Another year, another dive destination. Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles, where 70% of the tourists come to dive…. must be something good then. It has been a while since we were last underwater with a breathing apparatus. I still have fond memories of diving with Rajan, the swimming elephant of Havelock Island in the Indian Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, last year.

This time we are in the Caribbean Sea, and the water is getting to a nice 27 degrees Celcius. From the Habitat Curacao Resort we start with a boat dive on Mushroom Forest.  A beautiful dive site full of mushroom shaped coral formations.

This is the maiden voyage of my new 8″ dome port for my Nikon D200 Ikelite Housing. With the Sigma full feame 12-24 mm mounted, the postbody was not wide enough, so I had my friend Nico Bodewes, widen the port with two mm to accomodate the lens and was able to customize a zoom ring that fit the narrow space.

The Dive is going well, and my ears… always the weak link, seem to adjust well to the local pressure. After a good 40 minutes we surface with many good shots for the story.

The second dive was a bit more eventful than I planned for. Halfway through the dive, a loud zipping noise splits my right ear and the world starts spinning for a while. I signal to the divemaster that I need to go up…. Jillian, my buddy has a new camera, and 2 buddying photographers with tunnelvission, we now find out, does not work as we have temporarily lost contact. Salt water is eating away at my inner Ear and I know I am buggered with a perforated eardrum for the rest of the trip… and months to come. @#$@$#@$

Life goes on and I will have to concentrate more on the landbased photography.

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