Monday's (5/10) Maui pics

[Gilligan]

Water Bear I can't say I am paranoid but I am concerned about the "man in the gray suit", epecially in deeper water. I would be way more concerned snorkeling than diving. All the shark attacks here have been on people on the surface, mostly surfers and a couple of swimmers.
I have been solo diving for about ten years and have had two shark encounters, Oct and Dec of 2003. Of course there may have been more times that the shark saw me and I didn't see it.
Neither encounter was life threatening at the time.
Last Oct a large shark, probably a Galapagos, followed me and a dive buddy to the surface from a 120 foot dive. It swam around under our kayaks for a few minutes after we got in them. Mostly curious I suspect as it could have attacked us.
On Christmas Day a large unknown type shark was in the water about 200 feet away looking at me right when I got off the kayak. Again, I suspect it was a large Gallapagos Shark. It could have been a Tiger but I didn't hang around to check it out. I got back in my kayak and aborted my dive. Guess that was my present from Santa Claus.

Having a dive buddy would of course decrease my odds by 50% :biggrin2:

 

[mary915]

nice shots of the turtle

 

[justleesa]

Having a dive buddy would of course decrease my odds by 50% :biggrin2:

A slower buddy would be even better your odds

 

[DiverEdd]

Your pictures never seem to have the typical blue of most u/w photos. Do you manually adust the white balanace on your digicam?

 

[Gilligan]

DiverEdd, yes I do adjust my white balance. I use Manual White Balance on all the photos that are taken w/o a strobe. I calibrate the white balance off a clean dive slate after completing my descent. You can see a white slate tucked under the turtle's flipper in photo 1 and hanging on my anchor line along with my dive light and a goody bag in photo 2. Actually, it is a cut out section of a large laundry detergent bottle with a clip attached to it. It was a lot cheaper than a dive slate.
I usually have to only adjust the contrast, brightness and sharpness on them in Photoshop.
All three of these turtle pics were manual white balance, the last one was with a WAL.
The first one came out the worst and I had to play with it more in Photoshop and it is still not a good pic.

 

[DiverEdd]

Thanks Gilligan, I thought about bringing a white slate down to calibate my Canon. I'll try that for my trip to Kauai next week. I hope my pictures are half as good as yours.