AARRGGHHHHH how I detest packing. Finding, sorting through, testing, wrapping, eliminating, replacing...every trip is different, so for every trip, it takes me a couple of days at least to figure out what I need to take.
To give you an idea of what's accompanying me to Lembeh and Manado, here's a list. By putting everything here, I'm forcing myself to double-check all the items once more, before I even attempt to put everything into carrying cases.
I've learned the hard way that this arduous self-imposed torture is necessary. Once, I showed up at a beautiful tropical island, all ready to go. As I assembled my gear, I realised at that I had forgotten to pack screws. That's correct. Little 5-cent screws that held together all the other expensive gear. Without the screws...I was screwed.
So here goes:
- Three Canon 5D cameras
- Two Canon 100mm macro lenses
- Sigma 50mm macro lens
- Canon 15mm fisheye lens
- Canon 17-40mm zoom lens + custom-made zoom gear
- Canon S50 point and shoot
- +2 and +4 diopters
- Extension tubes
- Teleconverters
- Two Zillion 5D housings
- Four viewfinder adapters
- Housing arms/ grips
- Nexus port adapter
- Inon port adapter
- Nexus 60mm port
- Nexus extension rings
- Inon 100mm port
- Inon external macro diopter
- Inon extension rings
- Two Athena dome ports + custom extension tube
- Port remover tool (for when the ports get stuck)
- Four Inon Z220s strobes
- Four Inon strobe-to-arm adapters
- Four -0.5 diffusers
- Fibre-optic cables for strobes + spares
- Two sync cords for strobes
- Inon magnet adapters for Sync cord use
- Inon focus light controllers for fibre-optic use
- One ScubaCam prototype u/w torch + 2 batteries + charger
- One normal torch
- Six Ultralight ball joints
- 12 screws for ball joints
- Six DB-05 Ultralight short arms
- One DB-08 Ultralight medium arm (don't know how I ended up with only one of these, must have left one somewhere)
- Four DB-12 Ultralight long arms
- Twelve AC-CS Ultralight clamps
- 32 AA rechargeable batteries
- Four AA rechargers
- Five Canon 5D batteries + 2 chargers
- Variety of plug-shape adapters
- Two Sandisk 8GB Extreme III CF cards
- One Sandisk 4GB Extreme III CF card
- Firewire CF card reader + backup PCMCIA slot CF reader
- O-ring grease (Inon, Zillion, Nexus, Sea & Sea, Generic)
- Screwdivers, coins, tape, scissors, o-ring removers, lens paper, USB memory stick, name cards, everything but the kitchen sink
- External hard disks (60GB, 160GB, 80GB iPod)
- Two firewire cables
- iPod cable
- One ageing, decrepit Mac Powerbook G4 (soon to be replaced with a MacBook Pro)
And I haven't even started on my dive gear or clothes...