater photography, where it's not a real memory unless you captured it with a photo or video!

clearly!