Buddy Dive Resort offered its third Planet Ocean Fest Underwater Photography Event during the first three weeks of December. Seventeen participants, using everything from point & shoot digital cameras to DSLRs, had an intensive digital photo experience that was, in a word, “awesome”.  

The program was conducted by John Wall, Buddy Dive Resort's “Digital Doctor”. Asked about the program, Wall was quite enthusiastic. “We had people in the program at every level of underwater photography... some who started with a Nikonos, some who were on their second or third camera... we even had a couple of people who had never taken an underwater photo ever. Everyone came away from the program having learned how to make better underwater digital photos.”  Wall continued, “It's always a thrill to me to see how excited photographers can get when they capture that special shot. I've spent most of my adult life showing underwater photographers how to set their cameras and approach fish. I never seem to get tired of it. One of the main things that has changed in the transition from film to digital is setting up the camera.  Diving wise, underwater photographers still need excellent buoyancy skills and patience and respect for the living reef”.

Wall attributes the increased interest in underwater photography to the high quality of the small point & shoot digital cameras. The cameras are easy to travel with and reasonably economical. He said, “Buddy Dive's Planet Ocean Fest Event is unique. We offer classes, guided dives and image evaluations over three days. Each day, we emphasize something different. Day One, we start with the fundamentals of the using the camera and maintenance procedures. Day Two, we work with macro and close up images. Day Three, we approach some more advanced techniques.  During the image evaluations, we introduce some basic Photoshop adjustments. One of our goals is to emphasize that the final digital image is a combination of capturing the photo underwater and then making some minor adjustments in the computer. We want photographers to understand that the creative process doesn't end with a touch of the shutter. Of course, image cropping and adjustment is the other big difference between film and digital photography.  Everyone can become a darkroom specialist.”

Buddy Dive's Planet Ocean Fest u/w Photography Event will be offered again over three weeks in December 2010 and is open to guests staying at Buddy Dive Resort, Belmar Apartments, and the Caribbean Club Bonaire. The program is open to underwater digital photographers of all levels. Special rental rates are available for participants who do not have a digital underwater camera.

  John Wall, Buddy Dive Resort's “Digital Doctor”

One of the participants pictures (David Howell)

Last week Friday, during Happy Hour Buddy Dive got a pleasant surprise! Mike Hill the Caribbean Regional Manager from PADI World Wide, proudly recognized Buddy Dive Resort for the outstanding services as a PADI member for the last 15 years.

Buddy Dive has been a PADI member since 1994 and for this reason PADI presented us with a beautiful PADI award.

We are very proud to receive this award and we would like to thank PADI very much for this recognition. Buddy Dive is looking forward to keeping up the great relationship we have with PADI for many more years to come...!

For the third consecutive year Buddy Dive Resort is nominated by the readers of Tauchen Magazine (Germany) to win the “Tauchen Award 2009” in the category "Best Dive Center in the Caribbean"!

Of course all the staff and management are very proud to be nominated again! Buddy Dive wants to thank all of Tauchen Magazines readers who voted for their nomination.

Tauchen Magazine is Germany’s most read dive magazine with 330,000 readers. Every year the magazine organizes the Tauchen Awards with nominees and winners in several categories. The actual awards will be handed out on January 28th 2010 during Germany’s biggest water sport show, with its own diving hall, BOOT Düsseldorf. It will be an exciting moment for everybody connected to Buddy Dive Resort!

During the second week of December Buddy Dive Resort was very proud to accommodate and facilitate the 2009 World Champion Swimmer and four-time winner of the Marathon Swimming World Cup, Angela Maurer (Wiesbaden at Germany). Angela was happy to train together with her companion Jennifer Boettcher in front of Buddy Dive in the beautiful waters at Bonaire.

Angela, who started swimming in the summer of 1983, swam all over the world, from New York to Dubai. Nevertheless, both Angela and Jennifer stated that they never enjoyed such good conditions as at Bonaire for an open-water race. “The water is very calm and the temperature is lovely!”

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing Angela achieved the 4th place in the 10 km marathon swim, only a fraction of a second behind the bronze medalist Cassie Patten. In 2009 she won the 10 km open-water race at the German national swimming championships in Lindau with a time of 2h01m31.43s ensuring her place at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome where she eventually won the gold medal for the 25 km open-water race!

Together with Bon Bida Spa and Gym (just down the street from Buddy Dive) Buddy Dive provided all the facilities the swimmers needed: “The rooms are convenient, the restaurants provide quality food and flexible service, the activity desk provides mountain bikes and kayaks for training, and most important the water starts right in front of the rooms!”

Buddy Dive proved again to be a perfect accommodation for hosting athletes during certain sport events. Last August the resort was the main sponsor and facilitator of the Buddy Dive Freediving Event Bonaire 2009 with Karol Meyer (Brazilian Freediver) breaking several South American records.

Buddy Dive Freediving Event Bonaire 2010 is already a fact, Angela and Jennifer were at Buddy Dive to have a look at the training and competition conditions on the island because they’d like to support another event at Buddy Dive on Bonaire in 2011: a World Cup Swimming Final!

The first week of the Planet Ocean Fest special was a big success. Wonderful pictures were taken by the participants and during happy hour they received a calendar with their great images. All participants agreed that their photography skills improved tremendously during the course. John Wall, the host of this special event also expressed his enthusiasm. “It is amazing what great pictures where made and what a great talent this group had!”, says John Wall.

Right now we are in the middle of the second week and it already looks very promising. We all are very curious to see what great pictures they have made this week.

Next week will be the last group joining John’s special classes for this year, but don’t be sad John already committed in organizing this great event again with us next year.

One of our guests commented during his stay: “Every year I’m buying a new camera, because the pictures look terrible. I will come back next year and definitely join his class, it might be my skills instead of my camera”.

One of the pictures made during the contest:

 Made by Ryan Kingry