The Check Out Dive (AKA Hell Dive)

In order to finish up your Divemaster certification, you must do a check out dive or what is commonly referred to here at MDDC as the HELL DIVE! Since I suffered greatly, I don’t want to give too much away for up and coming victims… oops uh I mean divemaster candidates!!! So I’m going to keep the details to a minimum ;)

This dive consists of at least 4 pretend customers (usually MDDC staff) that you have to take on a guided dive from start to finish. The point of the whole dive is to pretty much test how you deal with problems in a stressful situation.

And let me tell you, it is stressful.

It starts the moment the "customers" walk in the door. You will experience everything from difficult names (Gibben U. Gas seems to be a favorite around here), filling out paperwork incorrectly, putting on gear wrong, divers “accidentally” forgetting gear before entering the water, buoyancy issues, wandering divers and the oh-so-fun out of air exercise!

It is true what instructors/divemasters will tell you – every problem the divemaster candidate will face is self-inflicted. So, reviewing the paperwork, making sure all the gear is there, doing a thorough briefing (but not excessive!) is critical to success! Of course, even if you do a good job in all those areas, you are not going to get away unscathed!

After I finished my hell dive, my instructor Jay told me that 90% of what I experienced that day WILL happen to me in my career and he was sooooo right. Even though I’ve only been a divemaster for 9 months, I’ve experienced almost all of it. I always know I forgot something in my briefing when I see my divers doing something “off”. For example, I sounded my “quacker” underwater once and all the divers looked around confused (I forgot to brief my sounding device)… they had no idea what that noise was or what it meant. Another favorite is forgetting to stress the “OK” sign instead of a “thumbs up” (indicating the need to surface!). Depending on the situation, I understand the diver was just excited about what they saw underwater, but there is that wave of a stress that goes through my body when I see this happen… what if it’s not an accidental signal?! I could go on and on but I think you get the point!

I love my job – every day is a new and exciting experience!

Aloha, Katherine

UW Digi Photo Part Deux!

After completing the online portion of our Digital Underwater Photography course, we met with Jim from Maui Dreams to take our cameras diving and to complete the course. Jim gave us some pointers at the shop, went over both my camera and my husband's rental camera to ensure we were familiar with settings. Once at the dive site we had a few assignments such as manually setting white balance, shooting in macro mode and shooting both horizontal and vertical shots.

Now armed with these instructions and advice, we entered the water at Ulua Beach. The first test of our new skills was a nice big frog fish (you can see one of my photos of "him" in my previous post). Thank goodness for this type of fish, it is a good subject as it just sits there and looks interesting. Throughout the dive Jim would point out things of interest, a few times writing on his slate for us to try a different setting or to take a picture of something of interest (in addition to the first frog fish, we did 'stumble' upon a jet black frog fish). As you can see from the photos, we were also lucky enough to see a green lionfish.

Shooting in RAW mode uses much more space on your memory card, than JPEG. It also takes longer to view the photo before moving on to the next. At this point I was not necessarily convinced RAW mode was the way to go especially when my memory card filled up before the end of the first dive. Feeling smug, (kinda hard to feel that underwater), I pressed the button on my camera to switch to my second memory card. I was feeling clever and thinking "I've got this"...... After the first dive we discussed some additional pointers, and Jim mentioned it was good both my husband and I had good buoyancy skills which is a definite plus in taking pictures AND not damaging the reef.

We went back in for our second dive and it was during this second dive that I realized my cleverness of the additional memory card, was, well not so clever!!! I had forgotten that one of the basic rules from the online course was to prepare for your underwater photo dive; I forgot to delete pictures from a previous dive done 3 years earlier.....Oooops!!! So while diving I was furiously deleting old pix to make room for new pix because we were coming back to that black frog fish and I needed another picture!!

After both dives we went back to the shop to download our pictures. Jim was very encouraging and provided constructive comments on how a picture could have been taken differently for different results. For example I thought I had to use my strobe/flash on ALL photos. In viewing some of my reef shots, the flash just highlighted the backscatter. I now know that I don't need my flash for all shots, in particular distance shots, but to save it for those close ups to highlight the colors. All of this feedback/instruction was extremely beneficial as Jim was able to take photos I would have deleted and use Photoshop to change the color, contrast, sharpen and to remove particles in the image. Now remember I said I wasn't convinced about shooting in RAW mode??? Well it was AMAZING what a difference shooting in RAW mode made. Because I shot in RAW mode I was able to have much more creative control when using Photoshop to enhance the image and bring out the true colors.  Check out the before and after results on this coral shot:

                                                              

This was an amazing experience and I am amazed at of the information we learned. Two of the biggest things I learned from Jim were that underexposed is not a bad thing and easier to fix than overexposed AND how to use Photoshop to obtain the desired results. I have been playing with Photoshop every night since and I am addicted.

On a side note, we were so excited with our new-found knowledge and new dive buddy friend, that we booked a scooter dive the following day with Jim at Maui Dreams and I have to say that dive was in our top 10 favorites. Now all we need to do is continue to practice, practice, practice, which shouldn't be a problem for people like us who LOVE diving.

