A week ago today, my family arrived on Grand Cayman.  It was 90+ degrees and
humid all week.  We stayed at the Comfort Suites and it was a great family
motel.  We had a two bedroom suite, so one bedroom was for my wife and me,
the other bedroom for my daughter, and my son slept on the fold-out couch in
the living room area.  There was a kitchen area with sink, stove, microwave,
and refrig.  We went to Kirk's Supermarket and bought lunch food, as
continental breakfast was provided in the lobby.  The only meal expense was
for dinners.  Again, this was a great place for a family of four.

The dive shop on grounds was Don Foster's and I went there Tuesday morning.
Polly was behind the counter and I needed a refresher course as I am NAUI
certified 25 years ago, but haven't dove the past 20 years.  By 2:00 that
afternoon, I was in Georgetown at the main Don Foster Shop with Phil, my
instructor, for a short refresher and a reef dive.  It was terrific being
underwater again after all those years.  The coral reef and fish were
beautiful.

I wanted to video tape the diving and snorkling, so I needed an underwater
housing for my Sony DCR-TRV33.  I did not want to pay more than the camera
for the housing, so I found the plans for a homemade inexpensive housing on
the internet.  You can find this too if you run a Google search for: Paul's
Homemade Underwater Housing.  I had a local plastics shop fabricate this for
me for under $200.  Looking back, I do not recommend this, though, as you
are gambling with your camera equipment.  I had a real problem with the big
o-ring, as the plastics shop made the housing, but I had to get the o-ring
somewhere else.  I did not know how much of a hassle this was going to be.
Finally, I found a hydraulics shop that had the right size o-ring, but the
rubber was very hard and the first time I tried the unit in the laundry room
utility tub, it leaked.  This was during the week before we were to go to
Cayman Islands, so I figured I would be unable to video the diving.

However, I emailed Paul, the housing inventor in England.  He was very
helpful and suggested how to tighten up the clamps.  As it turned out, I had
tested the unit in cold water in an air conditioned environment.  When I
took it to the pool to test, it was 90 degrees out and the o-ring warmed up.
I believe this helped the "mash factor" and it did not leak.

If I had to do it over again, Paul is now manufacturing the housings and you
can contact him at  http://www.clearcam.co.uk/.  He has experience at making
these, whereas, I had concerns that disaster would strike at any moment as
this was my first and only shot at this.  I would go with his experience any
day.

Photography and video have learning curves, as well as underwater video.
With my Tuesday dive, the housing worked, no leaks, but I forgot to shut the
auto-focus off.  Now, I had read other people's suggestions and I knew to do
this, but in the excitement of set-up, I forgot.  The video is okay, but
somewhat pixilated as the landscape, light glimmer, and water ripples must
have played havoc with the auto-focus.  They are right with their
suggestion: zoom out and auto-focus off.

The beach area was good, too.  Keep in mind that it is a public beach, not
the Comfort Suites' beach.  We dragged lounge chairs down from the pool, as
the motel was under no obligation to provide them.  And the snorkling off
the beach at the moment was great, too.  There was an artificial reef a
short distance from shore with lots of fish.  I used the video camera and
housing here too, to get some underwater video of my family snorkling.

Thursday, I did a repeat dive on the reef again.  This time I had the
auto-focus turned off and the video was stunning.  Cyrus was my partner,
from Don Foster's, and he has a goal to work, ultimately, for the Discovery
Channel as a Videographer.  I gave him the camera on the dive and you can
tell the difference with his professional eye versus my amateur eye in the
video quality.

The weather was fine all week.  We ate out at the Pizza Hut, Hard Rock Cafe,
Athena Greek Restaurant, and Chicken Chicken.  No problems with food or
stomach flu, but do take care.  We drank bottle water all the time, too.
Everything was really expensive, as they have to import everything, but
saving on breakfasts and lunches helped.

Great trip and we will return to the Cayman Islands.  If you are looking for
a place to go and dive, I highly recommend the Cayman Islands.