Carl,

You wizards have my head spinning at the moment. I am going to copy the excellent answers so I may study them and then run some tests to make sure I am following your instructions to the letter.

I really do appreciate the help you and everyone else have given me.

Since I am a "belt and suspenders" type of person, I will back up everything in hopes nothing is lost.

Now to the shark bite. The dive location was Belize and about 70 feet below the surface. The dive buddy was petting shark number one when shark number two cruised up to the shark being petted and just reached out and snapped my dive buddy on the hand. I was within a few feet of the incident and fully expected to see nothing but a few shreds of skin and bone left of my buddy's hand. However, luck was with her and the shark only bit her hand like a naughty dog sometimes quickly snaps a person and then lets go. There was little bleeding and even less damage to the skin, muscle and tendons. Caught it on tape and the bite was so fast, one might over look the bite if attention has not been drawn to the incident on the tape.  I have named the buddy Sherri "Shark Bite" Anderson! Her students now think of her as the "coolest" teacher in the world since she survived a shark bite.

One unusual part of the incident was the shark was a nurse shark and they are supposedly harmless and love to be petted and rubbed. The shark was no more than five feet long. Certainly nothing like the ten foot Caribbean reef shark you witnessed.

I  have dived for twenty-four years and have been lucky to get near nurse sharks, hammerheads, black and white tip and bull sharks but never have I seen one bite anyone until this incident.

I have been bitten by a large, green moray eel and that did hurt. Felt like my hand had been smashed in a car door.

A product named "New Skin" should be a standard part of any first aide kit. You may paint or spray the liquid on a bite, corral scratch, etc., and the liquid kills the bacteria and then drys to form a "plastic" skin over the injured area so as to protect the area from infection. Once I had dried her hand, painted the injured area with Betadine and then let that dry, I sprayed the New Skin on the front and backside of her hand and she was able to dive the next two days and there was NO infection. The hand has healed so perfectly, there is little evidence of the bite.

Thank you again for the super info regarding the backup.

Don R.

 I guess your dive buddy proved the point that sharks are no pets but wild animals and if you interact with them you may get bitten

If you like to see more shrk action watch this. It is from my last film trip to Fiji. On the shark feed at the last part of the clip you can see nurs-, lemmon-, grey-reef-, blacktip-, whitetip-, silvertip- and bull sharks, all in one dive!

(sorry for beeing off topic, I just love sharks

AquaPix:

If you like to see more shrk action watch this.

Hi Don,

DonR:

You wizards have my head spinning at the moment.

Yeah, it's a lot to take in at the beginning, but after a while it starts making sense.  If you want a good class in this stuff, I'd suggest the Advanced Techniques for Media Composer class.  I took it after I'd been editing on MC for a couple of years, and it really helped me understand the ins and outs of how the system works, and gave me a lot of good techniques for editing much faster and more efficiently.

DonR:

Now to the shark bite.

Good story!  I'm glad it all worked out for the best and nobody was seriously injured.

good luck,
Carl

We have to bring this really simple.

I mean 1 this and 2 that.

1 is the project?

2 are media folders?

That's why I like to post pics.

A lot of people gets help this way.

Andy,

An awesome website for those interested in the ocean, indeed! Those are real sharks, not semi-tame nurse sharks we normally see in the Caribbean.

I have dived from Matangi Island in the Fiji chain but the natives had caught and eaten the turtles, groupers and other edible fish, and then caught the colorful fish to sell to the fish wholesalers who in turn sell to others who will distribute them world-wide.

AndrewAction lives down in that "neck of the woods." New Zealand, I believe. When going through the major airport on Fiji, just missed AndrewAction's video exhibit that was supposed to have already been put up.

Don R.

 Don, thanks for your kind words regarding the website.

If you want some serious shark action in the Caribbean just go to the Bahamas. Tigers, Bulls and loads of other oceanic sharks down there.

BTW, in August I am going to film diving adverts for the tourist boards of Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, Montserrat and Domenica in the Caribbean. Fancy some diving action?

(Sorry for being so off topic again) 

And to think YOU get paid for such fun!!!!!!!!!!! Most divers must pay a small fortune to dive such sites.

Have you found Media Composer handles very well the Sony high definition video you shoot?

 MC does a fantastic job to stabilize the picture. When you shoot underwater you cant't really use a tripod (as you know) and so sometimes you have some jerky moves. The stabilizing tools in MC are very powerfull and very quick to use.

Also the CC in MC is fantastic (except the lack of secondary CC!) to get the colours of the underwater shots right.

So to answer your question, I am very happy with MC and can only recommend it to any underwater production.