Eddy's Scuba Blog

This is a review of Captain Don's Habitat in Bonaire, and Jack and Sue Drafahl's week-long Digital Photo Adventure. On our last day we had time for a last dive since most of us were flying next Saturday. The plan for the rest of the day was to spend time on land and a "Graduation Day" in which all of us in the program submit ten or twelve of our best pictures of the week.

Last Dive: Witches Hut

This was my last boat dive of the trip. I had purchased discounted boat trips (I believe 10 of them) for the whole week. The discounted price was very worth it: $10 vs. $30 per boat trip (if my memory serves me well). The shore dives were pretty good and sometimes better than some of the boat dives. But after a while you want to see some variety.

I had done this dive site previously on the trip and on that occasion the dive was pretty good. The coral tubes were very healthy and you would find the occasional moray eel or spotted drumfish. The site was situated along a wall, so I swam along it.

I was looking closely through the soft corals looking for creatures. This is when I noticed a flamingo tongue, a kind of sea snail with brown, yellow and black spots. I had never got a good picture of this guy before, so this was a good opportunity to practice. I used macro setting settings for this picture and tried to get as close as possible. The major challenge was to get the camera close enough because the soft coral was in the way. It was also challenging to position the strobe. All of this was happening in mid-water, since there was no place to hold on to, so good buoyancy was a must.

Flamingo Tongue. 1/500 at f8.0, ISO 100, 8mm focal length

Drumfish with Bottom Lighting. 1/400 at f6.3, ISO 100, 8mm focal length

Almost on the way back to the boat, I noticed a drumfish moving around. This was strange since drumfish tend to stay in their "homes". I followed it for a while until it finally settled inside its cave. This little cave had an unusual shape, I could not position my strobe on top of the fish, so I experimented with a different lighting effect. I put the strobe on top of the sand, aiming the fish completely sideways and from below. Some of the strobe light was reflected by the white sand. I call this a "hollywood" effect, as the lighting does not look natural at all. It looks quite good nonetheless.

Captain Don's Habitat: the Resort

Captain Don's was a mixed bag overall, with some negatives. While being there I heard the story that once Captain Don sold the resort to a third party, it hasn't been the same. The location of the resort is very convenient, very close to the airport.

The main building is clustered around the restaurant (Rum Runners) where all meals are served. Tables are outdoors with canopy ceilings on some tables. The restaurant sits on a small cliff overlooking the ocean. From there you can see the divers going out on the boat and shore dives.

Boat Dive Dock at Captain Don's

Shore Dive Dock at Captain Don's

On occasion, the resident iguana will bask in the sun trying to warm up. This makes a nice photo opportunity. The view from the restaurant is actually quite nice and you can pace yourself well as you can easily notice when it's time to dive. In the mornings, you have to watch for sea gulls stealing your breakfast from your plate! They've been (annoyingly) trained to be fed by humans. You can even throw food in the air and they will catch it.

Dinner time is also nice at the restaurant since you face West, so you can enjoy a evening with a backdrop of a sunset over the dive dock.

The restaurant is located next to the bar, front desk, the dive shop and the swimming pool. So everything is within few steps. I stayed at Ocean Villas side which were a little bit far away, but the rooms were nice. It was a two bedroom apartment with a bathroom on each bedroom. It had a living room with TV, a full kitchen with oven/range, fridge and dual kitchen sink. The sink is pretty convenient for soaking photo equipment. Next to the kitchen was a dinette table with stools. The Ocean Villa also had an outside dinner table with four chairs. This was nice to setup or dry equipment. There was also plenty of rails to hang wetsuits. Next to the entrance there was an outside sink with a bucket, very convenient to wash up gear.

Dive Ops

The dive operations had much to be desired at Captain Don's. Nitrox is brought in from another place every morning and there is always a mad rush to sign out tanks in the morning. So it is wise to reserve your tank ahead of time. The dive dock and the dive shop are on different floors, so you have to walk a flight of stairs carrying tanks.

