St. Kitts to St. Maarten
Well it's Feb 27th - A little under a month before my next dive trip. I've booked a trip with Explorer Ventures to vacation on their live-aboard diving vessel (Caribbean Explorer II) departing St. Kitts on March 25th for one week of diving in the Eastern Caribbean.
Link to Explorer Ventures - http://www.explorerventures.com/cexhtml/sabaindex.html
Our trip will take us from St. Kitts to Saba to Statia and finally to St. Maarten. I've experienced one other Live-Aboard dive trip in October 2004 in Turks & Caicos, also with Explorer Ventures. The fact that I am going to be a repeat customer means I was happy with the last trip and their services.
Divers tend to get a bit excited about upcoming dive trips and I'm no exception. The planning for the trip starts well in advance - somewhat due to the fact that the travel all has to be arranged in advance for obvious reasons - when you don't live near the water, or places where you can dive.
The planning involves deciding where you want to go, who you want to go with and what you want to do during the trip. For this trip we've selected the Eastern Caribbean and specifically Saba because we have heard a lot of good things about the diving and also because that area of the Caribbean is not the "popular" spot for most divers. I've been to Cozumel a half dozen times (and it is one of my true favorites), Turks & Caicos, Maui, Australia, and Bermuda, but this time I wanted to try something a little different.
So now we've defined the where being the Eastern Caribbean and the who being Explorer Ventures - the what has become underwater photography. I've been taking photos underwater for the past six years, playing and toying with different cameras and experimenting with shots to learn what works and what doesn't. I have been using the Sea&Sea MX10 35mm underwater camera. It's a great camera to learn with. Of course it has user limitations being a film camera in that the feedback is a little delayed. I have usually had the film processed upon my return from vacation and then had to scan them and do a bit of color correction with photoshop. This all takes quite a bit of time and is a little expensive. So for this trip I have decided to go digital.
My camera of choice above the surface is the Canon 20D digital SLR. So for this trip I've decided to outfit the 20D for underwater use. This has involved researching the housing, strobes and ports available for the camera. Before I started on this research I had no idea what I was in for or what the expense would be to truly get the configuration I wanted. I've selected the Ikelite housing and dual Ikelite DS125 strobes. In addition I wanted the ability to use a couple of different lenses. As I am just starting with this digital venture underwater I have decided to use two fundamental lenses. First will be a 50mm macro in an effort to capture the little things in the sea. They're my favorite! For a wide angle option I've selected the kit 18-55mm zoom lens. Primarily I've chosen this because I already owned it and the rest of the configuration is expensive. After seeing the results of this I may add lenses in the future. The results will be posted on my website after the trip. But needless to say I'm excited about this new capability and my expectations are high!
Further planning has involved how I'm going to get all my stuff from Charlotte to St. Kitts. I've purchased a case for the underwater housing, strobes and ports. I've also purchased a backpack to carry my regs and mask on the plane as well, along with my camera and its compliment of gear for above water shooting. The rest of the dive gear and the minimal shorts and t-shirts required for caribbean vacationing on a dive boat will all be checked luggage! So all in all I'll have 4 bags, two checked and two carry on - all of which I will need to carry to the airport and from the airport to the dive boat upon arrival and back again when the vacation is done.
The last bit of planning and paperwork has involved the application and risk documents to Explorer Ventures, gathering of C-Cards since I'll be diving Nitrox, passport to make immigration a non-issue, IPOD loaded with the music I'll want to listen to, international calling access for my mobile phone, and dealing with the fact that I now have a little less than a month to wait!!!
So now time needs to go by and I'm sure I'll pack and re-pack, arrange and re-arrange my stuff several times as the anticipation builds for what promises to be a wonderful vacation experience which I will share within this blog.
Cheers,
Monty
www.montychandler.com
Link to Explorer Ventures - http://www.explorerventures.com/cexhtml/sabaindex.html
Our trip will take us from St. Kitts to Saba to Statia and finally to St. Maarten. I've experienced one other Live-Aboard dive trip in October 2004 in Turks & Caicos, also with Explorer Ventures. The fact that I am going to be a repeat customer means I was happy with the last trip and their services.
Divers tend to get a bit excited about upcoming dive trips and I'm no exception. The planning for the trip starts well in advance - somewhat due to the fact that the travel all has to be arranged in advance for obvious reasons - when you don't live near the water, or places where you can dive.
The planning involves deciding where you want to go, who you want to go with and what you want to do during the trip. For this trip we've selected the Eastern Caribbean and specifically Saba because we have heard a lot of good things about the diving and also because that area of the Caribbean is not the "popular" spot for most divers. I've been to Cozumel a half dozen times (and it is one of my true favorites), Turks & Caicos, Maui, Australia, and Bermuda, but this time I wanted to try something a little different.
So now we've defined the where being the Eastern Caribbean and the who being Explorer Ventures - the what has become underwater photography. I've been taking photos underwater for the past six years, playing and toying with different cameras and experimenting with shots to learn what works and what doesn't. I have been using the Sea&Sea MX10 35mm underwater camera. It's a great camera to learn with. Of course it has user limitations being a film camera in that the feedback is a little delayed. I have usually had the film processed upon my return from vacation and then had to scan them and do a bit of color correction with photoshop. This all takes quite a bit of time and is a little expensive. So for this trip I have decided to go digital.
My camera of choice above the surface is the Canon 20D digital SLR. So for this trip I've decided to outfit the 20D for underwater use. This has involved researching the housing, strobes and ports available for the camera. Before I started on this research I had no idea what I was in for or what the expense would be to truly get the configuration I wanted. I've selected the Ikelite housing and dual Ikelite DS125 strobes. In addition I wanted the ability to use a couple of different lenses. As I am just starting with this digital venture underwater I have decided to use two fundamental lenses. First will be a 50mm macro in an effort to capture the little things in the sea. They're my favorite! For a wide angle option I've selected the kit 18-55mm zoom lens. Primarily I've chosen this because I already owned it and the rest of the configuration is expensive. After seeing the results of this I may add lenses in the future. The results will be posted on my website after the trip. But needless to say I'm excited about this new capability and my expectations are high!
Further planning has involved how I'm going to get all my stuff from Charlotte to St. Kitts. I've purchased a case for the underwater housing, strobes and ports. I've also purchased a backpack to carry my regs and mask on the plane as well, along with my camera and its compliment of gear for above water shooting. The rest of the dive gear and the minimal shorts and t-shirts required for caribbean vacationing on a dive boat will all be checked luggage! So all in all I'll have 4 bags, two checked and two carry on - all of which I will need to carry to the airport and from the airport to the dive boat upon arrival and back again when the vacation is done.
The last bit of planning and paperwork has involved the application and risk documents to Explorer Ventures, gathering of C-Cards since I'll be diving Nitrox, passport to make immigration a non-issue, IPOD loaded with the music I'll want to listen to, international calling access for my mobile phone, and dealing with the fact that I now have a little less than a month to wait!!!
So now time needs to go by and I'm sure I'll pack and re-pack, arrange and re-arrange my stuff several times as the anticipation builds for what promises to be a wonderful vacation experience which I will share within this blog.
Cheers,
Monty
www.montychandler.com
posted by Monty Chandler | 2:01 PM
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