Today we went diving out at Honalua Bay and to our great surprise we encountered a bunch of dolphins. We had encountered dolphins a few years back and you could hardly see them in my pictures. Using the new techniques we just learned from the online course and Jim, I was able to get some fantastic shots =))).

Digital UW Photo by Kat C. (Guest Blogger!)

A few weeks ago while lazing around the house on Facebook, I happened to be online right when Maui Dreams posted a contest for a free underwater digital course. I couldn't believe my eyes, I responded and was picked ;-). My husband, not to be left out, also decided to sign up for the online course. My husband and I had discussed taking an underwater photography class, and even talked to Maui Dreams last year, but never signed up. To be honest, the thought of taking any such course was quite intimidating to me, especially since I barely knew how to turn my camera on.

Here's a brief history on me and my experience with taking photos underwater. I have been diving for nine years and have logged over 100 dives. My first camera was a point and shoot disposable; hundreds of dollars were spent on cameras and the development of film. Almost all of the pictures were fish butts, yet I kept doing the same things over and over again until my husband said 'no more' and bought me my first digital camera and underwater housing.

That camera, an Olympus 5060, paid for itself during the first trip since we no longer had to buy and process film!!! I thought that camera was the cat's meow and thought that I took good photos =). I never had the patience to learn how to really use this camera, just used default setting of "P" and off I went.

I tended to take ALOT of pictures and simply hoped that out of the hundreds taken,  a few would turn out well and sometimes I got lucky! There was never anything thought out or methodical when I took these pictures, I simply swam furiously and 'snap, snap, snap'..... it was really quite spastic .... nevermind the saturated blue, out-of-focus photos that were the end result!!!!

This went on for quite a few years until I noticed that other people's underwater photos actually had color! So I complained to my husband and he bought me a strobe.  That helped sometimes but not always. Complained again, and he got me Photoshop that had a nice little button to remove blue. This was better than before and I was a little more satisfied as sometimes it worked, sometimes not so much. Many times my editing job on the pictures looked, well um, photoshopped but not in a good way.  (see my eel shot from early on)

We took the online Digital Underwater Photographer course offered by PADI, and did so while on vacation. I was a bit concerned that it would be too overwhelming to take both the course and enjoy my vacation, but I was proven wrong. The online course was easy to follow and provided outstanding examples of before and after photos so I could not only understand why, but I could visually see the difference (remember, I could barely turn my camera on so it was important the course provide visuals). The course also taught the different camera options out there and how important it was to know how to use your camera and locate settings PRIOR to the dive.

The MOST important thing the course taught me is that I could take fantastic underwater photos by making a few simple changes. The course taught about this little thing called 'White Balance' and shooting in 'RAW' format. Go figure, you mean there is a method to shooting underwater photos???? It was like the heavens opened up and the angels started singing.... 'white balance....raw....white balance....raw!'

Immediately after completing module two, my husband and I did a shore dive on our own so I could check out this white balance thing and guess what??? It did make a difference (check out my frogfish shot)!!! I could not wait until my next dive to practice more of what I had learned. Amid swimming, sunning, luaus and general vacation plans, my husband and I were able to complete the online course within 3 nights (1-2 hours each night). We learned more taking the online course and taking the course with Jim at Maui Dreams than we did in eight years of diving and taking photos on our own!

I had feared that this course would cater to the advanced diver with years of camera training and was pleasantly surprised that I was actually able to not only understand the course, but was able to pass the online course. We could not wait to meet with Jim at Maui Dreams to finish the next step of our training...........

...to be continued in next week's blog entry

p.s.  Kat is the diver in the far right of the above photo, with her husband right next to her.  We took this photo when we got to dive with her a few years ago.

A Word from "the Other" Intern

Early mornings with the Queen of Caffeine.

First of all, I must say I do not consider myself computer illiterate but I have also never written a blog before, so please bear with me. I am the other intern…AKA (little one, short stuff, or commonly referred to as Katie)

I had honestly no idea what to expect when Chelsea and I made the six hour flight from Vancouver, B.C. to Maui. It’s been a place I have always wanted to travel to ever since my Opa had told me about it when I was five, but never had the chance to visit. I jumped on the bandwagon when Chelsea said she was thinking of contacting Maui Dreams to complete our university practicum. Yes, I kid you not …We got to go to school for diving!! As freshly certified instructors our 140 hours of work experience here at Maui Dreams count towards our final credit and it has been a blast so far. How cool is that ?!

The shop orientation was somewhat overwhelming…

I have been in the backrooms of dive shops before, but when it comes to available services offered, Maui Dreams has everything but the kitchen sink. Seriously, everything down to hydrostatic testing. First day I was like a kid in a candy store.

There are few things I willingly get up for in the morning, because, well let’s face it; I don’t really do mornings…I don’t really agree with them, and they hardly ever seem to agree with me (I usually look like I’ve crawled out of a ditch, or been hit by a bus…you choose) .

Like alpine skiing and coffee, scuba diving is one of those activities I am always up for. It is always something I have wanted to do and have never regretted getting into. My mainland family thinks I am certifiable, and there might be some truth to that. I don’t think it is possible for a normal person to have as much fun as I do. The fact I get to live the dream and share what I love to do with others makes it all worthwhile.