On Sunday, October 01, 2000 3:55 AM, John Nitrox wrote:
> >OK, Mate!  I've just got to 'fess up to ignorance and ask, what's a
'CRS'?
> :-)

>         Caribbean reef shark,... I guess I'm spending way too much time on
one of
> Brotha' Jeff's other lists, Shark-L

I've been racking my brains - both cells - as to what that was!  (Bloody
acronyms!)  :-)

(snip)
>         It's been a terrible step down from Sir Henry Morgan storming La
Gloria in
> Porto Bello to Jimmy Buffet fleecing tourists in Key West, but piracy
lives
> on in Provo, and when they took us passengers aboard another vessel and
> hung on to our possessions the hatch was opened to rascally behavior.
> Below is the partial text of a letter I sent to Cap'n Philippe Kunz of
> Caicos Adventures.

> >Please tell me how things are going locating my Dacor Bandit mask with
> prescription lenses and my folding snorkel.

Is that one of the telescopic snorkels?  I now poke one of those into the
backplate storage pouch - together with cheese and tomato sandwiches in case
I get swept away and get peckish while I'm waiting to be rescued!  (I really
do!  I think a snorkel is one of the most under-rated items of safety
equipment that a diver has!)  :-)

(Big snip)

>         In my early childhood, my grandmother told me "All the beer they
sell in
> there (a local Wisconsin bar) is filled with the souls of drowned brewery
> rats," and this not only taught me how important it was to know how to
> swim, snorkel, and dive if you drank beer but also inspired me to quiz my
> dad about which beers they sold in there so I could stay away from them.
> So, as long as Ed wasn't working for one of the brewers that had rat souls
> in their beer, I too would have been more than willing to put some time in
> beside him.

My Uncle Sam - who used to make his own Scrumpy cider - swore that a dead
rat was an essential part of the fermentation process!  :-)

> >BTW!  You mentioned that you hadn't taken strobes or lights on the trip.
> >For natural light U/W photography - assuming good vis - what settings and
> >film speed do you use?  (I'm determined - after fifteen years of effort -
to
> >master this bloody camera of mine.)  :-)

>         These days I almost exclusively push a video camera (with a UR Pro
filter
> for Caribbean water) recording everything I see with plans to edit it down
> later.  (Later still hasn't come from the Coz NEDfest or any trip since
> then, but I'm still planning.  If I were a little more clever or talented,
> I would have already figured out how to use this Fast Multimedia
> video-editor I bought two years ago, but alas.  :-(  )

>         Viv can certainly give you better advice than I can, but just a
couple of
> thoughts:  Kodak makes a couple of print films that reduce the blue bias
> underwater, but I can't remember the names right now.  Also, even though
> the big honcho photographers shoot everything with slide film, print film
> gives you more exposure latitude so you're under less pressure to bracket
> your shots, and getting prints with only one generation degradation is a
> lot cheaper.  However, if you're taking pictures to accompany your
> articles, your editors might demand slides.
>
>         If you decide to shoot slide film with available light, and it's
just for
> yourself, you might want to try Kodak's E200 which you can shoot at that
> speed or even push a stop with pretty good results.

John!  Thanks for that advice.  I've really tried hard to take that 'perfect
underwater shot' - and been that close to succeeding!  What I have learned
about U/W photography in all my years of trying is stuff that I've mostly
picked up from Viv, Crusty and yourself.  :-)

Take care.

(And now I've got to get back to the last moments of the Olympics - sans
beer! )  :-(

Strike