Best of Mike #4

On one of the afternoons that we were on Grand Turk.... we signed up for the picnic that the dive shop was hosting.


They loaded us into a small boat and we headed out to one of nearby, uninhabited islands.


When we were about 1/2 way there they stopped the boat and all of the dive staff put on their masks fins and snorkels. 


Turns out, we were making the equivalent of a quick stop at the grocery. 

We had stopped so the dive staff could dive for the Conch that would become a fresh salad and part of our lunch.


The water was clear enough that we could see the big Conch shells all over the bottom about 30 ft below.


We were invited to join in on the "shopping".... we did try but weren't able to make it all the way to the bottom, on snorkel, to pick up any of the Conch.

Best of Mike #3

What I remember most about Grand Turk underwater, were the colors. I don't think I have seen as much pink and purple on a reef anywhere else.

This is the very earliest days of my underwater photography and the earliest days of my equipment too.

We had been in Palau the year before on a liveaboard. The captain of the boat, had a video camera that, even in the housing, was no bigger than a paperback book. 

That really appealed to me.... because prior to that I had never seen an underwater camera setup that wasn't huge. The light setup on these huge rigs always looked like something akin to moose antlers and something that I didn't want to do.

So, in the beginning I took a pretty minimalist approach to my camera equipment. 

At this point, I was using a point n shoot camera (Nikon Coolpix 950), had no lights and used an orange filter to overcome the pre-dominantly blue color underwater. 

The result of all that was that I could get some great pictures in shallow water if the light was good. 

The focal range of the "point n shoot" was great.... and particularly good for what I like to call "underwater landscapes".

Best of Mike #2

Probably the most common way to buy scuba diving, is what is called a "2-tank boat dive".


Each time you go out on the boat, you get two tanks and do two different dives. With a rest, or what we call "a surface interval" in between.


It is most often a morning activity and that was the case in Grand Turk. 


So, by lunch time you are done and ready to hang out.


This picture is taken from the patio of the little restaurant where we would go for lunch every day. It was between our hotel and the dive shop. So, we would just stop in on our walk back to the hotel.


A very laid back way to live. Still a little wet, kind of salty enjoying a cold beer and a tasty lunch. In my case, probably "fish and chips". I'm kind of a nut for fish and chips and will eat them every day if they are available and good.


Kind of fattening you say, not so, if you accept  #1 in Mike's absolutes truths of scuba diving.

• You can eat like a hog and not gain weight (because your body burns a ton of calories trying to heat the ocean to 98.6) 
• You will never have two bad nights of sleep in a row (even if you are really nervous about being underwater you burn so much energy each day that you will sleep like a baby on that 2nd night and probably every night after that).

In this pixture, we are looking down the beach towards the dive shop, where we would get on and off the boat each day.


One of the many things that I thought was cool about Grand Turk, is that there were no docks.


The crew would just drive the boat up onto the sandy beach and we would load our gear and ourselves on-board right in front of the shop.

Best of Mike #1

Learning to scuba dive is a lot like learning to drive.

In the beginning, everything is new.... and gets your full attention, whether it really needs it or not.

We are, after all, built to operate in an air based environment. So, operating in a watery world does take some getting used to.

Like a lot of things, with time and repetition comes comfort. For me that comfort came at about dive #285.

Since then a camera has been with me, when I dive.... way more often than not.

Like all photographers, I take pix that are not keepers. So, after a trip, I edit those away and end up with what I call the "Best of Mike" for each trip.

That's what I'd like to share in this series, the Best of Mike, from beginning until now.

It starts on Grand Turk, a very small island on the eastern side of the Caribbean.

Linda and I were there in February 2000.... and at least back then, it was kind of off the beaten path.

We stayed in the Grand Turk Hotel, which is not really that small a place (about 15 rooms) with kind of bed & breakfast feel to it.

But two or three of the nights we stayed there we were the only guests in the hotel.

That was the trip where we met our friends Gene and Joan. They were staying at a different hotel on the other side of the island.... where they were the only guests for the entire week.

One night we walked to their hotel to have dinner with them. We had to carry our own flashlights, because the island was so undeveloped there were no lights, street or any other kind anywhere.

When we got to their hotel, the staff had set up a table right in the lobby, and that's where we ate dinner. Kind of romantic and made us feel like royalty.

Grand Turk is very British and has the feel of a small English village. Lots of rock walls and stone cottages like the ones you see here.

They even had a population of wild horses that wandered free around the island. One in particular would show up each morning to stick his head in the window of the dining room to see if we would share any of our breakfast with him.

As I remember, he was fond of apples.