In 20003 I replaced the 850R (at 72,000 miles) with a beautiful 1150R,
which sadly was destroyed in 2006.  The accompanying destruction to my
shoulder swung the pendulum back from skydiving to scuba, where one
can get away with a bit less fitness and flexibility.  (it's not that
bad, I don't set off metal detectors and I can't stick magnets to the
arm.)

Just before I augered in at 65mph, I bought the sport bike I always
wanted, a '95 Daytona 1200.  Pretty bike, lousy city commuter, but I'm
not ready yet to pony up for another beemer when I'm still nervous
about freeways.  I briefly considered a scooter for my 4 mile commute
across SF, but I just can't bring myself to it.

Jason

I'll look around sometime today to see what I can come up with that's diving
related, but, in the interim, here's a site some here may find interesting.
Baen Books, the publisher of a lot of the best science fiction authors in
the market, thinks that offering free electronic books may be a good way to
increase sales of their paperback and hard bound ones. So far, their
experiment seems to be working well. That does not surprise me. I've
downloaded everything they offer and read most. I'm impressed enough that,
when I do buy hard copy publications, I consider the Baen name to be
indicative of ones I will enjoy.

At any rate, the free, and completely legal, books are available at
http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm . From the same page, you can
download free readers. I use Microsoft Reader, both on my desktop and
notebook computers and on my smart phone/PDA.

Enjoy.

Lee

The water in Cocos is quite a bit clearer from my experience and, even
during the rainy season, we got a lot more sun penetration than what
the Galapagoan garua permits in the dry season.  It was light as day
down at 115' on Alcyone or Dirty Rock, whereas in the Galapagos, it's
always a perpetual twilight even as shallow as 30'.  I'd go with 200.

Hopefully JOR will stick around here long enough to post his results.

I was on the fence about it all - it's a huge price increase from a
simple compact and housing, but last year I was in the caymans and
though I was well ahead of the other compact shooters, the two guys
with housings were doing stuff that just wasn't an option for me.
Then I waffled on getting a top dawg with an hdv camcorder.

Backscatter had a full setup for 2250 - aquatica housing, 20d body,
10-22 lens, port, and 8" dome.  Doesn't match the 30D I already have,
but it's complete, and I am selling the 10-22 I had just gotten, so if
you cheat it is only costing me about 1650.  I added a ys-110 and
we'll see how it goes.  Later in the year I'll add a 100mm macro (or
maybe the shorter one) for Monterey use.  But for this trip, focus on
big and not worry about which mode to take on the dive.

Coincidentally, I got a clear out garage sale type deal on a couple
nik v bodies with a 35, s&s 15, and tubes ($190).  I may experiment a
little bit with it.  You might find one on ebay to keep the option
there.   'New' used ones are cheaper than servicings!  And certainly
more compact that the aquatica housing.  I just found a Akona carry on
case that I can lug it all in without the huge weight of the pelican
1510s.

We'll see how it goes.  I took 1000 pics in 6 days in the caymans with
the compact.  On day 5 when we did the pre dawn dive, one of the two
housings flooded and he was done for the week.  That's the scary part
to me.  The aquashot and compact housings have that single oring-
almost bulletproof.  And of course, I go from an S400 with almost no
options (flash or no, spot or wide exposure) to the DSLR's total
control.  Even on land I'm still figuring it out.

Jason

 ***** (five stars)