Snorkelling holidays

[NickK]

Well the wife just surprised me with an early birthday present offer (I suspect my shared YouTube history researching cameras and Sardinia appeared on the TV) - to get the DJI Osmo Action 6 with the snorkelling kit (camera is 20m resist but the kit has a 60m external case and the handle floats so if dropped it rises to the surface).

The reason for going with the Action 6 is the underwater auto white balance, good low light and underwater focusing performance, with 4K and 8K. It's conveniently got 50GB internal space on top of SD card (up to 1TB cards) decent battery life and swappable batteries.. etc etc..

Although not as good as the proper cameras for underwater stills and macro etc, I'll not be travelling with lighting etc anyway plus realistically you need a hard external case for them too (the TG6 for example is excellent but there's so many cases of buttons not being secured and leaking. The Sealife 3 looks awesome but it's both limited in capacity (sealed unit) and has limits above water plus feeling like a kids duplo camera with the piano key buttons for scuba gear.

EDIT only down side is the bitrate required for storage.
The manual states 120MB/sec max but that was written before the updates for 4K 30/60/120fps and the 8K 30fps mode was added in the update. True the bus is probably limited to 128MB/sec (let's stick with 2^x to give margin of operating error). Now for the kicker - you expect that to be WRITE speed. So basically none of the cheap MicroSD cards will work.

This mean my Scandisk Endurance 64GB in my existing 1080p won't work. It's a UHS-1 U3 class 10, V30, etc etc.. but 100MB/sec read and 40MB/sec write.. that's not going to give clean 4K... Lexar Professional Silver Plus (DJI recommended) is U3 UHS-1, A2 and V30.. but 205MB/sec read and 150MB/sec write.. £38 for 128GB.. £50 for 256GB.. Simply put certified marking make no sense and it's all down to raw write speed.

Although the native camera is 20m resist, given the number of seals that have to be perfectly closed (all the ports, the lens cover etc), I'd probably not consider using it without the external case. Supposedly the touchscreen works with the case out of emersion but once in the water completely it's disabled. Not a bad idea but at the same time it means you need to surface to change the modes etc.

 

[doodah]

Nice and an early happy birthday. Send over some footage. I tried to use my spare S23 Ultra in a waterproof case, somewhat frustrating. Here and there - it would work OK but get ruined by accidental button pressing because it was under water. I then found a mode where you could just use the physical buttons to start and stop recording, wonderful. But it then decided to have focus issues which it didn't really do when I was having the accidental button issues.

 

[NickK]

Well the case arrived early, and naturally I've put it in the pond at 8K 30fps and under low light - once the sun rises I'll try again.. but being 8K it's taking a while to process - pity YT only allows up to 4K:

Pond is 1.85m deep.. so a good test (the filter isn't running the drum due to the host pipe ban - hence the particles).

Reggie and Ronnie make an appearance... the bad quality of the water is down to the hosepipe ban initially putting the drum filter out of action.. that's been clarified as not restricted and so that's now playing catch up.. I'll re-record in a couple of days once the filter has caught up.

 

[NickK]

I've always worn shoes for the beach, born out of windsurfing where weever frequent the bottom, you don't want one of those poisoned spikes in your foot as they hide in the sand. Bought some Mares Aquashoes to replace my existing waterproof decathlon beach shoes. The original shoes have a hard plasticised sole with mesh top - good for tarmac, steps, beach etc but they're not the best on rock entry/exit zones and need removing for the fins which means bare feet at some point.. and to get them on and off I can be very difficult when wet.
The Mares have a foot profile that fits fins, a drawstring top to secure them making them a lot easier to get on and off, plus a a softer rubberised sole that's very grippy with a more aggressive tread pattern - perfect for water on rocks and metal ladders. Decathlon have them at 9.99 at the moment which is quite a steal - only thing is order the size below your standard shoe size. We're having to return a pair each for the next size down otherwise your feet slide around inside them with 10-15mm at the toe extra, not good for rock stability and too big even for foot expansion in the heat.

