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Love the color! Shotgun was one of my favorite dives. I remember it was timed for the strongest tidal surge. One of the best drift dives anywhere.

The mermaid’s owner was very good about the car. That alone was the biggest factor. I also liked the location up the hill and away from most of the noise. My room had a giant tiled bathroom and a deck with a hot tub. The food was also pretty good. I also liked that it was reasonably quiet at...

Edit: Bob Jacobs is the videographer. His company is Calypso Multimedia. His macro technique is spot on. I’ll ask him if I can post a short excerpt. We did two dives with him and the edited video was ready by dinner.

This was my third trip to the Philippines. Each time I have enjoyed meeting new people and diving the coral reefs. Flights were Boston-Tokyo (Narita)-Manila and back on Japan Airlines. All flights were operated with the 787 using 8 across economy seating. The longer flights had an extra two...

The lights may have been off. That was the top of the reef which was quite shallow. Very powerful lights would be needed to make much of a difference near the surface. I find that I had to turn the power on the lights down by 20 meters. Through most of my dive I had the lights on. This video is...

Two Light & Motion Sola 3800 Pro lights. They were a special from Backscatter labeled as the 3600+.

Last week I returned from Labuan Bajo. There is a lot of new construction going up. The new airport is brining in a lot more visitors. But to put things into perspective, I remember visiting Sharm el Sheikh in 1991. There were maybe 3 or 4 hotels. The last time I visited there must have been...

Minor editing with Adobe Rush CC on my phone.

Has a little trouble uploading an image of my rig. Hopefully a short clip I took will embed.

Filter or lights? Both! Hergen Spalink has an excellent article about settings to get consistent color with the GoPro and video lights. He used a red filter and preset the white balance to 3000k. Granted his video lights were massive Keldan 8000 lumens. Raja Ampat on a GoPro Hero 4 - Got Muck...

Great trip report! You were lucky to dive the canyons on a slack tide. I have memories of the immense amount of color there. Asia Divers are one of the best.

Thanks for the trip report. I have a trip on Wunderpus in a few weeks.

Yes, I’ve been in contact with William at Dragon Dive. For land based diving I like that they have a speedboat in addition to a regular day boat. Also I did notice your wrasse photo on their website. Magnificent! Uber is also on my list to consider. Visiting Bromo looks more attractive. I...

Komodo has been on my list for a long time. My tickets are booked for an arrival in Bali on May 3rd. Departure is May 14th. The current plan is to overnight near Denpasar and take a Garuda flight to Labuan Bajo. Ideally I want to have a 3-day liveboard plus 3-4 days of land-based diving. The...

Great report! I’m considering a 3 night liveaboard. Just in case I don’t, does Uber take the day boats to Batu Bolong regularly? Also curious if they rent computers.

Two lights are ideal. Look for something with 90 degrees coverage. A wide angle lens is very important. Good quality video that shows a large section of reef is almost always filmed with a wide lens. What looks like two meters is usually 60 cm away, or less. 2 meters may as well be 20 meters...

As an RX100 owner, I have used the camera in an inexpensive Polaroid (Meikon) housing. Sony cameras are notorious for being difficult to white balance correctly in blue water. I had some success by taping a small piece of 81A warming filter over the camera lens before putting it into the...

Is the resort giving a much lower rate than you would find on a third party site such as Agoda or Travelocity? The Sikat bus/ferry makes a private transfer unnecessary unless you want a later departure from Manila. The Best Western La Corona is much nicer than CityState Tower Hotel, and it's...

Hopefully I can help answer some questions. Point 'n shoot: the market has been decimated by phones and action cams. Generally you are limited to higher end cameras like the Sony RX and Canon G series. These are the best option for photos, as you would have lots of options for lenses, strobes...

My hotel was the Mermaid. I had a penthouse room with an outdoor hot tub. The hotel overlooks Sabang port and is quieter than most on the beach. That was important because I was asleep by 9:30. The air conditioner is a new split mini type and the bathroom is very large. Plenty of hot water...