well its christmas evening and i have just returned from 2 weeks in the maldives.
the wife and i booked a little 2 week get away to practice with our new toy. a canon 350D in a sea and sea housing, 10-22 w/a 8" dome, 60mm macro and macro port.
after witnessing 2 housings flood earlier this year in the galapagos and 1 in manado i thought perhaps it best if we purchsed a second 350D in case the inevitable happend.
2 minutes in on our second dive with the housing i noticed that the lcd screen had a few tiny bits of water on it. luckily i was holding the housing with the port facing down at the time. i lifted the housing above my head to find the macro port full of water. i could not see any bubbles escaping from my pride and joy and all i could think about was all the different advice i had read on wetpixel regarding what to do not IF but WHENyour housing floods. after a 3 minute safety stop we made our way up the powdery white shore to inspect the housing. still being very careful to keep it faced down. now in the true light of day i could see the leak detector light illuminated and lifting the housing above my head i could see a very large amount of water inside of the macro port. i unscrewed the macro port to find about 40-50mm of water sitting in the bottom. all kids of emotions were running through my head by this time, like, perhaps i should have stuck with my little point and shoot sony p12. we made our way back to out bungalow to investigate where the water had entered. we stripped the housing bit by bit checking everything as we dismantled it. no hairs, no sand, all o rings in perfect condition. my wife had headed to the islands internet room to check wetpixel to see what our next steps should be. whilst she was gone i washed and dried the inside of the housing. she returned with various ideas of what to do. the 350D some how, still worked. it had escaped the salt water and was showing no ill effects of what had happend 15 minutes earlier. that i have to thank wetpixel for as i had read a posting s few moths ago saying to turn the housing with the port facing down. after re greasing all of the o rings i put the housing back together and set off on a boat dive to see if the housing was still leaking. after the dive and back in my bungalow i again opened up the housing to find all of the tissue completely dry. no sign of any drips, nothing just dry tissue how i had put it in earlier. the rest of the trip it was fine and the camera " touch wood " lived to tell the tale , and the spare body stayed in its box.
obviously there was something a drift when it flooded but the was nothing that could be seen. i must admit that after that scare i check and check again and then re check just to be certain that everything is in its right place.
