I am hesitant to do this as the speed is anemic already, but I have posted photos from our recent cruise of the South Pacific on the Paul G ( I can never spell that last name correctly without looking it up).

http://cook.gotdns.com

Take your patience with you, you will need it due to Comcast's upstream bandwidth limitations.

Wandering, great pics! We have Road Runner and I was able to zip right through them, no problem.

The sculptures and food at the galley brunch look amazing!!!!

Do you have any pics of your cabin, by chance? Would love to see them if so.

Thanks for posting. The scuba diving pictures are spectacular.

-----------

Eugene

Great pics! Agree about the diving pics - amazing!

Wonderfull photos indeed!! Thanks for sharing.

Anthony

Thanks for the photos - will be heading to the PG in a few weeks and will be diving. I tried to determine whether you used RSSC gear or your own. Couldn't be sure from photos. Did you bring your own? What did others do? You were not wearing weight-integrated BCDs - were the ship supplied BCDs of that type? We don't like 'em!

The only gear we brought was our mask and snorkel. Coudn't fit my fins in my luggage or I would have brought them too. The rest of it was the ship's. We wore our own diveskins. And no the BCD was not wieght integrated. No wetsuit necessary although they will give you one if you want. Say Hi to Dominique for me :D Fredric and Pierre too although I think one of them was going to be on vacation. Dominique was going to be training a new guy the day we disembarked.

David Cook

David

Thanks for the feedback - we have been considering taking our own stuff, but will be doing only 8 or 9 dives on the PG plus whatever we might do during a Bora Bora pre-cruise - probably not worth the effort. Full foot fins are a pain but OK - will bring mask and computer. We have been assured that they will have a 50 CF tank for my wife. We're really looking forward to it.

Ted

Fantastic pictures. :app:
Thank you for sharing them with us.

Awesome! Especially now that I've booked my own PG cruise, it's great to see what I've got to look forward to. :D

Awesome!!!! We are leaving in on the 9th of Nov and will do the 19 Nov cruise to the Marquesas. Your fabulous photos have heightened our anticipation (not sure how that can happen but it has). We are envious of the stop in Tubai and think that it is so cool that you were able to see the Australs. Thanks for sharing. PS/ We caught a glimpse of Raffey and are pleased to know that he is still onboard. Also enjoyed your France Photos!

David - the underwater photos are amazing!! Love that picture with the ritteri anemone and the clownfish with the clownfish eggs at the base. What kind of flash are you using and what camera?

Masaki

Masaki - As noted at the top of the index page for those phtos, those were all taken by Dominique Tehei, our instructor/divemaster. We (my wife and I) got certified to dive on this trip. I thought about it but decided I had enough to worry about without having a camera too. I am not sure what kind of camera Dominique had, it was a compact point and shoot digital camera I think with a wide angle lense attachment. I think it was an Ikelite housing and he had an external strobe too. Sorry not much help.

Awesome pictures!

David, Masaki-

Dominique's photos are great! The file properties say they were taken with a Canon PowerShot G5. That's all I know.

Great pictures, thanks for sharing! I also loved the dive photos. Hmmmm...may have to take up scuba someday...

------------
Dena

Fabulous pictures, thank you for taking the time to share them.

PG, here we come!!

Wandering,

Great pictures!! Our pictures from our August B2B are our new screen saver (including more than a few of Dominic's pictures.)

We too did our certification on the PG with Fred as our instructor. Wonderful experience.

Thanks for sharing.

HRPROF,

The ship uses Sherwood and Mares BCDs, I'm afraid I was too new to diving to take notice of the model types. As you would expect, they are all jacket models as opposed to back=inflate models. All of the regulators I saw were also Sherwood. The wet suits are all shorties (I expect they were 3mm) and are either Mares or Atlan (The Atlan fit me best). The weight belts were the standard nylon belt with weights. They just got aluminum tanks in and started diving with them instead of their steel tanks during our second week.

All the equipment seemed to be well maintained. Although we did have one BCD which had a leaking low pressure valve which kept slowing inflating my BCD at depth.

The also have console computers (which model I'm not sure). Gauges and computers are a mix of imperial and metric. Although you will not have this problem, any new(er) divers should be sure to check out prior to descending which scale their computer is in...20meters is NOT 20feet!!! We had our first "deep dive" at dive #5.

I hope this helps,

Jan

DenaH,

DO IT!!!!

I heard the following quote which I think sums up diving best:

Going to the sea and spending all your time on the surface is like going to the circus and only looking at the outside of the circus tent.

Jan

Jan

Thanks for the information - surprised that they are just switching from steel tanks - haven't used one of those for a long time.

DenaH - My wife and I have been diving together for 30 years - it has provided many wonderful shared memories.

David - oops. My bad for not paying closer attention. Though if you had just played along, I would have never known the better! :D

Masaki

David - wonderful photos, both your's and Dominique's! Dominique can even get great underwater shots with a disposable Kodak camera as he proved for us at Motu Mahana. His version of a puffer versus ours were worlds apart. That titan triggerfish coming at the camera and clownfish - diver staredown were my favorites.