Hey everyone. I've been MIA for a week, but all for a very good reason. Took a little trip down to Aruba for the last week. Didn't want to come back today, but real life beckoned for me to return. The pilot put it well on plane of the island as he called it "the back to reality" flight.

Pretty much 85 degrees and sunny most of the time. Apparently they don't get a lot of rain, but we had it almost ever single day multiple times. Short little spurts though, never lated long.

Got a nice tan. Did a champagne cruise on a trimaran (like a catamaran but with 3 hulls) and did some snorkeling at a german u-boat shipwreck, as well as a nice reef area (also threw up while on the trimaran, i don't usually get sea sick, but yeah, not cool...). Treated my wife and myself to a nice ATV tour of the east side of the island (with many blurry photos since i was trying to drive one handed and take photos). Pretty much spent the rest of the time exploring the island, laying on the beach, and snorkeling. I'm usually not one for hot weather, but it was perfect down there. Then i came back to the 15 degree temps and my hhr being blocked by about 3 feet of snow at the airport.

So here's a few photos, I have about 600 or so to go though and edit, but yeah, can't say i didn't mind spending the week here instead of in the cold on the computer. If you have a chance to go to Aruba, do it. Amazing place, great friendly people. I'll be going back (one of the stats i saw was 90% of visitors return, not bad...)

 

and you just had to come back and rub it in

 

that's the point of vacation, isn't it?

 

Did you see many ice dams there??? I didn't think so....guess what I dealt with all day today???



looks like a good time...have to make it there 1 day




Goose

 

Show off your underwater camera setup. That sort of thing is on my bucket list.

 

i love to get a waterproof housing for my canon. but they r like a grand. but id rather pay a high price for safety

 

It isn't much of a setup but i'll put a pic of what I have below. I just used my P&S Sony W-55 with a sony sport pac underwater housing. It is rated to 10 feet, so it worked for what I was doing. The main problem being is the case covers up the viewfinder (which would be hard with a mask on anyways) and the screen just wasn't bright enough to see. Sometimes I could see it a bit, but i would pretty much point it as a fish and hope I got it, which most of the time I didn't. Also had a problem with fogging my second time out since the water has distinct hot and cold spots and the case didn't like that.

All in all it worked for what I payed. They originally sold for $75 for the case, then sony discontinued them (no idea why), demand is still high so places sold them for $100 with the stock they had left. I found a woman on ebay that had a brand new one and made a deal with her and paid $31 shipped. Totally worth it, even if I don't use it again. On my honeymoon, we hardly have any photos because we didn't bring the camera a lot because of the water.

I'm saving up for a canon XSI but I wouldn't dare bring it in the water probably anyways.

Pros - Worked great. Cheap setup if you don't want to get into a pro setup or don't trust your "baby" in the water with a setup. The camera was originally $140, much cheaper now, and $31 for the case, which makes it a lot less then most cases alone. Positive bouancy as well, so if you "dropped" it in the water it just floats to the surface instead of those olympus ones (i looked at them a lot but couldn't drop the money on them) that sink like rock. They make a case that does 150 feet for the camera as well, but you would need an external flash.

Cons - Covered up viewfinder, flash was there but weak since it had to go through semi transparent white plastic. Design is flawed where the gasket is, sand can get there, so every time after i used it i would have to remove the gasket, clean it and the case, and put it back together. Small price though for the photos.

All in all it worked as expected. I would leave it on at the beach the whole day so that I didn't have to worry about it. When it was in my pocket i could just run into the water. Had one problem where the shutter lens protector malfunctioned in the case under water so the shot i took has a great view of a fish in it, but had big black areas on it because it didn't open all the way, Most likely a piece of dirt from ATVing was stick in there. I just turned it off and on and it kicked it out. I'll put some more photos up later. I was pretty happy with the shipwreck because a storm rolled in while we were out there and made it pretty dark, which it was sunny and could have seen a lot more. creepy being out in the water with some good waves, and rain, and it being dark, i don't like dark water...



Amazon link for spk-wa

 

that's a pretty sweet deal on that cam. just being close to sand and salt water can easly ruin most electronics. i learned the hard way.