Thanks everyone for the kind words
so how was the stay on the wallet....was it worth the cost ?
I think the total cost was $550 for the trip, that covered 4 boat dives and the potential for 2 extra night dives, plus 3 meals a day, rooms, and air. We carpooled up six of us in a minivan, so it minimized the ferry and gas costs. We were only there for a 3 day weekend and with travel time on Friday morning and Sunday afternoon, so our stay time was tight. The shore dive was nice, they have a wall right out from the resort so there was some interesting topography to see. All of the nighttime video was taken on the shore dive. The herring has just spawned so all the plant life in the shallows was completely covered in herring eggs. You do have to walk over some rocks to get to the water, but overall I didn't find the entry too difficult.
We did several wall and drift boat dives during the trip. The wall dives were pretty fun, but I think you are better off doing as many sea lion dives as possible. The walls had some interesting life, but overall it is mostly similar to what you see in the Puget Sound, so my thought is to focus on the more unique attractions the sea lions and six gill sharks (if you are in season). We did come across a large yellow eye (nearly 3 feet long) that was probably 150+ years old, that was cool. My dive buddy put up some still photos from the trip (
https://picasaweb.google.com/Infl3x/201 ... nbyIsland#)if anyone is interested in seeing them. He posts here occasionally, so he might swing by.
Overall I feel like it was worth the cost for me based on the amazing sea lion colony dive. It was a fun trip that only used up one day of my vacation time, so leaves me lots of days left for future trips
. We were going to do a second dive on the sea lion colony the morning before we left, but the weather turned for the worse and we had to do a wall dive instead. As I mentioned if I went back I would try to schedule a time when I could do sea lion and six gill dives alternating and skip the wall dives, also I'd probably schedule some more time, a weekend felt pretty short considering the travel time.
nice video , im guessing you have a go pro ..
delightful video!! was this shot with the H2Ov?
Thanks
. The video was a bit of a mix. My camera is a ContourHD in a H2OV housing (you can see it on the back my hand in a few of the video shots), it is pretty similar to a GoPro in a different form factor. Two of my friends on the trip have DLSR cameras and they shot some video as well that they sent to me. I cut all of our footage together to make the video. Unfortunately, my camera powered down on the sea lion colony dive, so I missed a lot of what would have been the best footage, so I had to rely on my friends shots to fill in the gaps. When properly adjusted the quality of the DLSR video beats the ContourHD hands down, the long Sea Lion sequence at the end was done with the DLSR. My other friend's DLSR wasn't quite adjusted right, so his video was more grainy and dark for the most part. I used some of his clips, but not as many. Basically any shot of something other than a sea lion and most of the sea lion shots with no diver in the frame are the ContourHD. Overall I would say when the lighting is good the ContourHD holds up well, the shots are very clear and crisp with good detail, especially if it is close enough for my light to illuminate it. When you have wider shots, especially with the bright water in the background I noticed I would sometimes end up with more banding and graininess in the footage. There are some exposure settings on the ContourHD, but you have to set them before the dive, so you make the settings that are best for the average conditions and occasionally get a shot that isn't quite adjusted right.
Either way, I love the form factor and freedom of a smaller camera. Lining up the shots with no view finder can be a bit tricky at first, but once you learn how to point your arm it works well. Being able to do a normal dive and document what I see without lugging around a bit camera housing is really great, so I accept whatever limitations that entails
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