- Day 5 -

   Today we dove Au Au Crater and the Amphitheatre, and are currently anchored at Manta Ray Village (we waited around for mantas to arrive, but none showed up). We were forced to update today because tomorrow will include only a half day of diving, and we will likely be off of the boat in Kona for the rest of the day. Our trip comes to a close tomorrow. Christina opened shop in the galley to sell Aggressor merchandise (including the shark-fin hood Jim is wearing in the photo to the left), and after dinner, Travis and Gui presented a slideshow and film of us guests.

   Our own slideshow included both film and digital photos. The film photos looked fantastic coming out of the slide projector, but we were unable to include them in the contest tonight because none of them were scanned. Jim looked through the digital photos (and a few scanned slides) and selected three more photos of the day to upload.

   Once again, Jim, Dave and I are the only ones awake. We're brainstorming about underwater digital photography and random ideas to get trips like this organized again in the future. It's obvious that underwater digital photography is here to stay, and I feel fortunate that I am getting to experiment with it so much while it is just starting to become popular.

   These words mark the end the live updates from the boat. At some point, Jim will go through all of the photos and select the top three for the trip, which will be posted along with concluding words sometime in the next few days. Stay tuned! Thanks to Dave Breitigam for organizing, Jim Watt for joining us writing for Skindiver (and being an all around cool guy), and the guests for being great company. The crew was fantastic. We thoroughly invaded their space (they ate meals sitting on the ground because we took over their dining table with chargers and computers), and they still kept everything running smoothly with big smiles on their faces. So, to Gui, Travis, Bacchus, Marcy, and Christina: Thank you!

- Eric Cheng, 11:10pm, November 8th, 2001

      >> continue on to day 6