You need a C-card (certification) to rent scuba gear, but I have to believe that anyone would be able to rent a weight belt for snorkeling with a wet suit. Make sure to try it out in the water there to get the right amount of weight. Low Key charges $7 per day, $42 for a week for a weight belt. By t...

A couple of quick tips for when you do buy your own gear: Opinions vary, but I really prefer a "dry" snorkel, which allows you to begin breathing as soon as you surface, rather than having to summon yet more air to blow out the water in the snorkel. Example: http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear...

I use a shorty when I go scuba diving in the VI. Shorty wet suits are great for surface snorkeling and staying warmer in winter months, but their buoyancy is such that without a weight belt, you may struggle to free dive down to see things up close.

Kevin

Nancy: I can't speak for Canon, but I would expect that if both the camera and its dedicated housing was theirs, you would have a strong position if water ever did get in.

Another plus of a combo is that you can take it on dives.

Kevin

Two quick suggestions would be the St. John Inn, or else ( if you would be arriving late) staying in St. Thomas at the Best Western Emerald Beach the first night (walking distance from the airport, on Lindberg Bay), and then catching an early ferry to St. John.

Kevin

Nancy: This a real trade-off. Submersible point and shoots are certainly very compact and convenient. Their downsides, from my perspective, are tinier sensors (irrespective of their nominal pixel count), and an inability (at least for current models) to allow you to save images in RAW format. I rece...

Sunsets (and sunrises, for the east of Bordeaux crowd) matter on St. John. For what it's worth, I've attached a JPEG image, with sunrise and sunset times on St. John for all of 2013 (courtesy of The U.S. Naval Observatory). It helps to know ahead of time when to head back to the villa, or to the bar...

CTBG: I'll ship down some of my homemade catnip concoction (see the other thread); it's likely that you won't feel any need to use it, but it will be there if you do. Being on a hilltop, the trade winds usually make it fine to be outside without any spray. We already provide our guests complimentary...

The link that I posted turned out to be "Not currently available" when I placed the order, so I deleted it, but the catnip theme seems to be quite real, as per this link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010828075659.htm I ended up ordering some catnip oil here: http://www.anan...

I thought that I was all set with my Panasonic TS4 (see post #3 in this thread), but on day one of a mid-October trip to St. John, my photos suddenly took on a weird shading. It turned out that the camera's front window had cracked in our checked bag during the flight. I suspect that TSA may have be...

Steve: Thanks for the info; RAW (and therefore a housing) it is! I'll check out Lightroom and Snapseed, and copy the exchange over to the "Researching underwater cameras" thread.

Kevin

Vav: I had a Panasonic TS4 that I used (for snorkel shots only) on a dive trip to Little Cayman this summer. I brought it to St. John in October, but on day one noticed weird shading in the images; lo and behold, the front window had cracked, despite this being a tough camera that claims to survive ...

Spectacular images; thanks again! Might I ask where you saw the Queen Angelfish? They are fairly territorial; I can usually find a few off the rocks at the east end of Maho Bay, but would be happy to learn of any other locations.

Kevin

To the comment regarding the older shows, we were watching one of the few older episodes from St. John a few months back, when something caught my eye. The couple was still back home, and reviewing potential homes on their laptop. I froze play, and stepped back a frame at a time. Sure enough, the vi...

Awesome photos, thanks!! A few questions: Have you by any chance taken Steve Simonsen's photography workshop? If not, you probably don't need to! What camera and lens did you use for the Trunk wide-angle shot? Did you use a circular polarizer? What underwater camera did you use for the turtle shot? ...