Update on the camera - from the surface.. you can now see right to the bottom thanks to the drum catching up. Just say - the bottom (ie at the bottom if the bubbles and stated before) is 1.85m. So the camera does well. Impressed - this is running 4K 100fps:

Trip "soon" as everyone says..

 

[NickK]

As you may have guessed.. just back from a trip to North East Sardinia, Morlari, and La Maddelena.

Photos now.. will update with some text in due course. Some are screenshots others exports.

 

[NickK]

Here's a very important point about wearing aqua shoes - even in idyllic places - meet the Spotted Weever fish (poisonous spines) off the lovely spot in IMG_3558 above!

It's also vital that you don't go up to rocks/reefs and prod them with your fingers too.. Keep 2m away as much as you can..

 

[NickK]

Some 4K snorkelling content .. first one is following a blow.. the wind is still defined as a red flag so the water is moving quite a bit hence the clarity being pants.

This one is a continuation of the session above with the weever fish and from the deeper area in IMG-3558..

And a deeper (probably ~30m ±5m):

The trip..

So we booked to go to Budoni, staying at a local family resort which was a little butlin-esque but overall if you avoided some of the buffet food choices it was acceptable. Public transport is non-existent if you want to get anywhere - neither the bus routes link up, nor do they run early enough to get to you to any location for excursions. Taxis are extremely expensive (think hundreds of euros) and so are local hire cars extremely expensive. It's better to get a hire car from the airport which is the only cheaper option but there's not that much todo on this part of the coast.
Don't underestimate the size of Sardinia, it's better to pick an area and then haunt that for a week or two. Attempting to drive from south to north is a long distance an if you want to take in any sites you may be looking at 2-3 weeks. The northeast caters to super yachts so all the prices are inflated if you want to go to the posh bars. The other restaurants etc are decent prices.

However the northeast of Sardinia runs on the beach and tourism trade. Hence you will have thousands of boats and people doing the trips to beaches. It's got soo bad, that some beaches require prior reservation online as they're attempting to limit the over tourism. 10,000 people on a little beach that realistically got room for 1-2000 people (thinking "Little Tahiti" beach) and even the long beach has a problem given it will be a couple of km walk to find a spot - that's if you can find a place to park in the little carpark that exists.

September is at the back of tourist season as it's winding down.. but the sea is warm and the tours and operators are still working. It was around 30degC and slowly fell to about 27degC by the time we left. Sea temps were warm enough if the water had chance to warm up (wind/currents change that) so I had trunks and a factor 50 long sleeve rash top, with fins and a cheap snorkel mask etc. Next year we have decided to get better masks etc that seal better but these have lasted three trips.

We did some local snorkelling at the local beach, with enough to have a look at for a couple of sessions. We also booked two excursions which turned out to be via the same boat which is large but that also mean we had a decent meal and wine (it's not a booming party boat) and the crew were awesome! We ended up going to La Maddelena for one trip and to the islands of Tavola and Molara (I keep calling it Molari after Babylon 5) for the other. We also did a 4x4 landcover trip up the local mountain.. you can see some of the local beaches.. and the islands of of Tavola (which cliffs) and Molara (centre image)..

Roughly a 1-3 hours snorkelling work out each day and time to relax at the pool. Only that.. being just 6'4 you feel a bit like Gandalf in the shire.. be it people, or signs hanging down from the ceiling.

 

[Nanoman]

I would go with the Maldives again to be honest, I've not come across anywhere else where the coral reef is so close and the ocean is so shallow for so long. I was able to open the patio doors to my hotel and walk straight onto the beach and into the reef. The nearby coral can suffer because of it though.

 

[bazzabear]

I would love to return to the Maldives. And I saw some places with 2-bedroom water villas, which would be ideal!

And then I priced it up, and a 2 week holiday - off peak because we can go a couple of weeks early because exams will be over - is £16k for the 3 of us.

Trying to find a middle ground of a room with a separate lounge with sofabed, but not had much luck. I don't think it would be fair to expect a 16 year old to have no space of her own for 2 weeks, so just a sofa bed in the same room (which a lot seem to offer) is no good to us.