Where on Earth Has the Time Gone Too!

Hello everyone,

If you are still reading my blog, thank you so much! I am so sorry that I haven't posted for so long, I honestly don't know where the past few months has gone too, well almost half a year in fact! So much has been happening that I am going to post the key events in the next few days to give you all an idea as to what I have been up too! Book signing, giving talks for clubs, grabbing a hot new venue to teach underwater photography in Leeds and my dream came true to go to DEMA, America's largest trade show for divers, and was so proud to be on DivePhotoGuide's stand along with Wetpixel. A huge thank you to all of them for making me feel so welcome. Photos and guest news coming very, very soon.

Scuba Show - Long Beach, California

So it was time for me to finally be a complete tourist at a Dive Show and head off to see my very much missed Sunny Friends in the Sunshine State of California in Long Beach to coincide with the Dive Show there at the same time. What an event! It was great to see so many people there despite the clouds. I felt really honoured to finally meet two huge inspirations of mine at the event, Stan Waterman and Annie Crawley. Stan looked absolutely amazing and felt very humbled to see and hear of his experiences filming the oceans. Annie too has achieved an incredible amount and has so much drive and enthusiasm which is completely infectious. She has launched a range of DVDs in conjunction with Save Our Seas Foundation to help children understand and appreciate the ocean. Vist her website at www.diveintoyourimagination.com to buy them yourselves and to see her incredible work. I left feeling re-energised and even more inspired than ever before ........

Amazing what a Canon Ixus can do!

So here I am finally catching up on all my news from the past couple of months. What a hugely busy month it has been. Debbie Rayne and her friend George came on a course and another great day was had by them. It was Debbie's first time taking a camera underwater and she had a Canon Ixus 100 with just the Canon housing itself. Simply using the built-in flash achieved this picture! Absolutely incredible and just goes to show what just the camera in the housing can do by itself .....

Day out at the Blue Reef Aquarium

Patrick Shier, the writer for Above 18 metres from Sport Diver magazine, kindly invited me and David and Stephen along to the Blue Reef Aquarium for a different day out of photography. David and Stephen took to the aquarium like ducks to water and struggled to get them out of the tank! The weather was really good to us as well making a fantastic day out for everyone. Patrick also teaches scuba diving when he is not writing for the magazines, so visit his website at www.exclusivelyscuba.co.uk for more information.

Talk for BSAC Sutton Coldfield to help the RNLI

Finally recovered from losing my voice for a whole week since the Dive Show and I was fortunate that it came back in time for me to catch the train up to Birmingham to give a talk for this wonderful club. What a fantastic time I had with Hannah's family and her niece, grabbing more Easter Eggs en route to the talk and even had a bit of Tinkerbell Time!!!

It was great meeting Jill and Tony from the RNLI who gave up their evening to help raise money there. Once again there was a huge variety of pocket rockets in the audience with some wonderful photos being shared.

I look forward to seeing yours very soon. Just two weeks to go and I'll be taking some of my own again - yeahhhh :) :) :)

New Dive Trip to Raja Ampat Announced!

I was so, so chuffed that my friend who owns Worldwide Dive and Sail asked me to lead a trip with them to Raja Ampat in January on their gorgeous new vessel, the Mandarin Siren which will look similar to the Siren pictured here. The trip will depart Sarong on 8th January and we will be exploring some of the most biodiverse underwater scenery on our planet for the next 10 days. Their new boat promises to be just as superb, if not, more superb than the rest and holds just 8 passengers. The price for 10 days is just 2,750 euros. There is even an onboard Masseuse! Visit their website at www.worldwidediveandsail.com for more details. I can't wait :) :) :)

London Dive Show - Excel 27th/28th March

I can't believe how much has gone on recently and I have only just found the time now to play catch-up.

It was fab as always to see everyone at the show and to see so many friends and new friends-to-be! Thanks to everyone who came to visit and to Lydia and Andy from Sharkstooth Scuba for helping me to set up. I'm looking forward to helping you with your underwater photography more than ever! :) :) :)

Underwater Photography Day with George and Debbie

What a wonderful day it was, as is every day teaching here at my home. Even though the home-made bread didn't quite live up to its' expectations, both George and Debbie had double desserts to make up for it when they got out of their long pool session! Here are a couple of Debbie's first ever shots just using her Canon Ixus 100 in its' Canon Housing for the very first time. I was seriously impressed!

DiverSE - BSAC South Eastern Region Conference in Guildford

Phew, time for another talk and two trips to Guildford within a fortnight, via Leeds where I was teaching the day before at ROHO!!! Despite feeling very rough with bronchitis, I made it over to the University there and yet again it was an absolutely fantastic event, absolutely packed and full of lots of great stalls.

