Invade the Keys!

[alcina]

I had such an awesome time on my trip to the Florida Keys - couldn't have met better people. The diving was warm and there was a lot of growth on the reefs. There were quite a few fish etc, but it's not as active as the Ningaloo Reef. Still very nice, though.

I only did three dives on the weekend as mostly I spent it schmoozing instead I also had to shoot a system I'd never even touched before and of course I put it all together about 15 minutes before I walked out the door. It worked out alright bar a few little annoying problems, like one strobe not firing all the time, as I wasn't there to concentrate on shooting anyway.

I shot a Nikon D200 with the Tokina 10-17 lens.

Otter getting close to a ray with John in the background shooting vid. These are two of the coolest guys on the planet - love 'em to bits!

Flutemouth trying to pretend he's part of the coral tree

A school of fishies - these schools were all over every site pretty much.

One of our group cruising behind a different school of fishies

As always, enjoy...and for those interested, there's a little blurb with some land photos in the ITK 2008 section, too.

 

[DennisW]

Very nice pics. Thanks for sharing. I wish I could have attended this year.

 

[alcina]

Dennis - thanks for taking the time to have a look and leave a note!

I hope you can next year...this year was awesome

 

[DennisW]

I am sure it was. I attended the first two. This year our big trip was to Saba Island. We may go back there again next year for our 30th anniversary. I am still working on that. Wonderful place to visit and dive.

 

[ce4jesus]

Very nice Kristin...love the trumpetfish! I love Florida and head their 2-3 times a year due to business and try and dive every trip. The last trip saw a huge ray following a bull shark on French Reef...very nice.

 

[Jandee]

I'm going to Key Largo Dec 17th to 21. I go a couple times per year and dive with Ocean
Divers. They wil go out even if there are only 2 people signed up. This is my yearly Christmas present to myself. Winter diving in Florida: 75 degrees. Summer diving in Wisconsin: 43 degrees. Last year for a change of pace we went to Key West. I scheduled that dive with a tourist center instead of a dive shop. At that time of the year there aren't a lot of divers mid week. The tourist center arranges for 1 dive shops to take all the divers and the dive shops take turns going out. This prevented our dive from being canceled due to not enough divers.
A couple of years ago we went to Tarpon Springs, north of Tampa. There I ran into dives being canceled because there weren't enough divers signed up and because of a stupid banana. On the first dive, the weather forcast was perfect with calm seas. Leaving the harbor the DM asked if any one had a banana on the boat. Unfortunately I have one is my dive bag and they made me throw it overboard because bananas are considered bad luck. We did our first ocean dive, when we surfaced we had 6-8 ft waves and the boat wouldn't start. I really was blamed for screwing up the weather and the boat. The rest of the week we had to dive in fresh water because the boat was still broke. I don't beleive the whole banana thing but still I will never take a banana out on my boat.

 

[fairybasslet]

Really nice. Glad you had a blast. Sorry i couldn't make it this year so I could meet you.