Basking in the Shark Sunshine in Cornwall

Anyone who knows me well enough knows very well of my humongous fear of my dry-suit in the UK, but when I heard that the Basking Sharks were in town, there was no time to hang around! A 7 hr trek to Penzance on Monday and little sleep was all worth it to meet Charles Hood from Dive Magazine and his Rib Logan. It was a wonderful sunny day and indescribable how awesome it was to be back on the sea. I felt like I was abroad, the beaches down there are divine. Two hours later, the first sighting was made of a large adult Basking Shark, and I was ready to pass out in shock. It came round and round Logan, circling again and again. I crept in the water and the temperature was a tropical 15 degrees, far warmer than Alaska! We saw about 8 that day with reports by fisherman saying that they had seen up to 40 that morning. I felt completely humbled and so fortunate to see these wonderful creatures so close. It is a memory that I will never forget and definitely one of the best underwater experiences ever. For more information visit www.charleshood.com or if you fancy a trip down there.

Canon Ixus and Fuji Finepix Underwater Photo Day

What a blast we all had! Sian, Michaela and Keith who visited me at the London Dive Show were really looking forward to the course and I was looking forward to showing them the new pool additions. And it worked! A fantastic time was had by all, their photos improved beyond belief and all were really confident in using the different buttons to get really creative underwater photographs. Michaela even attempted a split level shot of Keith's foot! The Fuji F100 has a nice white square to remind you how much of your frame you need to fill when calibrating the white balance which is a nice touch and the macro mode on the camera is great.

My First Holiday in Five Years to Indonesia

The great team of Eco-Divers kindly asked me to visit Indonesia after saying how much I needed a change from the Red Sea. My journey took me first to KBR, Kunkunghan Bay Resort as well as a newly managed resort of Kima Bajo near the Bunaken Marine Park. Both settings are the perfect places for anyone new in Underwater Photography to learn, with the setting matching a perfect 10 days of picture making and the world-renowned critters were on their best behaviour. Tim and Takako pictured here were wonderful hosts at KBR as well as Luca and Miho in Kima Bajo. See the gallery page on my website for photos taken from here. The sunsets were absolutely divine. I will be running an underwater photography trip there next year and am already really looking forward to getting back :)

Nikon Coolpix 5100 with Dean Hill

A few weeks ago I finally got a look at the new Nikon Coolpix in a Fantasea Housing complete with wide-angle lens. The nice thing about this set-up is the ability of it's full manual controls so that users can change both the aperture and the shutter speed independently of each other. Fantasea also make both close-up and wide-angle lenses to put on the front of the camera which is nice. The housing is quite robust but of course those clips are not at all nail-friendly for us girls! However, it is a nice piece of kit and produced some really nice, sharp results. This is a picture taken by Dean on the day of our resident Nemo to see what you think.

A Fantastic Night at BSOUP with Colin Doeg and Peter Scoones

A trip back to the days of when underwater photography first started was a real joy to watch by everyone who attended BSOUP last month in May. Colin Doeg and Peter Scoones the founders of the British Society of Underwater Photographers, as well as their friends, entertained and astonished everyone there with incredible tales of how they used to take their underwater images as well as their diving equipment. Phenomenal was a complete understatement and I left feeling extremely humbled by being able to learn of their incredible encounters to capture breathtaking images.

PADI Digital Photo Speciality Day in Leeds

And today was not only a special PADI Digi Photo Speciality Day but it was also Denny's surprise birthday! Little known to her, Frank had made an underwater birthday cake all set with candles which went down an absolute treat! I love being back in Yorkshire where I used to live and am looking forward to getting back up there in June .......

Biggest Pizza in My Life at Dahab!

I met a lovely group of Solo Travellers whilst staying at the Bedouin Moon recently and encountered the largest pizza that I had ever seen in my life! The diving in Dahab was brilliant and the photos that I got from the Canyon were spectacular as well as the chilled out atmosphere of the place in general. Highly recommended for anyone to go diving there and the Bedouin Moon was fantastic.