It was wonderful seeing my really good friend Darren from Sea Shepherd and hearing about their new launch of organic t-shirts ad ladies wear. The new clothes are absolutely gorgeous. Do visit the Sea Shepherd Online UK Website to have a look. You will be very impressed I promise.

Blue Reef Aquarium - Hastings

Time for a change of scenery and many thanks to my lovely friends Patrick Shier and his wife Debra for taking me down to Hastings and giving a couple of my guests the time of their lives diving in the aquarium. It was a really brilliant day and both David and Steve were over the moon with the encounters that they had. For those of you who think that Patrick's name sounds familiar, he is a regular contributor to Sport Diver Magazine, creating the original Above 18m column. His book is due out soon and for more info or to contact Patrick, visit www.exclusivelyscuba.co.uk

Talk for Diving Dreams in Guildford, Surry

I can't believe how many lovely clubs have invited me to give talks at their clubs and a few weeks ago at the beginning of March, it was time to head off to Sunny Guildford to give a talk at Gary's club, Diving Dreams. It was a really fabulous night with £120 raised for the Scuba Trust and Cherry won herself a Manta Ray Photo on Canvas. It was also her birthday, making the print even more special and deserved! Thanks again to Gary for inviting me and for more information visit his website at www.divingdreams.co.uk.

Talk for DAGSAC, BSAC Club in Dagenham

And so last week it was off to Dagenham to reunite with a couple of course guests, Rob and Richie and to meet their club members to give a talk on "Creating Magic Photos with Your Compact". It was brilliant to see everyone there and even the non-divers really enjoyed the talk. £100 was raised for the RNLI which was fantastic and left there feeling really happy :) and I was given flowers, aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh ......

Talk at East Midlands Underwater Photography Group

Busy, busy, busy and it was time to escape London and head up to Stoney Cove where I was kindly invited by Robb Cuss of the East Midlands Underwater Photography Group. Sam and Mike were absolutely fab in taking me around some beautiful countryside, filled me up with a lovely dinner at Nemo's Bar, before nearly passing out at the turnout there for people to come and listen to the talk. A special thank you to all who came and sorry that I didn't have time to talk to anyone and had to rush off home. Thanks too to Sam and Mike for looking after me. It was really, really awesome and was touched to say that it was the best turnout that Rob had had this year - until I realised that it was still only January!!!

Smallest Person Ever on my Course!

What a busy, busy couple of weeks it has been! Since Alison and Mike graced their way back to sunny Scotland, I have met so many amazing guests during the past few weeks. Howard and Catherine came to spend a day with me to learn about their Canon Powershot and Canon Ixus with Inon Set-Up. They also brought along the smallest student that I have ever had on my course - in fact she is of course a memory stick :) They had a fantastic day as did John Brodie with his Fuji the following day pictured here with Lisa and struggled to get him out of the pool. He made this smashing portfolio and spent the next morning honing his photoshop techniques to make a cracking portfolio. We were all chuffed to bits with it and Lisa really extra chuffed with the retail therapy that she had in nearby Bluewater Shopping Centre whilst John was busy studying the course! Two more PADI Digital Underwater Photo Students passed with flying colours - hurrah!!!! :)

Well done Libby!

Libby came on my workshop to Nuweiba last year. She emailed me on Monday to say that she was placed as joint runner-up in Bristol's Underwater Photography Group with this wonderful picture of two ribbon eels. She shoots with a Canon Ixus and a Sea & Sea Strobe. Well done Libby!

Happy Snowy New Year! :)

Big snowy wishes to you all and here's wishing you a wonderful year ahead full of fishtastic diving and amazing photo opportunties. I never thought my garden would look so scenic or that Simba would enjoy eating the snow!

Despite the snowy start to the year, Alison and Mike from an even snowier Edinburgh still came down by plane for their course on Tuesday. We spent a wonderful day together until gone past 7 pm sharing conservation experiences and before they knew it, it was snowing again. I took them their diving equipment all dried out the following day ready for their flight back to Edinburgh and we all ended up trying to push the taxi out of the snow over a speed hump from the Sundridge Park Manor.

What an adventure! But there was more to come. Their flight ended up being de-iced on the runway itself when all the other flights from London City had been cancelled. Fortunately, they returned to Edinburgh last night safe and sound and exhilerated from a wonderful day. So enthusiastic, they've just emailed me to say that they are already playing with their cameras up in the snow!

I'm already excited about helping you all in 2010 so just get in touch to help you take beautiful underwater and overwater photographs :)