The lockers are in a state of neglect. The locker bins and tables are made of wood, making it easy for sea water to accumulate, thus causing bad smells. The floors on the locker area is rough cement and very uneven, so you see puddles of sea water which also contributes to the smell. There was only one bench to sit on; anyway, this would be the worse place to take off your wetsuit, as the floor does not look clean. I always walked with slippers in that area.

There were showers and dunk sinks next to the locker area. The cement on the shower areas was crumbling and the plumbing was rusting. There were not enough places to hang wetsuits. There was a precarious system of strings tied to the walls of the locker area. This was supposed to be the place to hang wetsuits.

Scuba Tanks

Dive Lockers

There were three boat dives daily going out: 8:30am, 11:30am and 2:00pm. If you try to do three boat dives in a day, the tightest one is between the 11:30 and 2:00 one. There is simple not enough time between those two dives. You come back from the 11:30 dive at about 12:30 or 12:45. So essentially you have one hour to wash up or prepare things and have lunch. I once had lunch at the restaurant and because the service is rather at "island speed", I ran out of time easily. Another bad thing about boat diving in Bonaire is that they don't allow you to do a two tank dive, so you waste a lot time coming back to the resort and unload/prep again for the next dive.

The divemasters were pretty good and the briefings were informative. They also were good at pointing out creatures for you. However, I never felt any personalized attention. Because of how the operation is run - you sign up on the boat dive you want on a whiteboard - you end up with potentially a new group of people every time. So there is no continuity with the dive personnel. It almost felt like an assembly line.

There was a dive store next to the dive shop. The stock was extremely poor and not even the t-shirts were well stocked. There was also a photo services shop, but there was usually nobody working there. The only plus side of the store was a vending machine with soda and beer that you can charge to room.

There was also a dive repair shop next to the store. The condition of the place looked poor. There were boxes of hoses and parts all over and it was dirty. I once had the unfortunate situation of having a leaky high pressure hose. Although the repair guy managed to fix it, I cringed when I looked at their workshop. It was messy and dirty, and the guy was smoking while he was fixing the hose.

Food and Parties

In general, the food at Captain Don's was ok to excellent, especially dinner.
Rum Runners is the house restaurant at Captain Don's and this is where all the meals were served. Breakfast was included with the room, but lunch and dinner are on a tab. This was annoying because on the first day you had to open a tab with your credit card, you couldn't just charge it to your room.

Breakfast was buffet style with an omellete station. There was a fresh orange squeezer for real orange juice, assorted juices, tea and coffee (served by waiter), fruits, cereal, cold cuts, and assorted bread. At the omellete station you could order on request your favorite style of egg. The attendant would take your room number as well.

Lunch was probably the meal that I enjoyed the least. The service was slow and there was no time in between dives. Later on, I learned to "pack my lunch" by making my own ham sandwiches during the breakfast buffet. Since I had a full kitchen, I would save my sandwiches in the fridge and heat them up for lunch and even enjoy them while watching TV.

Dinner was probably the best meals at Rum Runners. The dishes were close to "gourmet", very tasty and with great presentation. Usually at night there were guests not staying at the resort eating dinner. The desserts were great too. However, it was pricey, entrees were upwards of US$ 20.

Every week on Mondays there is a welcoming party. Rum punch is served and some vendors put out tables to sell their wares. Captain Don, who is still the figure-head, comes by at the party to greet guests.

With Captain Don

Barbeque at Welcoming Party

Captain Don is considered the pioneer that exposed scuba diving in Bonaire. He named many of the dive sites on the island and looks like old pirate. He even walks with a wooden leg.
One vendor offered a book of "old stories" of Captain Don, he is a legend in the island.

Dinner on welcoming day consists of a barbeque of different meats, including barracuda (!) and a dessert buffet. This is the only free meal that you would get during the week ;).

