Videographer's Escape

[sinistar]

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum and was interested in your thoughts...

Let's say (for whatever reason) you find yourself with an upcoming period of 7 total days (but not more than that) where you don't have to work (yeah you still have a job, just some time off), no other obligations, you're in good health, you have all your dive & camera gear and find yourself with about $2500 to spend on the trip towards airfare, hotel, food, drinks, diving, etc. And you're wife/husband/S.O. has decided to stay home so that you can get your scuba video fix.

So, where would you go to dive, relax and shoot lots video to get the bug out of your system (not to mention lots of footage to play with back home)?

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

One of the places I have been, that was extremely reasonable, is Fiji. I led a group to Fiji two years ago (pricing is still the same ballpark) and at the time, $2,400 gave you a week in Fiji, hotel, food, RT airfare from LAX, and 5 days of diving. I know these packages today are roughly $2,500-$2,700 and are completely all inclusive. The diving is amazing, its extremely relaxing and out of touch with the daily hustle and bustle of life in America...the country is beautiful....and the food is great too!! (i think I packed on 5 pounds that week from the buffetts!)

Our group that time went to the island of Taveuni. Beqa Lagoon is also a fabulous place to go, especially if you like sharks!!

Another great place would be Cozumel. Relatively short travel time from the US, and there are a number of hotels to choose from that fit every budget. I stayed at the Cozumel Palace which was awesome! All inclusive, ocean and pool view rooms, hot tubs in the rooms, OPEN BAR..I dont remember how much it was, but it was in the $2,500 range.

 

[Teamcasa]

Where are you located?
To me its all about travel time/layovers and remaining dive days. So if:
East Coast: Cozumel, most other Caribbean locations are in your price range with short flights.
West Coast: Hawaii, Kona or Maui, Cabo San Lucas, Loreto – maybe some other South Pacific locations depending on flight times and cost.
Anywhere else, again I would look at flights and layovers before deciding.

Dave

 

[drbill]

I'm one of those backpacking divers who is willing to "sacrifice" the frills to stay in safe but very reasonable hostels and guest houses and put the money into the diving. As a videographer, I find I really need to stay in one area for at least several weeks to take enough video footage to put together a decent representation of the region's ecology.

With that said, a week can be a great get-away if you actually have a real job (my condolences). Where are you currently living? Where have you been? I can make more informed suggestions with that info.

 

[TheNitroxinator]

I just got back from Bonaire, that's well within your price range if you're going from the US and fits the description of what you're looking for. I took a over 4 hours of video on a roughly 7 day trip (technically 8 because of a long layover going from LAX to Dallas to San Juan, but that could have been mitigated if I'd wanted to take a latenight redeye). I'd have over 6 hours of video but I believe I had the flu one day (might have been a severe cold), and decided to take it easy the next day just using a PnS camera. My out of pocket cost was about $1600 including airfare, apartment rental, food, and car rental. If you're going alone, you'd probably come out a little above that because you wouldn't be able to split some of the costs, although prices are supposed to go down now that they're past the Easter high season. If you do shore diving with a pickup/jeep, you will have total control over where you go and how long you dive, except for the town pier and salt pier. My maximum dive length was 86 minutes, I got in 4 hour+ dives a day except Easter when I was running a fever, and got to wake up late and not rush to get on a dive boat or meet a dive boat schedule.

 

[RS]

Condolences? Come on, all us working stiffs that end up being tourists are helping you out. How 'bout those roads, and airports, and cheap hotels?

Condolences? No thanks.

Man, I gotta get off of this soapbox.

 

[sinistar]

Thanks for the input so far. I should clarify a few things. I've been diving for over 4 years now and have done dive trips to Cozumel (several times), Bonaire, Los Cabos, and a handful of dives in Aruba. I live in the midwest (fly out of Minneapolis). I've had the video camera to Cozumel and Los Cabos.

I've traveled to Singapore/Malalysia several times so the long haul across the Pacific (both ways) seems like a deterrent to a 1 week trip, obviously from the west coast you have more options. And the Bonaire trip was awesome as I was able to use a still camera from time to time. We spent nearly 2 weeks there. However, the flights in and out really burned up entire day each way having to take that commuter hop from Aruba to Curacao to Bonaire. And Cozumel is a 3.5hr non-stop from here with my last two round trip flights costing less than $200 with all taxes and fees. IMHO, Cozumel is tough to beat for ease of getting there and fun, clear warm water diving. However, those drift dives don't lend themselves well to sitting in one place for a bit while the fishies adjust and start to provide those nice shots/clips. In Cozumel with a camera its good to have a tolerant, patient dive buddy who doesn't mind some (rather quick) separation from the group while the buddy with camera works a longer shot.

So back to my question. I was wondering for the die hard video guys out there, what you might book while avoiding some of those hassles to get maximum quality video dive time with minimum distractions getting there and back.

For example, I dove Gordo Banks one day during a Los Cabos trip. Talk about fish everywhere. Both dives started rather deep (145' and 130') with a pretty loooong boring surface interval following some deco on dive # 1. However the payoff was worth it seeing a Humpback and calf and Mantas and about a gazillion other fish. Had that been a live aboard type experience it would have been about perfect (ie comfortable surface stop, better safety equipment, etc)

So maybe what I'm really seeking is a week long liveaboard to somewhere like up in the Sea of Cortez (for bigger critters) or someplace in the Carribean where a person can dive about 4 times a day, getting lots of footage and not having to worry about non-divers having something to do?

ps. Once again Bonaire was awesome however I think a person really needs to spend more than 5 dive days there and with that darned checkout dive that the resort required it seems like half of the first dive day is a wash too.