Friday, March 30, 2012
One more time
For my last dive I wished for the moon. So naturally that's where we went, Richie leading me of course to its dark side, jumping right off the cavern line, then left, then right at the first T, turning around after 54' at a second T. Truly an amazing cave, with magnificent classical formations, low ceilinged passages, otherworldly strangely colored decorations, eroded tunnels and even a couple of old bones.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The diver behind the camera
Speleological video dive in Kalimba, challenging one's buoyancy skills, sinus equalization, body positioning and camera handling technique.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Tulum ruinas
I got there early enough to still have the place mostly for myself, not counting the many sunbathing iguanas. Entrance fee: 57 Pesos.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Nai Tucha
Nai Tucha is Maya for Monkey House. This cenote is several kilometers deep into the jungle and is the main entrance of sistema Tux Kupaxa.
Another fabulous underground system, full of splendid decorations. We went right at the T until a domed cenote with two small holes letting in some sunlight, roots reaching down from the ceiling into the water of life, lots of catfish and a few nesting bats. Great dive!
Another fabulous underground system, full of splendid decorations. We went right at the T until a domed cenote with two small holes letting in some sunlight, roots reaching down from the ceiling into the water of life, lots of catfish and a few nesting bats. Great dive!
Temple of Doom
Splash in, through the Madonna passage, past the Fang and back after having used up a third of my nitrox. The best part here for me being the return to the dome area and the sun's streaming light rays.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Dark Side of the Moon
Getting there doesn't take quite as long as one might imagine. Even though you can't really rush it on the bump-it-up jungle track to Pet Cemetery, a well maintained cenote in the middle of nowhere.
Diving to the Dark Side of the Moon and back is over 100' of wonderful enjoyment from start to finish. Definitely one of the top dives around here, again perfectly led by Jeff, together with Gosia. Happy diver :o)
I only uploaded one special sequence, through a beautifully decorated passage, in Full HD, straight out of the camera (uncut, no editing).
For the first time I actually used up my CamOne's sugar-sized battery, shooting 50 clips. I never switch off the camera during a dive, but do have the LCD turn off automatically after 2 minutes, to save energy. Personally, I find the small LCD critical to compose & monitor shots.
Diving to the Dark Side of the Moon and back is over 100' of wonderful enjoyment from start to finish. Definitely one of the top dives around here, again perfectly led by Jeff, together with Gosia. Happy diver :o)
I only uploaded one special sequence, through a beautifully decorated passage, in Full HD, straight out of the camera (uncut, no editing).
For the first time I actually used up my CamOne's sugar-sized battery, shooting 50 clips. I never switch off the camera during a dive, but do have the LCD turn off automatically after 2 minutes, to save energy. Personally, I find the small LCD critical to compose & monitor shots.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Heaven's Gate
Heaven's Gate (shown in frame grab), petrified waterfalls, a gaping mouth, a fence of columns, ... are but a few of the many wonderful formations to be seen in Nohoch Nah Chich along the main line.
Fragile beauty
Fantastic shallow cave dive in Dos Pisos led by Jeff. He brought me to the south entrance, just a short walk down from the gearing up place, as opposed to the north entrance, which I dived in 2008 after a rather hot 21' hike through the jungle.
The knee-deep entry pool just continues below the cavern's apparent wall, remaining very low ceilinged underwater for quite a while before opening up somewhat. The special beauty here are the fragile stalactite forests drooping down and the many stalagmites growing up from the silty bottom. For 50' we carefully hovered through these otherworldly marvels of stone, before reaching the end of our jump section and turning around for another look on the way out.
The knee-deep entry pool just continues below the cavern's apparent wall, remaining very low ceilinged underwater for quite a while before opening up somewhat. The special beauty here are the fragile stalactite forests drooping down and the many stalagmites growing up from the silty bottom. For 50' we carefully hovered through these otherworldly marvels of stone, before reaching the end of our jump section and turning around for another look on the way out.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
A dark place
Having dried inside-out overnight, I was about to turn my wetsuit right again this morning when my eyes detected some movement in the suit. As I carefully checked, out came some weird but innocent looking insect. Too small. Still suspicious, I slowly bent some more neoprene, thereby revealing the actual alert tripping culprit: a small scorpion (2cm not counting its bent up tail). Welcome to Mexico!