Sample Cuisine at Rum Runners (the house restaurant)

Dessert Buffet

Review of Jack and Sue Drafahl's Digital Photo Adventure

Overall the week with Jack and Sue was a great learning experience. If you take into account, the lecture time and individual instruction on and off the water, the Digital Photo Adventure week is a great value. In addition, Sue is a great host and makes things well organized. Jack is the goto guy for gadgets and Photoshop.

The lectures were kind of rehash of other lectures I have seen of them at Boston Sea Rovers or Beneath the Sea. However, they are good for review and some of the tips are very handy when you can practice them right away, like never leaving your camera in the sun without cover. It was challenging to stay awake after a full day of diving. So towards the end of the week, we concentrated on individual instruction, working towards our photo selection for Graduation Day, rather than lectures. I wished the lectures were tailored to the Bonaire sea life. One suggestion could be to make subjects "task" oriented like "how to photograph a trumpet fish" or "how to photograph a turtle". Each task then can include elements of composition, lighting and positioning.

Dee Scarr - Guest Speaker

Warning: Cameras Sunbathing

On one night (Monday) we had Dee Scarr as a guest lecturer. She is the local conservationist and member of the Women's Divers Hall of Fame. She gave a lecture titled "Touch the Sea", a more liberal view of interacting with the ocean without being paternalistic. Her philosophy emcompasses limited but careful interactions with creatures like tickling fish, befriending octopuses, being manicured by cleaner shrimp, etc. Dee was also responsible for the restoration of coral life at the Town Pier. In one of her slides she explained how she just tied up the fallen tube corals with nylon to the pylons. After some time they would attach!

On Graduation Day, Sue compiled a final presentation with the photo submissions of each of the participants. Each participant was presented and her/his individual pictures presented. Everybody at the resort was invited. After each participant's work was presented, Sue gave a certificate of "Graduation".

Jack and Sue were very knowledgeable, accessible and accommodating. I would not hesitate doing another trip with them. The next morning we got to see them again as we were taking the same flight to Houston. We got to hang out at the airport a bit. This is when I learned that Jack was working on scuba related sci-fi novel ... oops ... I might have spoiled the surprise. Jack is indeed a man of many talents.

Recommended Product: Olympus PT-030 Underwater Housing for SP-310/350

Today the plan was to have a full day of diving. In the past days, Sue Drafahl had arranged, for those of us interested, one of Bonaire's signature dives: a night dive at Town Pier. As its name suggests, it is the pier at the town's port. This dive site is only accessible with special permission and with a local guide.

In the morning, I skipped the first morning boat dive, which turned out to be an excellent dive, frog fish and squid were signed. Instead, I did a shore dive which was not too bad. I saw a spotted moray eel and practice numerous pictures on it. Also, I saw a drumfish with what appeared to be its baby drumfish; however, I could not get a clear picture because of the scatter. At the end of the dive, I ran into the familiar scorpion fish that we've seen in the last days. However, this time it was not sitting pretty on a barrel sponge (like yesterday), it was sitting on the boring sand.

In the afternoon, I did a boat dive to a site called Monk in Klein Bonaire. There were no major sightings, but I did ran into a nice surprise. Later that afternoon, I did another shore dive, but this time I went to the other direction (usually people go on the right side reef or North), the left side or South direction. I ran into a nice surprise as well.

The gem of the day, though, was on the night dive at the Town Pier. I got to see creatures that I would never thought I would get to see on 10 ft of water and inside an active port.

Floundering Flounder: Monk at Klein Bonaire

On my second morning (boat) dive of the day we headed to Monk in Klein Bonaire. I saw a number of nice vase corals and played with back-lighting. At one point, the divemaster pointed at something that I could not see from afar. He was pointing to a horned nudribranch that was smaller than a fingernail. I tried to take several pictures, but it was extremely difficult to focus on the tiny creature. I really needed a lens with more magnification to easily focus on the creature. After a couple pictures I gave up. The location was too hard to get a good picture.

