Aquabumps

Soon after I came back from Australia I signed up for Aquabumps daily emails picturing Bondi and the nearby beaches, beachgoers, surfers and sunrises.

Eugene, or 'Uge' as he signs off on most emails, has been featured in a documentary of his daily routine. Sign up for the emails - his photos are amazing. And if you're anywhere near Sydney, stop by his gallery and buy a print.

Check out the video and a few choice images below.

On to Catalina

There's a small diving shop around the corner from my house called Beach Cities Scuba - I bought my underwater camera housing as I mentioned a few months ago. When I was in the shop back in April they had a white board displaying all of their dive trips. The next one went to Catalina Island on June 18th. You might say that Catalina is well known as a good dive spot. People also take day and weekend trips to explore the island but we weren't going to make landfall.

 

If you've ever heard of Catalina, it might be from the song Pasadena by a great band called Modern Skirts. I can play that song on repeat for days.

Anyway, Catalina is also known for its kelp forests and cold water marine life. I'd never done any cold water diving and I heard it was really different than all of the reef diving I did in Australia. I signed up for the trip but was nervous about the water temperature. They rented me a 7 mm wetsuit with hood, gloves and boots but I was still skeptical. All of that plus three meals and a full day on the boat with three dives came out to about $250, so overall it was a pretty good price.

I got up at about 5 am on Saturday morning and drove for 45 minutes up to the marina at San Pedro. The day started off kind of gloomy and uninviting until we shoved off and cruised through a pod of dolphins.



I had forgotten to even worry about sea sickness pills and I was pretty tired from the early morning wake up. I found a spot in the middle of the boat to minimize the rocking and dozed on and off for the 2.5 hour ride. I felt it coming on at one point but managed to keep my breakfast where it belonged. On a day with rougher water, I'm not sure I would've held out.

The dive master paired me up with another solo diver named Alex and they let us all do our own thing. Every other time I've gone diving, it's been with a small group that sticks with the lead. We were really just left to wander on our own. Neither of us had any idea of where to go and I think we probably missed out on the best parts of the dives. Lesson learned - even if you don't have to stick with the dive master, do it. You'll probably get more out of it.

That being said, it was still a pretty cool trip. The wetsuit kept me surprisingly warm and I got a few good pictures. The fish weren't as varied or colorful (except the bright orange Garibaldi pictured below), but I did see a horned shark... not as scary as it sounds. A few of the others saw a 4 foot eagle ray which would've been cool. Again... stick with the dive master.

So here are the pictures. I'm considering another trip to make full use of my camera before the water temperature drops. A day trip to explore the island itself is probably in order as well.

Garibaldi, the California state fish

 

Weaving in and out of the kelp forest

 

Horn shark - they have stingers like rays

 

Sea hare - the size of a small cat

 

Spotted this rock fish for Alex

Swellshots

Over the past few weeks I have been doing research on cameras and underwater housings. After the disposable underwater cameras on my trips to Fiji and the Great Barrier Reef produced (the expected) poor quality photos - I didn't even post them because they were so bad - I decided to make the jump to a better camera.

I have been using a point-and-shoot Kodak for the past few years on all of my travels and I wanted to upgrade to a DSLR.  I went to Beach Cities Scuba, the local dive shop in Newport Beach, to get some more information.  A really knowledgeable guy named Chob was their camera expert and he filled me in on all of the details.  Even if I went with the lowest level Canon (the Rebel T2i), when you add the lens(es), housing, flash and other accessories, I was looking at spending $7,000 at the very least.

The new rig

Because of the costs I started looking at "prosumer" cameras (designed with the serious amateur in mind).  Chob steered me toward the Canon Powershot G12 digital camera, Fisheye FIX G12 underwater housing and Sea & Sea YS-110a flash.  That's the one I went with and I've been pretty happy so far.


I'm still surfing a lot but have been taking time out to practice with the camera in the water.  There are many more things to take into account with this camera - aperture, white balance, ISO, shutter speed.  It makes it even tougher to adjust these controls with the knobs of the housing... and then you have to take the waves into account.  If you don't watch out you'll be slammed by a wave while you're trying to change something.  I went out the first time without any tether and just help the camera with my hands.  I quickly realized that wasn't a good idea when I had to swim out of a weak rip current so I bought a wrist leash just in case I had to let go of the rig.


The first day I went out and shot some body boarders one of them asked me how much it would cost to get prints of him.  I hadn't even thought of that, but maybe I can make my money back.  I realized that I needed a name that people would remember (like Aquabumps), so I came up with SwellShots.  I'm hoping to add more to the linked Picasa album as I spend more time in the water.  Make sure to save it as a bookmark!

Why am I doing all of this?  I have a month off from work because the project got extended.  There is a big gap in the month of May and they asked me to go on leave to save money on the budget.  I started researching surf camps and vacations and found one called Morro Negrito.  It's a full week of surfing and nothing else.  I'm going to extend it another week to see the rest of the country, though I haven't figured out the details yet.  I already got the flight (with points) and put the deposit down for the week.

But back to the photos... here are a few of the best pics I've taken so far.