New Toy

I'm back in Bangkok after a week or so diving in Koh Tao. It was nice to be back there after so long.

For this first Koh Tao post, I'm posting pictures taken with the new external stobe I bought this year. The vast majority of the underwater pictures I took last year were taken without a flash since the internal ones on compact cameras are almost useless. I'm still learning how to use the external stobe effectively, but here are a few of my early attempts. The first and third of these are even presented without any enhancement or cleanup on the computer.

In other news, Whale Sharks are still awesome. I'll post a few pictures of the one I saw on Friday in a day or so.

Tomorrow I head to Indonesia. My first stop will be Bali where I have about 10 days before heading up to Bunaken and Lembeh in Sulawesi. Can't wait...

That time again.

I suppose it's about time to spin this thing back up, since I leave the US tomorrow for my next adventure. This trip is mostly going to be centered around diving in Indonesia and Malaysia however my first stop (as usual) is Bangkok.  While I'm waiting for my Indonesia visa I'll probably spend a week or so in Koh Tao since I haven't been there in nearly 3 years.  Although the diving isn't the greatest I'm looking forward to going back and I should be there for the end of whale shark season so that's something to look forward to.

For those who are hoping for more pictures of things on the surface I'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed this year. I made the difficult decision to leave my D-SLR camera at home and only carry the Cannon G-12 I use for underwater photography so it's pretty much going to be all fish pictures all the time.

To get things rolling, here's something from the Turks and Caicos Islands where I just spent a week diving with my Dad,  These are my two favorite pictures from the trip and I think each of these is the best shot I've ever taken of the critter it shows.

For me, the best part about the diving in TCI was all the sharks. Of the 14 dives I did there was only one where I didn't see at least one grey reef shark.  Sadly I don't think any of the pictures I took of them are worth posting next to the pictures above.

In addition to all the normal sharks I saw my first hammerhead on the second day, thus satisfying my number one goal for the trip.  Unfortunately it was pretty far away and moved off before I could get a picture