SO I’VE TAKEN SOME PRETTY FANCY CAMERAS DIVING, but this time I thought I’d take a cheap one. It’s not a dive camera, but a “ruggedized” camera for use around water, waterproof only to 28 feet. Still you can use it on the boat, and you could certainly take it snorkeling without worrying. I took the Nikon COOLPIX W100. I found it easy to use — separate buttons for video and stills are a nice touch — and pretty tolerant of the environment. I took pictures on the boat, and I freedove off the side of the boat once and took some pics at moderate depth (i.e., less than 28 feet). Image quality isn’t Nikon D500 level, but it’s decent.

Verdict: A rugged, inexpensive knocking-around camera, good for when you don’t want anything more expensive, or more fragile, at risk. And yeah, I’m scheduling this post from Cayman, but I should be back and blogging later.