  
Welcome to my newsletter. I thank all of you who read it (rather than delete it!) and thank you for your encouraging responses. I love when you tell me you enjoy it and that something I've written has been of value to you. That's my intent: to provide practical information relevant to divers and underwater photographers. I welcome your questions and suggestions.
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Annual Fall Whale Shark Expedition New Interactive Diving Service, eDiving!
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Have it Your Way!
Whale sharks in your face. Mantas circling above your head close enough to touch. Sea lions dive bombing and nipping at your fins. Morays, morays, morays. Jacks and barracudas schooling. Dolphins. Giant jawfish found nowhere else. 100+ vis. Bathtub warm water. Bright blue skies and calm blue seas. Exotic. Exciting. Jacques Cousteau called it "The World's Greatest Aquarium." And a two-hour flight from Los Angeles! It's La Paz!
This year the airfare has gone up. No surprise there. It’s gone up everywhere! In past years the most popular package was 5 nights and 3 days of diving. We called it a Long Weekend. Southern Californians loved it. But this year, because the price of the ticket is about $200 more, most people are opting to stay longer and dive more.
Okay, have it your way! We will customize your trip!
The Basic Package $1059 Includes 5 nights, 6 days at the La Concha Beach Resort Per person, double occupancy. Each additional night at La Concha $62.50 pp Each additional
day of 3-tank diving $160 Each additional
day of 2-tank diving $135 Single Supplement Add $56 per night Non Diver Package $514
About the Airlines
For those on a budget and not in a hurry, you can fly into Los Cabos (2 hours and 25 minutes) from LAX on American, Mexicana, United and Alaska. The cost as of this writing is $438.80 roundtrip. You can then rent a car and enjoy a three-hour scenic drive to La Paz. For ReservationsFor Reservations call Joe at 949-448-0499 or email: orca2@cox.net or fill out the Reservation Form on our site: www.JoeLiburdi.com.
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Photos by Joe Liburdi and Cara Sherman |
Our webmaster extraordinaire, Craig Oberlin, without whom we would probably never have this newsletter or website, is now applying his considerable computer and design talents to a new project called eDiving. Craig is a friend of ours and a friend of the oceans, a scuba instructor and accomplished underwater videographer. Here, in his own words, is what Craig is contributing now to the diving world.
For those of you who know me, in addition to maintaining Joe's website and building these emails from the excellent material supplied, I was the Marketing Director at Ocean Technology Systems, manufacturers of underwater communications and supplier of full face masks. Last April I decided to take a bit of a risk and went to work for a diving related internet startup company, DiveNav.
DiveNav offers the FREE eDiving internet service. You can think of eDiving as a diving simulator or even a underwater diving video game. We have created the most realistic underwater environment available including all of the caustics, "God rays", and effects that water has on light. We use actual bathymetry data and our artists have created marine flora and fauna, including sharks, lobsters, eels, and topside landmarks and buildings. Our engineers have included a fully functional dive computer, compass, and physiology and physics models so you can better 'plan your dive' or even your dive vacation.
Here is a 'video' of an eDive I did at the Avalon Underwater Park over at Catalina Island.
At the Long Beach Scuba Show, we released our first four sites – the Avalon Underwater Park and Bird Rock, both over on Catalina. The HMCS Yukon, in San Diego and Vallecitos Point, La Jolla Shores. Last week we released Isthmus Reef, Catalina and next week we will be releasing Veteran's Park at Redondo Beach. By the end of the year, we will have all of the major dive sites in California available. After that, we plan on doing Hawaii, Florida, and then the Caribbean. My guess is we will also do some more distant and exotic locales on a case-by-case basis.
In addition to being just fun, you can use eDiving to check out a prospective dive site before deciding to go there (think of how we use 360 views of a hotel room or boat, except this is for divers, they are dive sites and YOU get to control what you see). With eDiving, you can plan your dive to see “points of interest” (like the Cousteau plaque at Avalon).
To celebrate the production launch and to urge the trial of the eDiving™ service, DiveNav is launching a contest with prizes worth over $10,000 for divers, dive instructors, and dive retailers! Prizes include BCDs, regulators, split fins, and various dive accessories from leading scuba manufacturers. The Grand Prize Winner will receive two OceanReef Full Face Masks with Underwater Communications. We have already givin away, Atomic Split Fins, an digital camera and housing, and a Aqualung 3mm wetsuit.
As I mentioned before, the eDiving service is FREE, fun, and easy to use. To register and try it out, go to http://www.ediving.us
Dive Safe and eDive Often!
Craig
Underwater photography is fun. But we all know how frustrating it can be, too. The light is not always good. The visibility isn’t always good either. Fish never stay still. And if that weren’t enough, point-and-shoot digital photographers can’t see!
If you have an SLR camera, you don’t know what I’m talking about. If you have a point and shoot, you are nodding your head and saying, Ain’t that the truth!
Digital point-and-shoot cameras like Sea & Sea’s DX-8000 and DX-1G are very easy to use, take very good pictures, and are extremely well priced. Their weak point is the LCD. Unlike SLRs, digitals do not have a viewfinder. The photographer uses the LCD screen to compose as well as to review. The LCD displays are hard to see because the read-outs and icons are too small and the glare on the screen too big.
So Joe and Jon have come up with the See Life Loupe.
Yours truly, Joe “MacGyver” Liburdi rigged up a prototype and Jon Dinsdale, the artist we call Poet, engineered it. The loupe is designed to fit most point-and-shoot underwater housing systems. Easy step-by-step instructions are furnished to make the installation easy. Each loupe is hand-crafted. In the event you have an odd ball housing design, we can fabricate a loupe to the specifications that will be compatible with your housing.
The loupe is designed to perform three important functions:
Photo taken by Poet with the DX-8000 and the Loupe
Need I say more?
The See Llfe Optics Underwater Loupe is constructed of corrosion-resistant stainless steel, polycarbonate lens housing with argon sealed glass lens. 5mm neoprene black soft shade included. Priced from $125. Tax and shipping additional.
For more information, call Joe at 949-448-0499 or email orca2@cox.net.
