Ready for Cozumel (Almost)

Yes! Take a look at this beauty. Looks like a monster, no? It is my new Aquatica Pro Digital housing for the Canon 5D Mark II. Top-of-the-line equipment. And I've fully tricked it out for both still and video use!

I received the housing about 2 weeks ago, just in time to fabricate a slew of parts to retrofit the video lights. The lights themselves were borrowed off my Stingray II video housing, since they still work extremely well. I fabricated a mounting plate for the light arms, and a battery tray for the battery pods. This has taken me about 10 days to do, an hour or two per day. Lots of measuring and adjusting for this custom job.

I also made a carry handle (in blue) to make it easier for deckhands to grab the housing safely when I pass it up at the end of a dive. However, after weighing the whole rig and learning it was about 29 lbs fully loaded, I am thinking that it will need to be moved from water to boat in more than one step. It will weigh closer to 40 lbs if I ever decide to outfit two Ikelite 400's instead of one. Very likely, I'll choose only one mode of shooting for a dive (video or still) and leave the unnecessary hardware at home.

Working with this housing has presented a few new challenges:

There is no eTTL coverter available for the Canon 5D Mark II. I had hoped to use my old Heinrichs-Weikamp eTTL converter but all my tests showed it just doesn't understand what the Canon 5D/II is trying to tell it. The strobes simply don't fire. The Aquatica 5D/II housing has the strobes wired straight, without any converter. This is good enough for manual shooting so I'll have to adapt.

Nobody makes an external color compensation filter for a 5" port. So I'll be doing a lot more manual white balancing. I'm not sure how well this will work for video, however.

Since the Canon 5D/II will not autofocus while shooting video, it would have been great to have a manual focus ring for my lenses. Unfortunately, the focus knob in the flat port is too far away from the focus ring of the lens. Any gear would interfere with the lens rim. This is something I hope to work on when I get back from Coz.

So... what's next? 70 glorious days in Cozumel Mexico where I get to learn how to take stunning 21 megapixel photos with this rig. Add video to that and I'll be very, very busy!

Oops...

Just after the photo shoot, I broke the light arm mounting plate by grabbing one of the arms and pulling upwards. I had made the plate out of plexiglas and apparently the stuff is too brittle for what I'm trying to do. Good thing I learned this now! I still have plenty of time to fabricate a new one out of polycarb, which should be significantly stronger.

The majesty of Calimba

Calimba (sometimes spelled Kalimba or Kolimba) is a tiny entrance to Sistema Sac Aktun, the same cave system that Grand Cenote is part of. Calimba has had its run of bad luck recently: a collapse of the entrance (due to natural causes or landowner carelessness I am not sure) and subsequent problems with the quality of the water have made it a questionable place to dive. Although it is easily accessible from the highway, the landowner is not usually there and special arrangements must be made in advance if you want to do any diving. Fortunately, Connie has this down with military precision and our plan to do Calimba to cenote Bosh Chen on Wednesday went off without a hitch.

Now, those of you who have read my blog from last month and last year will note that this was my 4th time into Calimba, and my 3rd attempt at getting to cenote Bosh Chen. The other two times I ended up in groups that turned the dive far short of the goal. Today... YES... Today, I saw Bosh Chen for the first time and it was absolutely glorious -- not to see it, but to have finally accomplished that goal. And there are two large rooms full of the most beautiful stalactite formations I hadn't seen before that... well... gasp... were truly breathtaking.

On this dive there were only four on the team. The other two opted to do a land tour which left (in this team order) Connie, myself, Dusan and Bill. As seems to be the case with me, the smaller the team the more fun I have on the dive. I think with very little question even though the week is not finished, this will be my Best Cave Dive of the Week.

Not only that, I have spectacular VIDEO of the dive!! What a fantastic souvenir to take home after the trip. Almost 30 minutes of digital video, mostly from the jump from main line to Bosh Chen and arriving at Bosh Chen itself, and then a good deal on the way back. I know most of my friends reading this probably aren't into this Cave Diving thing, but if you're at all interested to see it, it's quite good footage. Really gives you a feel for what Cave Diving is like. Dusan watched it today and wants a copy. I will probably edit out the part when I got impaled on a stalagmite because I was distracted filming. :-)



This little blip of video shows us going down the Bosh Chen line back to the Paso de Lagarto line. Although it is difficult to tell in the video, I am making a drop from about 25 feet to 40 feet here.

Passageways in this cave tend to be VERY narrow and quite often we have to squeeze between two stalactite pillars barely a shoulder width apart, all while trying not to touch either one, the floor, or the ceiling. (There are special techniques you learn in cave training for this kind of thing.) While I am in this cave, my attention is first and foremost on my body movement and maintaining perfect buoyancy. Filming and attention to the camera is always, always secondary. The quality of the video suffers because of this, but it is very important for the preservation of the cave.

Footnotes

• Cave Diving is dangerous! Please don't dive into a cave without proper training. Or at least make sure there is water in the cave before you dive into it.
  
• Cave Diving involves encounters of Spectacular Beauty. Please remember to breathe while you are underwater.
  
• Don't get impaled on a stalactite or stalagmite. It can hurt. (Fortunately I was only mildly surprised, not hurt in the least. The stalagmite is OK too.)
  
• If you plan to take a camera into a cave, I strongly recommend two things: (1) get familiar with your camera/video gear in open water FIRST -- if you can manage your gear in coral caves with no problem you are probably good enough to do it in a cave; (2) don't take a camera on your first visit to a cave. Tour the cave first to know what to expect, then take the gear on the 2nd visit.
  
• I want to add this advice: (3) If you want to take good pictures in a cave, practice your photography / videography on night dives first. The conditions on a night dive are much closer than daytime diving in terms of exposure, lighting and dealing with switches/knobs/bells/whistles on your housing in the dark.

Statistics and Facts

• The dive time was 92 minutes. Calimba to Bosh Chen was 44 minutes, Bosh Chen to Calimba was 48 minutes which included a 3 minute safety stop.
  
• Maximum depth was 45 feet
  
• There is a section we passed on the Calimba line just before the Lagarto main line called the "Boa Constriction" and as you can imagine, it is a series of minor restrictions. They are quite fun to negotiate. Remember playing "limbo" where you cannot touch the bar? Imagine doing that in 100 lbs of scuba gear while cave diving.
  
• There have been two deaths in Calimba that I know of, and photography was a contributing factor. This fact is consciously on my mind every time I dive here.
  
• There was one primary light failure on this dive. Dusan's quit probably because of a low battery.
  
• I now carry TWO primaries after learning from last month's fiasco.