We were swimming along a wall. I sighted a number of anemones as well. On the way back to the boat I noticed another diver (from our same group) taking a picture of something. At first I could not distinguish what. Surprisingly, it was a flounder sitting on top of a coral formation. A nice encounter in an unexpected place indeed. On previous dives, I had seen flounders on sandy bottoms. But then, it was extremely hard to get close, not get scatter from the sand and get a nice angle that highlights the head and have a contrasting background.

This time the chance was almost perfect. I had never seen a flounder on the coral before. The other diver that was there already taking pictures, was taking pictures from the tail end and from above. I made the same mistake and I got horrible results (see the first picture, "Flounder - Camouflaged and Unnoticeable"). You can barely see the flounder as it is camouflaged with the coral bottom. If you look carefully you could slightly see the blue dots of the flounder.

Then I noticed that in front of the flounder there was a small depression big enough to fit me. I proceeded to swim in the opposite direction and aim the camera from the head to the tail, instead of the other way around. Fortunately, the flounder did move at all, which was surprising to me. In the past, every time I've spotted a flounder, it's moving and most of my pictures of flounders have been from behind.

Flounder (Camouflaged and Unnoticeable). 1/250 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

Flounder (Wrong Lighting). 1/400 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 24 mm focal length

Voila! The head of the flounder was sitting on a ledge and I was able to position the camera below the mouth. The result was great, you could see the mouth, highlight the protruding eyes and get a contrasting background.

From that point, it was a matter of getting the lighting right. I turned down the shutter speed to 1/400 sec, so that the background would be darker. Finally, I played with the position of the strobe. I was trying to position it to minimize the shadows on the eyes.
I believe I had the strobe almost aiming from behind the eyes. When I positioned the strobe on the right and above side, I got my final satisfying picture. See the bigger and final picture below.

Schooled by a School of Fish

That afternoon I decided to venture on the left side (South) of the house reef of Captain Don's. The usual "route" has been going to the right side (North) and I had not explored this side before. This side is right in front of Buddy Dive Resort (next to Captain Don's) and I could notice some of their setup underwater. They had ropes on the bottom marking the direction to the reef. The dive was somewhat boring and did not notice any interesting creatures. And then suddenly I noticed a big cloud moving underwater. It was greyish cloud moving with great synchronization at about 20 or 30 feet of water on a sandy area right before the reef. It was a huge school of fish and I was only one enjoying the sight.

My first challenge was deciding on the settings to use. This was a wide angle subject, it was fast moving and on relatively shallow water. I started out with my regular wide angle setting (1/125, f5.6) but it turned out to be too bright. So I turned it down to 1/400 and f8.0. The fish were so close and shiny that this was almost like shooting with macro settings. The shine on fish really picked up the strobe even from a far distance.

I did not reach to a conclusive setting for this kind of situation. I did not try a higher ISO, the higher sensitivity would have picked more of the strobe. For the next time I run into this similar subject I would try 1/250, f8.0 and ISO 200.

Finding Gems in the Dark: Town Pier

Tonight's dive was at Town Pier, one of Bonaire's signature dive. We had planned this dive several days before. You were required to fill out a form, and register with the local authorities. They keep track of an accurate schedule of people and times going on the dive. Obviously they have to make sure that no vessel is moving.

The Town Pier dive is offered at Captain Don's by special request. It is more convenient for those doing shore diving (with a pickup truck) as it requires you to carry all your equipment on your own to downtown. Fortunately, there were other divers in the resort going on the dive and had a pickup truck. So we had two trucks going and two divemasters from Captain Don's.

Our "slot" time for the dive was from 8:00 to 9:00pm. I looked at my log, and these are the exact times that were allowed on the pier. After dinner, we gathered by Captain Don's dive shop and load up our stuff onto the trucks. The ride to downtown took about 10 to 15 minutes. Before entering the water, our guide gave us the dive briefing and explained the layout of the pier. The entry was a beach entry on a (small) rocky beach. We had to take turns to enter the beach and put on our fins.

