Eddy's Scuba Blog

This is trip was the result of knowing Jack and Sue Drafahl from underwater photography seminars that I have attended at Boston Sea Rovers and at Beneath the Sea. The Drafahls are well known for being pioneers in digital underwater photography and the use of Adobe Photoshop for underwater photographs. Every year in May, the Drafahls offer a "Digital Photo Adventure" at Captain Don's Habitat in Bonaire. The program is a combination of lectures, photo critiques, in-water instruction, boat and shore diving and a photo competition. Since I had never been in Bonaire before, this was a great opportunity to visit the "Macro Capital of the World" and at same time learn first hand from digital experts like the Drafahls.

The program started on a Saturday. I flew the "red eye" flight out of Houston on Continental. This is probably the only red-eye flight into Bonaire. My flight departed Boston on Friday night and arrived to Houston that night. The flight to Bonaire departed just before midnight and was scheduled to arrive in Bonaire at 5:15am.

As a diver, this was a very convenient flight. You are able to use most of Saturday (diving) and don't need to spend a hotel night on Friday. Looking around me I noticed that most--if not all--of the passengers on this flight were divers. They were sporting scuba t-shirts, scuba watches or had stickers with scuba motifs on their luggage. Our flight was the first one to arrive in Bonaire, since the airport seemed to be just "waking up" upon our arrival. The lights were still off and the staff was just taking their posts. For this reason the luggage took a bit longer than expected to retrieve. There was only one luggage carousel in the whole airport.

Passing customs in Bonaire was a breeze. Your passport was stamped and off you were. At the exit of the customs area, I was glad to see Sue Drafahl greeting me. She did that with everyone that was part of the Photo week. Vans were arranged to take us to Captain Don's Habitat, which was about 20 mins. from the airport. On the van from the airport, I met Norma and Jamie, two gals that were on the Photo week as well.

It was still early when arrived at the hotel. It must have been about 7:30am. To our disappointment, we learned that most of our rooms were not ready yet, since checkout time was at noon. So the advantage of having flown the red-eye was wasted. We left our luggage in a storage area (basically in the office behind the hotel counter) and went for breakfast. It was pretty inconvenient to take out our stuff from our luggage and get changed, for example.

In the meantime, we had time to get something to eat from the breakfast buffet. The buffet was good. They had fruits, cereal, the usual eggs/bacon/sausage, omelettes made to order, a variety of breads and do-it-yourself freshly squeezed orange juice. Breakfast was served in the main dining area which is outdoors. Most tables have a view to the ocean and diving dock.

After breakfast we had time to kill. A number of us sat around the lounge next to the dive shop trying catch some sleep after the red-eye flight. We were waiting for the dive orientation to start at 9:00am, which is required for new arriving divers. The orientation was pretty basic, they told us what you could do and what you couldn't. As most other places like Cayman and Roatan, gloves are not allowed. There was also a $25 fee for the use of the Bonaire National Park.

At about 10:00am our rooms were still not ready. Fortunately, Sue came to the rescue and offered me to store my luggage in her room. Jack and Sue were in a Villa Ocean View Room that had two bedrooms, kitchen, living room with TV and porch with dinner table. She graciously offered me the use of one of her bedrooms (since it wasn't occupied), so that I could ready up for a dive that were planning before noon.

At about 11:30am, I was finally ready to go diving. Thanks to Sue, I had somewhere to change and get my photo equipment out of my luggage. I had already left most of my diving gear in the locker room near the diving dock. Sue again came to the rescue by "reserving" the lockers on top, which are more convenient to reach.

The Trumpet Fish Capital of the World, First Shore Dive

Just before noon, we went off on our first shore dive. There was a group of about 4 or 5 of us from the Photo class. This was our opportunity to check our weights and check our camera equipment. This time my camera and strobe were working perfectly. Every picture that I took was firing the strobe correctly. In my previous trip to Roatan, I had so much trouble with the TTL connector and the strobe.

My first impression of Bonaire was "Trumpet Fish Galore", I was seeing lots of trumpet fish of all sizes and colors. I could easily count 20 or 30 of them. They should have called it the "Trumpet Fish Capital of World". It was amazing to see that many trumpet fish. At other places I've been like Belize, Cayman and Roatan, it was a "treat" to find one trumpet fish.

Trumpet Fish

Blue Trumpet Fish

In addition to trumpet fish, we also saw many 3-ft+ tarpoons following us above and below us. It was surprising to see them like that in the open at daylight. I thought that tarpoons liked to stay close to swim-thrus and caves. We also saw angel fish, trunk fish and sand divers, not in the numbers as the trumpet fish.

Almost at the end of the dive, we circled around a small wreck just in front of Captain Don's. It was the wreck of a small 25-ft boat sitting at the bottom upside down. Near the wreck we found a grouper, which looked like a tiger grouper, although with no noticeable stripes. It was been cleaned, so it was very steady and opening its mouth open. A nice photo opportunity.

After taking pictures of the grouper we headed back. This dive was a nice taste of the things to come and it looked like they were going to be really good.