Pickup truck fully loaded with three sets of gear & doubles, Richie, Gosia & I agreed to pay Jailhouse a visit, Richie absolutely wanting to show us the Swiss Syphon, despite my stated reluctance for dark places. I never felt at ease in Sistema Naranjal and suppose I never will, its stained walls absorb all light and extrude a somber mood.
With three Ts, a jump and another T it's a rather complex left-right-right-left-right path line to get to the sub-halocline Swiss Syphon, but the salt water passages there are quite something to behold indeed.
On the way back from the cenote, Richie spotted Gunni sitting in a roadside café, so of course I jumped out of the truck to greet my former boss of Aktun Dive Center, now fully into kite board surfing.
Pickup truck fully loaded with three sets of gear & doubles, Richie, Gosia & I agreed to pay Jailhouse a visit, Richie absolutely wanting to show us the Swiss Syphon, despite my stated reluctance for dark places. I never felt at ease in Sistema Naranjal and suppose I never will, its stained walls absorb all light and extrude a somber mood.
With three Ts, a jump and another T it's a rather complex left-right-right-left-right path line to get to the sub-halocline Swiss Syphon, but the salt water passages there are quite something to behold indeed.
On the way back from the cenote, Richie spotted Gunni sitting in a roadside café, so of course I jumped out of the truck to greet my former boss of Aktun Dive Center, now fully into kite board surfing.
CamOne+aquapixs in Chan Hol
Great 90' cave dive in Chan Hol led by Jeff, who carried an extra video light for your visual pleasure. Chan Hol has some really cool tunnels, the perfect place for a staged lighting configuration.
Today I actually trusted my CamOne into my self modified DiveBox, i.e. the one with a flat lens prototype in stead of the original dome lens. This flat lens prototype was kindly sent to me for trial at my own risk by aquapixs, the German company that also makes the GoForFocus flat lens replacement for the popular GoPro. Whether they'll commercially produce flat lenses for the CamOne I don't know?
The two main advantages of this solution are that you don't need to change the CamOne's factory set focus and you can shoot both above and below water in Full HD. More about pros & cons in another post.
For the record: Importing & converting the 25 Full HD clips at only a 1/4 of their original resolution into iMovie 08 took 1h, for about 3.3 GB of raw material I collected this morning. Followed by about 90' of editing. Exporting the quickly cut together 2'48" selection of passages at 960x540 only required 6'. Uploading to & processing by YouTube demanded another 39' of patience for this 82.5 MB teaser.
[ 19.12.2018 ] new 1080p video uploaded to Youtube
Today I actually trusted my CamOne into my self modified DiveBox, i.e. the one with a flat lens prototype in stead of the original dome lens. This flat lens prototype was kindly sent to me for trial at my own risk by aquapixs, the German company that also makes the GoForFocus flat lens replacement for the popular GoPro. Whether they'll commercially produce flat lenses for the CamOne I don't know?
The two main advantages of this solution are that you don't need to change the CamOne's factory set focus and you can shoot both above and below water in Full HD. More about pros & cons in another post.
For the record: Importing & converting the 25 Full HD clips at only a 1/4 of their original resolution into iMovie 08 took 1h, for about 3.3 GB of raw material I collected this morning. Followed by about 90' of editing. Exporting the quickly cut together 2'48" selection of passages at 960x540 only required 6'. Uploading to & processing by YouTube demanded another 39' of patience for this 82.5 MB teaser.
[ 19.12.2018 ] new 1080p video uploaded to Youtube
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Cave crawling
After three long days of room rest, another cave dive at last. Not just in any cenote, this time we went to my favorite: Kalimba. Upon entering & exiting the dry cavern to check the entrance pool I got tapped upon the shoulder by two bats, which I took for a good omen.
With me again to record the action: my tiny CamOne infinity in its original DiveBox, its optics now turned about 95° counter-clockwise for a small lets-try-it change, but I don't think its better than 90°?
The CamOne infinity, snuggly fitted in its DiveBox, was mounted on a Sea&Sea tray together with two TillyTec LED 2000 VIDEO lights.