We proceeded to go down the pier and swim between the pylons. At first impression, I was really surprised to see the marine life in such an environment: shallow and possibly contaminated by oil or other waste at the pier. Apparently the authorities have done such a good job in keeping the place clean enough for tube corals to grow on the pylons!

Since we were in very shallow water (no more than 25 ft), the dive felt like very long dive. We had time to explore every corner. At first sight I noticed orange cup coral that was much bigger than the ones I've seen back at Captain Don's pier. This time I wanted to get the ocean as a background and get the contrasting orange with the black. I ended up with this nice silhouette picture of the coral.

We swam to the farthest edge of the pier and went around several times. There were several other diver groups in the water, so in the end it was really confusing and could barely find the rest of my group. In one corner, among pier debris and otherwise healthy and big tube corals (up to 3 ft. long?), I found an adult drumfish!! Never before had I seen a drumfish in such a precarious and shallow environment.

Also along the way I saw several anemone, a brittle worm and a sanddiver. This is the time when I reconnected with our guide again and she signaled me to start turning around. I was swimming between pylons when in the complete darkness I saw a red seahorse hanging on a branch of soft coral!! It was on less than 15 ft of water!

I got very excited and started to take tons of pictures. I had set my camera to 1/200 sec, f8.0 and ISO 50 for this night dive and it seemed to work well. Now I worked on positioning the strobe and on composition. A seahorse has a lot of texture and it's oddly shaped, so positioning the strobe was key to get a good picture. I wanted to make sure to highlight the eyes, the snout and the curly tail. I had my share of not so good shots. Here are some examples until I finally got a good one.

Seahorse (Wrong Angle - Aiming at its Back). 1/200 at f/8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

Seahorse (Too much Scatter). 1/200 at f/8.0, ISO 50, 8 mm focal length

On the first picture on the left (Seahorse - Wrong Angle), the angle was wrong. The camera was aimed from above at the seahorse back and captured the texture of the seahorse in an angle. Also there were some shadows on the back and tail. On the second picture on the right (Seahorse - Too much Scatter), I positioned the strobe too close to the lens and got too much scatter. Also the camera was still aiming from above, I had to lower the camera and shoot up.

Finally I got a satisfying shot. The angle was much better and you could see detail around the eye and the snout. I spent a full seven minutes taking pictures of the seahorse and ended taking more than 20 pictures. I was happy that my settings had worked throughout this dive. I had spent so much time with the seahorse, that the divemaster had to come "rescue" me and tell to head back.

Once out of the water we marveled at the encounters that we had that night. It was truly an encounter in an unexpected place. But then, the divemaster retorted, "oh, that seahorse, it's always there".

Today, our luck with creatures turned on the bright side as we found one of a kind guys throughout the four dives I did. I even had nice surprises on the shore dives right in front of Captain Don's Habitat. Today I did two boat dives, and two shore dives, one of them a night dive. The first boat dive was a deep dive to the Hilma Hooker wreck. The second boat dive was a dive organized by Sue Drafahl: almost all the people in the class joined this dive to Sharon's Serenity on Klein Bonaire.

The Hilma Hooker Wreck

The Hilma Hooker is one of the few diveable wrecks in Bonaire. Captain Don, the founder of Captain Don's Habitat had a hand in having this wreck in Bonaire. According to the divemaster in our briefing, the Hilma Hooker, a cargo ship, was seized by the Bonaire government after discovering an illicit cargo of pot. Eventually the government took ownership of the ship and did not know what to do with it. At this point, Captain Don suggested to make the Hilma Hooker an artificial wreck. Months later when the ship was moved from one location to another, it mysteriously sank on 70 feet of water. The shallowest part of the wreck is at 50 ft of water. The ship lies upside down with its propeller side on the deeper side.

