Dear Folks,
I am the operator of Seawiscope and I have the SeawiscopeEY developed. I thank SteveTan for speaking out of his experience with SeawiscopeEY recently in this forum.
Stevetan is a friend of mine, and a fanatic of SeawiscopeEY. Stevetan got a SeawiscopeEY from us some time ago and he has obviously been excited with it. SteveTan has no finance interests in Seawiscope.
I am convinced that writing to this forum is effective to bring attention to concerned persons. Please do write to me if you wish to know more about of our line of products.
I have received my
SeawiscopeEY, and I have to say, wow, Wow, WOW!!! This is an amazing device. I made two dives with the SeawiscopeEY, and have found that this is an amazing device. The first dive was just yesterday after work, in the Clackamas River near Portland, Oregon (actually in Gladstone, Oregon). The water was 67 degrees F (about 20 degrees C), and the air temperature 90 degrees F (32 degrees F), with visibility about 10 feet in the river, which was about 20 feet deep (6 meters). I spent 64 minutes yesterday, and about half an hour today diving the SeawiscopeEY. Heres what I saw:
--the incurrent and excurrent siphons of freshwater sponge, and the tiny mites living in the tissues.
--The several small sculpins, very close up. Then, some larger sculpin came out to challenge my mask (they are very territorial). As I watched these fish, they started feeding on something in the sand. I had never seen that before, even though I had observed them before. But I could clearly see them grab something from the sand, then a few seconds later spit out the sand.
--Snails feeding off the rocks, with their shells swiveling 180 degrees in the currentI had seen the snails before, but not watched their shells in the current, nor seen more interesting behavior before. That behavior was the snails congregating onto each other, and there was probably some sexual activity involved.
--Seeing very small hatching fish (probably Northern Pike Minnows) feeding in mid-water. Their swimming motions were jerky and not at all like the swimming motion of mature adult fish.
--Aquatic insects on the rocks, which were about the diameter of my little fingernail.
All this showed me the value of the SeawiscopeEY. This device would be great for an invertebrate biologist who dives, or a zoologist specializing is small animal life. Crawdads look like giants, and the worms on their claws are easily seen.
I used it on my TUSA LiberatorPlus mask, but it does not fit on my older, vintage masks. That mask also has prescription lenses and bifocals, so I can use this device with my prescription.
There are a few things to talk about, which people will need to adapt to. Because of the near focal length of the SeawiscopeEY, when it is down and you push away from the object to swim, everything becomes blurry. The action of swimming in this manner for this 64 year-old caused some dizziness bordering on vertigo, until I put the lenses up and was back to normal sight. I find it interesting that we are so dependent upon our vision, even underwater, for our balance. But the lenses are easily flipped up out of the way for regular swimming and observing at normal distances. I had a similar experience looking at the very small fish feeding near the surface, then inadvertently pulling my head out of the water to look aroundnow I know what a visually-impaired person feels like, as the world immediately went blurry. But again, simply pulling the lenses up makes the world go back to normal. A little girl swimming nearby yesterday giggled when I pulled the lenses up, so I imagine that they make me look like a four-eyed monster.
In the interest of disclosure, I will tell you that these were sent to me without my paying for them, to try out. But no conditions were placed on this. The owner simply wanted me to get to try them out. I did, and I really like them.
Diving is such a visual world, yet it is difficult to see the really small and intricate life around us. A drab bottom of a river becomes a living world, where you can see the camouflage of a sculpin as it swims onto a rock and changes from dark to light brown to blend in. Or a simple rock becomes a haven for dozens of aquatic insects and worms that you can now see. Or a small snail harbors an insect nymph on its shell. These are now visible, and observable, with the SeawiscopeEY.
SeaRat
