Thailand adventure can begin

I have decided to undertake a small media experiment and try to fully document my next adventure - diving in Thailand. I will document preparations and trip itself. All material will be published on this blog as time goes on. Goal is to try to produce a nice trip report with enough information and related media to be used by maybe some other media channel or people interesting in similar trips.

Trip is organized by Predrag Peca Radifkovic from Diving Club Sebastian from Belgrade, Serbia and is a nice mix of diving and relaxing. Most of us are visiting Thailand and Asia for the first time. Our diving experience comes from diving in mostly Adriatic Sea and Red Sea so we are quite familiar with warm sea diving. It is a mix of diving and relaxing since sometimes when ones goes on so distant travel it is a shame if only diving is involved and no other time is spent on exploring more local place and learning and enjoying in it for some time on "regular" way also.


Travel plan:
26. 02. 2011. - Arrival to Bangkok and staying overnight in hotel
27.02. 2011. - Flight to Phuket + mini van from Phukhet to Khao Lak (90km) where we get embarked the ship a.k.a. live-a-board
27.02. 2011. - 05. 03. 2011. - We stay onboard for 6 days and from here we dive and cruise around world famous Similan islands.
05. 03. 2011. - Ship gets to Khao Lak in afternoon hours and we take the mini van to resort in Phukhet.
05. 03. 2011. - 10.03.2011. - Chilling and enjoying in Phuket.
10.03.2011. - Return to Bangkok and staying overnight in hotel
11.03.2011. - Departure from Bangkok in early afternoon hours

For this trip we're flying with Turkish Airlines and their hub is in Istanbul.

Next post will put more details around ship and diving plan.

Book review: Jim Church's Essential Guide to Nikonos Systems

I started with this book as next best resource after official user guide in my adventure with Nikonos V underwater camera.

It is old book, hard to find these days but it contains essential information not only specific about Nikonos systems, but on overall underwater photography set of topics. I can say that decent part of book is dedicated to flash photography, both manual and TTL based.

Book contains many color and BW images that very descriptively explain all material that writer offers to readers.

Entire book contains many useful advises where writer explains some realistic situation and then offers a solution. Believe me, you will have all those situations.

I highly recommend this book for any underwater photographer: to those who are just starting and to those who don't understand why their TTL is not perfect.