Since this was considered a deep dive (max 70 ft), it was our first dive of the day. We went down a mooring line, as there was some current. The visibility was poor compared to other dives we had so far. The visibility was about 40 ft or less, with a lot of silt in the water. Creature sightings were not many either, so this was a somewhat disappointing dive. But we did one of "must dives" in Bonaire. I was told that this wreck is even doable as a shore dive, a rarity for the size of the wreck.

This is a picture of the Hilma Hooker's propeller. A diver can be seen in the background, between the propeller blades. This was shot originally in color, it was later turned into gray scale with Photoshop.

Sharon's Serenity (Klein Bonaire)

Sue Drafahl organized an exclusive dive for the Digital Photo Adventure group. Essentially we had one of Captaind don's smaller boats to ourselves. Sue did some on-water tutoring on each of us: checking our buoyancy and underwater photography "manners". At this point of the week, the instruction turned more into reviewing our work and individual tutoring, and less formal lecturing.

Coincidentally, on this dive is when we saw one of the unique creatures found in Bonaire: frog fish. We were lucky to see two of them on this dive: a blue one and an orange one. We put in practice our "manners", that is we took our turns, took a couple of pictures and move "to the back of the line". In that way, we all had a chance to take a picture of this hard to find guy, as it takes the color and blends with its surroundings.

I was lucky to be right behind the divemaster when he discovered the frog fish, so I took the first turn to take pictures. However, that puts some pressure on you as you have to get the settings right and not take too much time because there is a line of other divers waiting in line. Unfortunately, for this next picture, my strobe was too close. You can see some blown areas on top of the fish.

After being done with the frog fish, I turned around and changed direction heading back to the boat. This is when Sue caught up with me and "audited" my photographing technique. I was lucky to run into this pair of golden moray eels. I have never seen then in a pair like this.

I took about eight pictures of these guys and Sue observed the whole episode and then gave me a sign of "approval" for this rare find. After I was done, we signaled the other divers so that they could take pictures too.

More Surprises on our Backyard

In the afternoon, I paired up with Tom, a New Yorker in our group. We headed north (right side) from Captain Don's deck. On this dive I decided to practice my macro skills, shooting at feather dusters. I spent considerable time one feather duster after another, while Tom was taking pictures of a moray eel. I eventually ended up at this coral head by accident. It had a surprise host inside: a spiny head blenny.

The blenny comes out of its hole on occasion and then hides. This combined with delicate sensitivity of the feather dusters made it a test of endurance, patience and buoyancy control. A wrong move could cause the feather dusters to clamp down and the blenny to hide. My camera was only inches from the coral head. I was using the super macro feature of the SP-350. This setting allows you to be as close as 0.8 inches from your subject. The fast shutter speed (1/800 sec) makes the background really dark.

On the way back, Tom and I noticed a couple of divers pointing to a barrel sponge. What was so special about a barrel sponge? It turns out that they were looking at a scorpion fish comfortably sitting on the barrel sponge. In the past, I've only seen scorpion fish on sandy areas or holes where it was hard to photograph. This was indeed a lucky find. The scorpion fish was almost posing for us. We spent the next 15 minutes taking pictures of this scorpion fish from every angle.

Scorpion Fish from Above. 1/400 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

Scorpion Fish and Diver. 1/160 at f/8.0, ISO 100, 8 mm focal length

I wanted to highlight the eyes and the pectoral fins (as they are very colorful) of the scorpion fish, but it was hard to do. If I got the fins, the eye got kind of lost. While Tom and I were taking pictures, I also took one of him as a background, it turned out to be a nice picture.

After twenty-something pictures and trying a variety of settings, the last picture ended up being my favorite one. It really highlights the eye of the scorpion fish and you can see the tube sponges as the background and the barrel sponge as the "pedestal".