Richie led for 50' into darkness, going left at the T, before I gave the turn-around sign with still more than 2/3 left of my nitrox mix, and headed back towards daylight. This shallow cave section, part of Sistema Sac Actun, gets tight here and there, requiring some finger crawling and precise maneuvering to get one's body & tanks positioned as required to fit through the various restrictions. Cozy indeed. I like!
With me again to record the action: my tiny CamOne infinity in its original DiveBox, its optics now turned about 95° counter-clockwise for a small lets-try-it change, but I don't think its better than 90°?
The CamOne infinity, snuggly fitted in its DiveBox, was mounted on a Sea&Sea tray together with two TillyTec LED 2000 VIDEO lights.
Richie led for 50' into darkness, going left at the T, before I gave the turn-around sign with still more than 2/3 left of my nitrox mix, and headed back towards daylight. This shallow cave section, part of Sistema Sac Actun, gets tight here and there, requiring some finger crawling and precise maneuvering to get one's body & tanks positioned as required to fit through the various restrictions. Cozy indeed. I like!
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
CamOne in Aktun Ha and Dos Ojos
Joined a cavern tour today to try out my CamOne below water, using the original DiveBox with domed lens, meaning I had to manually re-adjust the camera's focus by rotating its optical element, about 90° counter-clockwise, so as to get relatively sharp underwater footage.
Note that with this solution you can't have it both ways, it's either sharp above or below. Evaluating the Full HD clips I'd say I haven't quite hit the optimum setting yet, but it's hard to tell due to grain.
Note that with this solution you can't have it both ways, it's either sharp above or below. Evaluating the Full HD clips I'd say I haven't quite hit the optimum setting yet, but it's hard to tell due to grain.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Playa Maya
Third beach session in a week's time, that's a personal record! Only to experiment with my CamOne's time-lapse mode of course. I wouldn't want to get a tan, I'm here as a daylight shunning cave diver after all.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Cuzan Nah
Private 99' cave dive in Sac Aktun lead by Richie, Robbie's jr. brother, whom we also met there with two swedish cave divers. We almost closed the beautifully decorated Cuzan Nah loop, but I had to call the dive shortly before. Coming out with more than 100 bar at the end.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Room of Tears
Upon arrival at Aktun Ha, a.k.a. Carwash, we're greeted in watchful silence by a small (<1m) but apparently well fed lagarto, enjoying a warmup sunbath by the cenote's edge.
After taking our time to gear up, Richi and I step straight into the cenote's refreshing 24°C water, perform a mutual equipment check, slowly descent to about 4m for some safety drills, then head for the cavern's entrance, where RIchi starts laying a continuous line towards the cave's permanent main line. About 20' later we pass Luke's Hope, another small cenote, now completely cleared from overhanging vegetation, thus letting in a lot more daylight than before. Then off we jump into a small hole and through a narrow tunnel in order to reach the Room of Tears, still as wonderful as ever. Having almost used 1/3 of my nitrox mix, I give the turn around signal after 37'.
Back in the cenote's entrance pool I tried to find the small alligator but couldn't see it. Maybe later? The good news is that my modified DiveBox remained dry this time, after having replaced the first flat lens prototype with the second one I got. So there's still hope indeed.
After taking our time to gear up, Richi and I step straight into the cenote's refreshing 24°C water, perform a mutual equipment check, slowly descent to about 4m for some safety drills, then head for the cavern's entrance, where RIchi starts laying a continuous line towards the cave's permanent main line. About 20' later we pass Luke's Hope, another small cenote, now completely cleared from overhanging vegetation, thus letting in a lot more daylight than before. Then off we jump into a small hole and through a narrow tunnel in order to reach the Room of Tears, still as wonderful as ever. Having almost used 1/3 of my nitrox mix, I give the turn around signal after 37'.
Back in the cenote's entrance pool I tried to find the small alligator but couldn't see it. Maybe later? The good news is that my modified DiveBox remained dry this time, after having replaced the first flat lens prototype with the second one I got. So there's still hope indeed.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Tulum playa
After breakfast and a copious amount of sun lotion I grabbed myself one of Villa Matisse's Beach Cruisers and headed for la playa, even against a moderate wind an easy 25' ride, now that there's a nicely paved bicycle path all the way to the T-junction, where I turned left, following the road till a public beach section, used by local fishermen as anchoring site for their lanchas.
