Recent Volunteer Dive at GLA

A fish's point of view!


I took these 2 photos from inside the Great Lakes Aquarium last weekend.

Below is a photo from the outside of the largest of the 3 aquariums. I also added a few photos of the area under the aquarium, food prep & dive prep.

Bahamas

August 27, 2008

I just had to send an update - since today's dives went so well. We didn't get to dive at all yesterday - since the weather didn't clear up until evening.

Today both Talon & Steel did 2 dives. Patrick is one of the divemasters & he took Talon aside to help him. (This is why I chose a small dive shop - instead of the big one located in the hotel we are at.) It worked out so well on the first dive, that we decided to throw some sharks in the mix for the second dive. The second dive was shark alley - both Talon & Steel were calmly swimming among the sharks! If they keep doing good we might be able to add in some afternoon dives as well. I am going to have to try to find some more tapes for the video camera - I didn't bring enough. Russell is using my Canon DSLR now, since I'm doing video.

Bahamas

October, 2008
We just recently took a trip to the Bahamas. Both kids are now old enough to get certified - so we got to make it a family dive vacation. Talon is 12 & got certified last year. Steel is 10 & just finished his certification.

August 26, 2008
We are stuck at the hotel right now since we are waiting to see what the weather is going to do - I guess there is the possibility of some rough weather. We are supposed to call the dive shop soon to find out if it will be possible to go out today.

I swear I think Steel is part fish! We can't keep him out of the water at all & he's doing great with the diving. Every second he's not in the ocean - he's in the pool. We have done 4 dives so far. Talon just did the first one. Steel has done all 4 dives. The seas were a bit rough yesterday... enough to make me feed the fishes - but Steel still did both dives with me. He got to see a small wreck, a turtle, lion fish & tons of other stuff. He gets very excited & is pointing out just about every fish. He's got a natural knack for finding things too! He spotted a lion fish inside the wreck at the same time I did - plus he said he saw an eel that I did not see. Talon is not taking to it quite as easily. He has a lot of anxiety. We will most likely need to have to have really calm water to get him back in.

I just brought my DSLR on the first dive day - since I needed to see how the kids would do before bringing new/different equipment. Then yesterday I brought the video camera. I really enjoyed doing video.... Guess I knew I would. I see advantages to both. With the DSLR I can take photos that can be enlarged. With the video I'm able to capture some very different things that don't really look dynamic in photos.