That night I went for a night dive with Jamie, one of the gals in our group. The dive itself was somewhat uneventful, but I noticed these orange cup corals near the dock stairs. They are fun to photograph as close-ups. Orange cup corals only open up during the night, so it can "eat". They remain close during the day.

Today was a chance to review the settings that I have used on my Olympus SP-350. Jack Drafahl was also a fan of the SP-350, so this was good opportunity to tweak some of my settings and learn from the masters.

I first learned what settings to use on the SP-350 with a private class that I took with Cathy Church in the Cayman Islands. She had taught me to use two settings that she stored on the "My Mode" settings, one for Macro and another for Wide Angle. Here's a table of those settings.

Mode Menu -> Setup Tab

Reset	Off
Language	User Preference
PW On Setup	User Preference
PW Off Setup	User Preference
Rec View	On
Speaker	Off
Beep	User Preference
Shutter Sound	User Preference
My Mode Setup	4 Custom Modes
File Name	Auto
Pixel Mapping	Run Occasionally
Screen Bightness	Middle point
Date	Date
Dual Time Setup	User Preference
M/Ft	User Preference
Video Out	User Preference - NTSC for US
AF Illuminator	Off
Short Cut	A: Flash+/-, B: ISO, C: Macro
Histogram	Off
Frame Assist	Off
Custom Button	My Mode

This is what I have programmed as "My Mode 1":

MY MODE - Wide Angle

P/A/S/M/Scene	M
Fno	5.6
Shutter	1/125 sec
Monitor	On
Zoom	38mm
Flash Mode	Flash (Lightning Icon)
Metering	Center weighted (Screen with dot in the middle)
Macro (Flower Icon)	Off
Drive	Single
ISO	100
Timer/Remote	Off
Flash	0.0
Flash Sync	Sync 1 (Front Curtain)
Flash	External
Digital Zoom	Off
Noise Reduction	Off
AF Mode	Spot
Focus Mode	AF
Fulltime AF	Off
Microphone	Off
Time Lapse	Off
Resolution	SHQ or RAW
WB	Cloudy
WB +/-	0
Sharpness	0
Contrast	0
Saturation	0
Info	On
Histogram	Off
Frame Assist	Off

This is what I have programmed as "My Mode 2":

MY MODE - Macro

P/A/S/M/Scene	M
Fno	8.0
Shutter	1/500 sec
Monitor	On
Zoom	38mm
Flash Mode	Flash (Lightning Icon)
Metering	Center weighted (Screen with dot in the middle)
Macro (Flower Icon)	On
Drive	Single
ISO	100
Timer/Remote	Off
Flash	0.0
Flash Sync	Sync 1 (Front Curtain)
Flash	External
Digital Zoom	Off
Noise Reduction	Off
AF Mode	Spot
Focus Mode	AF
Fulltime AF	Off
Microphone	Off
Time Lapse	Off
Resolution	SHQ or RAW
WB	Cloudy
WB +/-	0
Sharpness	0
Contrast	0
Saturation	0
Info	On
Histogram	Off
Frame Assist	Off

First Boat Dives: Witches Hut and Nearest Point (Klein Bonaire)

We started the day with a boat dive. I had purchased from the Drafahls 10 boat dives at a discounted price of US$ 10/dive. I was disappointed that you were on your own on the boat dives, we did not go out as a group. The boat dives as well as the shore dives were just opportunities to capture pictures to take to the class. I had been "warned" by Sue Drafahl that the best dive was the house dive: the shore dive right on Captain Don's. She was right. The two boat dives that I did that day was somewhat disappointing and compared to yesterday's ,I did not see as many interesting creatures.

I took this opportunity to play with the settings of my camera and tried to "practice" both wide and and macro. I tried the macro settings on this anemone on Klein Bonaire and soon discovered that there was a pederson shrimp inhabiting it.

Playing with macro shots I discovered that focusing was really hard to accomplish. For some reason the camera had a hard time to focus. At that time I knew that my camera had manual focusing, but I had not learned how to use it yet.

