Yoshi and the Sea Lions

I’m getting ready for my Fiji trip, so don’t really have time to write anything, double and triple checking to make sure I have everything for the trip. So with that in mind I figured I’d post another underwater video. I shot this one last year, it’s my friend Yoshi and her first encounter with sea lions underwater, hope you enjoy it, I know she had a blast!

Oceanic Datamask Review

Eye to eye with your dive computer...

So I’ve been diving with the new Oceanic Datamask since May now, and I have to say, I love this thing, especially as an underwater shooter. Not having to take your hands off your camera to check your stats just rocks and makes diving, and working much easier and enjoyable.

The mask itself is one of the best fitting masks I’ve had, though due to my “laugh lines” (or wrinkles, as my wife likes to call them) it still leaks a bit, but nothing a bit of mask clearing can’t fix. The readout is is easy to see and easy to read, the only downer is if you don’t add a bit of defogger to the readout’s glass, then you have to deal with some fogging. You can adjust it’s brightenness to suit you and it works really well, except when you hit the surface…then you need to put a hand over the right eye in order to be able to read the computer. No big deal, right?

What’s my biggest concern? Um…losing it! Considering I’ve lost a number of masks through the years, it’s my one real worry, so wearing it through heavy surf on beach dives might not happen. I figure I can always go back to a standard mask for those dives, I wear an analog pressure gauge as a back up, and still carry my Sunntto Vytec in my dive bag, just in case. Just don’t know how I would explain to my wife that “..well, I got tumbled in the surf..and, well, the mask got stripped off by a wave and we weren’t able to find it…um, yeah, it did cost $1500…” Think I might be living in my truck if that were to happen!

Overall, if you’ve got some cash burning a hole in your pocket, you love new toys, and you’ve been thinking of buying a dive computer, I would say; take a look at the Oceanic Datamask, you won’t be sorry.

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Just move…

Ok, so this isn’t scuba related, but it is TRAVEL related, and I think it’s just a great video! Tell me what you think.

Zack and Jennifer swim with the sea lions

My friends, Zack and Jennifer, get to experience sea lions for the very first time in this video. Enjoy!

The lure of the deep

“Like many others, I do not feel in perfect harmony with our age and the solitude of diving lulls and stays a deep-rooted dissatisfaction. Down below, where dreams and action move silently forward through the dense waters, side by side, man feels for a moment in tune with life.” -Philippe Diolé- from “Prelude: The Undersea Adventure”

Just about everyone knows who Jacques Coustreau is, the father of undersea exploration, one of the first to use a “Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus” aka SCUBA, the man who introduced thousands of us to the world under the waves and stoked that flame and passion that has taken us into her watery arms. How many of us know who Philippe Diolé was? He was Cousteau’s colleague and dive buddy. He wrote “The Undersea Adventure”, a book full of underwater philosophy, a “literary” journey under the waves. He also co-wrote a lot of books with Cousteau, but “The Undersea Adventure” is no scientific logbook, it is an exploration of what going underwater means to us, and I found myself nodding at almost every paragraph, I knew exactly what he was describing, having felt the same feelings and emotions he describes. If you’re a diver, then you know what he meant when he wrote:

“Once he has broken the surface, the diver who is properly ballasted has no more weight, no more resistance: an aerial softness transports him where he wills. Here the world is sweetness. There is no place in his body, from head to foot, which is not relaxed. It is a pleasure to stretch out, to lie on one’s back and feel the perfect fluency of one’s muscles. Dreams float very slowly up from the sea. Walled in silence and completely alone, the diver begins an interior monologue in the cell of his undreamed-of content.”

How many of us have seen our dreams “…float slowly up from the sea…” while underwater? How many of us meditate and center ourselves underwater? Floating effortlessly, your lungs keeping you weightless, not in the Ocean, but a citizen of the Ocean, not a visitor, but a family member. I don’t know about you, but I always feel like I’m back home when I’m underwater, I’m where I belong, where I feel whole and I’m always a bit bummed when I see my air is low and I’ll have to go back to land, back to the cities, the noise, the people… hmmmm, just call me an underwater hermit. It’s where I belong, and at the end of my run, it’s where I’ll return, back into the sea.

Hello world!

So I started this blog back in December, thinking that I would update it every couple of days, if not every day… guess that was a bit ambitious! I tend to overload my plate with tons of activities, my wife claims I have more activities then most kids do, what with diving, videography, guitar lessons, fight training, running, backpacking…well, you get the picture!

Anyways, I’ve decided to give this another try, now that life has mellowed out a bit and I’ve got a bit of a hold on it. A bit about what’s going on, eh? My wife’s store,YOLK seems to be beating the economic odds and she’s doing good, people seem to love her stuff, and I’m really proud of her. If you need any gifts, home furnishings, toys, or just want to throw some money our way, check out the link above.

As for me, I’ve just registered my new production company, Blue Manta Productions and am trying to build up a relationship with the Travel Channel, though eventually I want to be able to shoot for all the channels out there. I did a seminar with them and at least they know me, so I’m working with them for now. That being said, I leave for Fiji in about a week’s time and I’m pretty psyched about it! Going by myself, not a group trip, it’s basically a business trip for me, shooting stock for sale and also trying to put together a story I might be able to sell to the TC, so early to bed and early to rise on this trip! I’ll try to post updates while I’m out there and keep you all informed on it. I’ve triple checked all my gear, been making lists, doing research, have my fingers crossed that all will go well, time to let it go and just see what happens!

Anyways, that’s all for now, promise that future postings will be more interesting. Talk to you soon.