Changes in Latitudes

Back in February I was contacted by Cheil Worldwide, an advertising agency, about using a clip from one of the videos I made from my underwater adventures for a bottled water commercial in South Korea. We weren't sure whether this was a scam or the real deal. Mom was convinced it must be a scam, and Marius was also skeptical. For a couple valid reasons: How would they find my video among the thousands of others on the internet? They couldn't send a check and Pay-Pal was "unstable" in Korea, so they would have to do a bank transfer...a little strange for Americans since we live in the 1950s and still use checks when the rest of the developed world doesn't. I felt confident after a series of email exchanges that this was the real deal. I was offered $300 for 2 seconds of footage that I took while snorkeling in Mexico. The footage will be aired for 6 months. And ta da! Here you have it. The commercial for jeju samdasoo bottled water in Korea. I tried to s...

2014 was kicked off with a snorkel trip with Marius, his parents and his sister (Katrine), followed by a 2-dive scuba trip with Katrine the next day. The visibility was awesome and the variety of marine life that I had not yet seen in the wild was remarkable!  [One of the best pictures from the GoPro] [Marius] Marius was supposed to go diving with us, but he woke up feeling ill. Katrine and I had two dives. The first one was around 19 m depth at an area called Tortugas. In the first five minutes once we had descended, we spotted two bull sharks! There were also multiple sea turtles; I think they were hawksbill or green sea turtles. I couldn't see the difference. Green and spotted moray eels were also a highlight! The second dive was around 12 m, much more shallow, and mainly reef fish and sea turtles. Spotted a few lion fish - invasive and poisonous! After the dive I bought the video that the dive shop's videographer made, but I have uploaded my footage from my ...

This weekend I earned my dry suit certificate. Dry suit diving proved to be quite a challenge, and I definitely need more practice. There seemed to be so many things going on! Marius and I took the course together out in an area slightly west of Bergen city center called Laksevåg (Salmon Bay) with Nemo Classic Diving. The course consisted of: A couple hours of theory: our instructor went through the manual with us and showed us the different exposure suits. Then 2 dives. The first dive was on Saturday, and the primary purpose was to get us used to diving in the dry suit. I was given a dry suit that turned out to be one size too big! I was getting air leaking out of my neck and water seeping in towards my chest. Every time I would add air into my suit it would escape through my head and then suddenly I found myself either rapidly sinking or shooting up to the surface! Marius and the other girl in our group had a great dive, meanwhile I was bobbing from 10 m depth to the surface. Wa...