Lecture: Menus and Exposure

That night the lecture gave me some hints to refine my settings. The lecture was on Camera Menus and Exposure.

Menus

• Nikon: Icons
• Olympus: Rotating Menus
• Drive: Single shot or multiple
• Contrast: Use zero or slightly negative
• Histogram: Not a lot of value under water, hard to see under water

ISO speed

• Not the same as in film. Point & shoot: up to 400. SLR up to 1600 because of bigger chip
• if using higher than ISO 400 on a P&S, pictures will be very noisy
• P&S sensor elements are crammed together. On SLRs, they are more spread out
• DON'T use auto ISO underwater

White Balance

• Use cloudy setting or shade
• Custom WB: Use a white card only (that you carry with you), not sand on the bottom
• My mode: Program WB at 10, 20, 30, 40 ft, specially when relying on ambient light
• Jack uses ISO 200 or ISO 400 always. Not ISO 100. Modify settings until exposure is right
• ISO 200 is more versatile. Use ISO 200 for night dive

Resolution

• Always set to maximum resolution
• Don't use TIFF, massive file use lots of space

Sharpness

• Use default

Modes

• Don't use P/A/S modes
• Shutter Priority: Use if need to freeze the action
• Sharks in the water use ISO 800

Shooting Techniques - Exposure

• Use Manual exposure. In Bonaire, can only use Manual
• Shutter speed: Regulates more or less ambient light in the picture
• F/stop max F8.0 on P&S
• Background: Sunlight control by shutter speed
• Foreground: Fix with F stop, flash and ISO

Lighting

• On shallow and white sand bottom, turn flash off, and use "P" mode
• Deep Large subject. Use "P" mode, let camera decide

Backscatter

• Change the shutter speed by one stop to reduce backscatter
• Use twin flash
• Point flash away from the lens

Macro

• Subject to distance really close
• When diving deeper you have more control of exposure, because of less ambient light
• Manual exposure works with TTL
• Use manual even for bright sun

Blooming effect

• Problem with red sensor
• Use shutter speed to fix it, use higher shutter speed

Flash Position

• Make sure to point flash in position. When changing WA to macro, needs flash adjustment
• Simulate sunlight: Put flash above, looks like sunlight
• Two flash: One above, the other on the side, not necessarily symmetrical

Coming up with More Settings for the SP-350

After listening to Jack's lecture I confirmed my thoughts for settings for night dives, shark dives and macro. Here's a list of those settings that I started to use on this trip.

Macro

Macro	Super Macro
Focus Mode	MF (Manual Focus)

Regular Macro allows you to get as close as 8 inch. Whereas, Super Macro allows you get as close as 0.8 inch. Once the MF (Manual Focus) mode is set, use the up and down arrows to focus. You can turn the manual focusing mode on and off by keeping the "OK Menu" button depressed.

Fast Moving Wide Angle (Shark Dive)

Fno	5.6 - 2.8
Shutter	1/30 - 1/125
ISO	200 - 400
Flash Sync	Sync 2(Rear Curtain)

As confirmed by Jack's lecture it is better to use a high ISO for fast moving big creatures as in a shark dive. Unfortunately, there was no shark dive in Bonaire. But I made notes for myself. A slow shutter (1/30) would create an impression of motion and a rear curtain flash sync (firing the flash at the end of the exposure) would create a lighted imaged in from with a trailing image behind.

Night Dive

Fno	8.0
Shutter	1/200
ISO	50
Flash Power	-1.0
Flash Sync	Sync 1(Front Curtain)

I came up for these settings for night dives after some experimentation. In some sense, it is similar to a Macro shot in that you want all the light coming from the strobe. These settings are for a Sea & Sea YS-110 and Heinrichs-Weikamp connector. Depending on whether I am shooting wide angle or macro I would adjust the the f/stop and flash power. However, at night I have found that most of my subjects were no further than 3-4 ft.

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.