Bonaire Part 3

We began Sunday morning by sizing all the fins and doing orientation meeting and briefings on the tests and upcoming week for the "veterans" and "rookies" of the teams. CP briefed the speed team and I briefed the slalom team. I cant go into the details, results, or specifics of the tests. All that will be covered in the November issue of ScubaDiving magazine. What I can tell you is that is was another fun and amazing week with people I consider family. For the ones that have been to the past tests especially. And the rookies fell right into place and joined the family.



Here are some of my favorite shots of the week, and you can see all of the rest of my pictures at 130Down.





And here are some pics that CP took. He really is an amazing photographer, and even though he wont admit it, he taught me almost everything that I know about underwater photography.

This one, I wanted a shot of me next to a moral eel smiling. But the eel wasn't having any of it, go figure. Every time I got close to him he would back down into his hole. So this is as close as he would let me get to him. Yeah I know, not the smartest thing to do, but I thought it would make a great shot. Anyways this was at the bottom of the Hilma Hooker ship wreck in about 110 feet of water.



And here is me and my new best friend. Don't worry my Duc is still my Italian mistress and is above all other toys.

Bonaire Part 2

We finally got settled in at Capt Don's Habitat late Friday night and early Saturday morning we were up and ready to get breakfast and hit the water. After the usual dive orientation meeting the pool was open.



The 1st dive is always a monumental experience. Its the 1st dive of the trip and it was the 1st dive with my new Ikelite housing for my Nikon D-40.


For comparsion I brought along my trusty point and shoot Sony that has been on more than 200 dives with me. As you can see how much bigger and involded the D-40 is. But its worth the cost and effort. I fell in love with it the 1st time I looked the view finder and click the shutter button.



For our 1st dive we dove Capt Dons House Reef, which in my opinion is one of the best house reefs I have ever dove. In the afternoon. CP, Tom and I did a boat dive on Little Wall. Later that night we did a night dive back on the House Reef.


Saturday night the rest of the team showed up. In all we were 12 fin testers and 6 people from Scubalab and ScubaDiving Mag. Who all took time away from their families, work and everyday lives to go spend A LOT of hours underwater testing fins in the warm Caribbean waters. Its a rough job, but somebody has got to do it....

Photo of the Week

This week flew by. I feel like we just landed yesterday. It was another great week of testing fins and diving as much as we could. I took over 1500 photos. Thank God for digital. Here is one the best shots I took. I'll post a full gallery when I get back.

Photos from Bonaire

I'm short on words and time this morning. But Bonaire is amazing. We've been in the water 4 or 5 hours a day. I'm still learning the camera and housing (and will be for the next few years). Here are some shots that I have taken in the 1st couple of days. I'll write a full post when I get back.


The dock we shore dive from


Flamingo Tongue


Lizardfish


Redlip Blenny


Smooth Trunkfish