Here are some links to my snorkeling picture albums from our February and April 2010 visits, along with some images for your viewing pleasure.

I experimented a bit on this last trip with the camera settings (Pentax Optio W80) thanks to some tips garnered from the resident snorkel photography guru on ScubaBoard. My focus this trip was geared more towards capturing images of different marine species vs. coral formations.

Conditions: The winds were blowing northeasterly for most of the week, which made visibility on the North Side of the island sub-optimal (all the crud that pools in the North Sound gets blown back out towards sea, but ends up trapped by the barrier reef). You will see many of the images (especially from the Sting City Dive Site) have greenish hues or castes to them; this is as a result of the higher than usual concentrations of algae.

Locations Snorkeled: Rum Point Coal Gardens, Rum Point Shore Trail, Barefoot Beach, Sting Ray City Dive Site, Queen’s Monument* and Anchor Point*. I was not able to do the Barrier Reef route at Rum Point due to poor conditions; the winds transitioned back to their more normal westerly direction, creating chop and stronger currents when I planned on going.

* (no images): Since the OEM battery with the Pentax has a low capacity I purchased a “High Capacity” no-name brand to have on hand for some longer snorkels. Let’s just say, I was lucky to get 10 pictures before it was drained. Of course, this caused me to miss two Grand Mother (i.e. Giant) Sting Rays hunting at Queen’s Monument and some really unique underwater geothermal vents at Anchor Point.

Here are links to full slideshows from my last two trips:
April 2010: Grand Cayman April 2010 Snorkel Album

February 2010: Grand Cayman February 2010 Snorkel Album
Samples:










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