On Wednesday, February 19, 2003 1:22 PM, Fred Brown wrote:

>> G'Day, Fred!  Seeing a manatee - and calf - must have been quite an
>> experience.  I bet you didn't have a camera with you?  :-))

>Hi Strike - I did have a camera but the rain was was pouring down so hard I
>wouldn't have had a hope in hell of getting a decent shot.

"decent shot"???  As a bloke wot has spent years trying to get any sort of
recognisable image out of my Nik V, (Viv pointed out - during our trip to
dive the sinking of the former HMAS PERTH, in Albury WA, over a year ago -
that if I loaded the film into the camera properly then I'd stand a better
chance!<bwg>) I'm so pleased with digital cameras.  (The Sony DCS-P5 has
more than paid for itself in terms of the film and developing costs that
it's saved me.  Better yet, I can actually recognise *some* of the images
that I've taken since I bought it, a year ago.)  :-)

What sort of camera do you have?  (The reason that I ask is that apart from
Viv, Bjorn, Crusty, Bob, John Nitrox, Lee, Poe, Huw, Alfred, Brad,  - and
sum uvvers of note - I have a low tolerance of U/W photographers!  Mainly
'cause they're more talented than me and always manage to capture images
that are easily identifiable - and artistic!  My vast collection of shots
taken at midnight at 50-metres in a dark cave without benefit of artifical
light never seems to attract the plaudits that their more easily
identifiable shots do! )  :-))))

Mind you!  I still hold the rare distinction of having been one of the first
people to photograph a thermocline!!!!  Using a Calypso - the predecessor of
the Nikonos series - we used to release dye-packs on the interface and then
photograph the layering effect.  It was in the waters off of Malta. Wot
really sticks in my mind about them thar days woz the favourite drink which
was a pint glass filled with equal measures of the local (cheap) wine -
Marsovin - Scrumpy, and the merest tincture of Pernod.  (One "tincture" =
"two shots"!)  :-))))

Sorry, Fred!  I got carried away there!  :-)

Strike