Second Shore Dive, Finding New Creatures

After the first dive, we finally got our rooms ready, so I spent some time unpacking. I ended up sharing an Ocean Villa similar to the Drafahls. It was a nice room, with a full kitchen, living room with TV, 2 bed/2 bath, a porch with a dining table. The kitchen was very convenient to setup my photo equipment. The sink was extremely useful to rinse my equipment. After settling down I headed to the dining area for lunch. One annoying aspect of Captain Don's was that the food was billed separately from the hotel. So you had to open a tab with Rum Runners (that's the name of the restaurant that operated the food service at Captain Don's) and sign your bill everytime you had lunch or dinner. For breakfast, you had to sign in, as breakfast was included with the lodging.

At about 3:30pm, we were ready to go for our second shore dive. Marnie was my roommate and dive buddy for the rest of the trip. We only had a very short time for this dive (30 mins.) as the lecture was scheduled to begin at 4:30pm. In addition to the creatures we saw on the first dive, I was pleasantly surprised to see new creatures in our front yard. A spotted moray eel appear swimming in the open at broad daylight.

This dive then became a nice treat. We spotted a hawksbill sea turtle swimming along the reef and we followed it. The turtle didn't seem scared of me. I also made sure to swim along it, instead of behind it, so that I wouldn't scare it. The turtle was not even bothered, it was doing its thing munching on the sponges. This is the best picture that I took of that turtle:

We cut our dive at 4:00pm, as the first lecture was scheduled for 4:30. Even though the dive only lasted about half an hour, it was well worth it because of the moray and the turtle.

Digital Photo Adventure Orientation Lecture

Because we finished our dive 4:00pm, the time tight for me for the first lecture of the program. I barely made on time. Sue gave us an introduction of the program and what to expect. This schedule was put together for us; however, we made some changes to it along the way.

Saturday
9:00	Dive Orientation
4:30	Digital Photo Adventure Orientation - Getting your Digital Camera Setup for a Dive
Sunday
4:30	Lecture - Menus and Exposure
7:30	Intro to Photoshop - Top Ten Editing Tools
Monday
4:30	Lecture - Lighting with a Digital Camera
6:00-7:00	Manager's Party
8:00	Lecture - Composition
8:30	Critter Orientation with Dee Scarr
Tuesday
4:30	Lecture - Close-up, Macro and Fish
7:30	Lecture - Shooting and Editing RAW files
Wednesday
12:00	Deadline for Photo Contest
4:30	Lecture - Wide Angle and Digital
7:30	Optional Computer Time
8:00+	Optional Night Dive
Thursday
4:30-6:00	Wide Angle and Digital
8:15	Week in Review and Photo Contest
8:15	Computer time if desired
8:30-11:00	Music and Dancing Deco Stop Bar
Friday
12:00	Classroom editing if needed
7:30	Digital Photo Adventure Graduation
Saturday
	Departures at various times
	Jacks office hours: 8:30 - 11:00 1:00 - 3:00

The days throughout the Photo week were organized like this:

• Boat or shore dives in the mornings
• Lunch
• Boat or shore dives in the afternoon
• First lecture at 4:30
• Dinner
• Second Lecture at 7:30
• Night shore dive if interested

Jack was in charge of the lectures and one-on-one computer instruction. Since just underwent back surgery, he was "confined" to top side activities. He also had "office hours" in the mornings and afternoons. The lectures were at an air conditioned conference room right behind the dive shop. Sue in turn was playing hostess and in charge of diving with us. She would occasionally join us on shore dives.

Lecture: Getting your Digital Camera Setup for a Dive

We started the lecture by introducing ourselves and talk about our underwater photography experience. It was interesting to observe that 4 or 5 people were using the Olympus SP-350 or older Olympus 50xx. Even Jack had one himself. These are the notes from the lecture.

Kit (always carry these)

• Batteries, always have extra, as they always go bad
• Cosmetic q-tips with a pointy tip
• Moisture Munchers that can fit inside the housing
• Hex Wrench
• Silicone Grease, to lubricate o-rings

Housings

• Don't put them in the sun as they will fog. Cover them with a towel, don't let direct sun hit it.
• Camera tank is worse place to leave your camera. Somebody with heavy SLR might put on top. Rinse it and put it away wrapped in a towel.
• Ikelite custom housings can go deeper than original Olympus or Canon

Chargers

• Get an international one, not American, capable of 110-220v 50-60 Hz. If possible, get more than one. Laptop chargers are always international nowadays
• Sea & Sea 90DX has problems with rechargeable batteries over 2000 mAh

Accessory Lenses

• Inon builds the best attachments. Bayonet Mount: wide angle and macro
• digideep.com - camera + housing
• wetpixel.com - latest diving and uw photo

Flash Trigers

• Cable: Nikonos, Sea & Sea, Ikelite
• Fiber optic, works with most compact digital cameras.

Strobes

• Nikonos 105 has the best slave sensor. Can still get them on Ebay.
• Inon D2000, very complicated strobe. Don't forget manual

Travel and other Tips

• Bring camera and housing on plane
• Western Digital Passport external hard drive. Very light plastic. USB no power supply, $120. Very useful for backing up pictures.
• Don't delete files in computer, use camera instead. Can recover photos with programs like PhotoRecovery and ImageRecall to recover files from cards.