Having nothing to do I tried to shoot a time-lapse with my CamOne infinity securely wrapped around a washed up tree log using a small Gorillapod, thereby forcing me to stay at least half an hour in the blazing sun. Most of it turned unusable though due to fogging up of the housing's domed lens…
Temperature quickly rising and there being no free shade in sight, I soon saddled up again, biking back to el pueblo in only 20', now aided all the way by the refreshing sea breeze.
It's actually possible to go by foot, but only if you're crazy like a loco. By taxi, the official tourist price is 50 Pesos one way, i.e. about 3€.
Having nothing to do I tried to shoot a time-lapse with my CamOne infinity securely wrapped around a washed up tree log using a small Gorillapod, thereby forcing me to stay at least half an hour in the blazing sun. Most of it turned unusable though due to fogging up of the housing's domed lens…
Temperature quickly rising and there being no free shade in sight, I soon saddled up again, biking back to el pueblo in only 20', now aided all the way by the refreshing sea breeze.
It's actually possible to go by foot, but only if you're crazy like a loco. By taxi, the official tourist price is 50 Pesos one way, i.e. about 3€.
Solo check dive in Aktun Ha
Went to Xibalba this morning to set up my gear. To my dismay my backup second stage, a Scubapro S550, is not functioning, despite having been serviced recently by Gerda's Dive Shop. Had to swap it with my R190, brought for stage diving. So much so for german Gründlichkeit. As you can imagine, I'm quite disappointed :o/
After lunch a taxi drove me to Aktun Ha, where to my surprise I got greeted by Miguel surfacing from a photo dive as I was about to splash in. Miguel was my cave guide four years ago. Small world indeed :o)
Friendly surface chat over, I took my time slowly diving around the shallow open water area, still clear of algae, just getting used to being underwater again with plenty of gear all over, before lining my way into the cavern zone to check my lights and also drop a little deeper to pressure check my two DiveBoxes. The original remained dry down to 18m, but the modified housing alas leaked, from the looks of it, through the hand-glued prototype lens :o(
At 4pm my driver picked me up again and brought me back to the dive center for 180 Pesos return, i.e. only 100 more than for mexicans.
After lunch a taxi drove me to Aktun Ha, where to my surprise I got greeted by Miguel surfacing from a photo dive as I was about to splash in. Miguel was my cave guide four years ago. Small world indeed :o)
Friendly surface chat over, I took my time slowly diving around the shallow open water area, still clear of algae, just getting used to being underwater again with plenty of gear all over, before lining my way into the cavern zone to check my lights and also drop a little deeper to pressure check my two DiveBoxes. The original remained dry down to 18m, but the modified housing alas leaked, from the looks of it, through the hand-glued prototype lens :o(
At 4pm my driver picked me up again and brought me back to the dive center for 180 Pesos return, i.e. only 100 more than for mexicans.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
DIY lens replacement
Replacing my secondary DiveBox's standard dome lens with a flat lens prototype took 25', carefully following the german manufacturer's step-by-step instructions. Now I just need to test my modified box's waterproofness, before trying it out with a camera inside.
Using a DiveBox with flat lens should allow me to shoot in Full HD (i.e. with a FOV of 127°) both above and below water, without needing to manually re-focus my CamOne infinity for each medium, as would be required with the original dome lens.
Note that this flat lens solution causes heavy vignetting in all photo modes (3|5|8MP) and in 170° videos (480p & 720p), at least in air!
UPDATE: My modified DiveBox failed its first test, from the looks of it the prototype lens leaked :o( The original remained dry down to 18m.
UPDATE: Yesterday I replaced the first flat lens prototype with the second one I got in about 15'. And today I'm happy to write that this one passed its first 70' submersion down to 18m.
Using a DiveBox with flat lens should allow me to shoot in Full HD (i.e. with a FOV of 127°) both above and below water, without needing to manually re-focus my CamOne infinity for each medium, as would be required with the original dome lens.
Note that this flat lens solution causes heavy vignetting in all photo modes (3|5|8MP) and in 170° videos (480p & 720p), at least in air!
UPDATE: My modified DiveBox failed its first test, from the looks of it the prototype lens leaked :o( The original remained dry down to 18m.
UPDATE: Yesterday I replaced the first flat lens prototype with the second one I got in about 15'. And today I'm happy to write that this one passed its first 70' submersion down to 18m.
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