MONICA SCHANDEL

Monica loves all things underwater. Each dive is an adventure of exploration and fun. It is always great to see a new animal or a new behavior underwater. Monica started diving in 2005 and was instantly hooked. She became an instructor on Halloween in 2007 which she believes attributes to her love of night diving. Before moving to Florida Monica’s favorite thing was to travel to warm places to go diving and take pictures. Now that she lives in Lighthouse Point, FL, she doesn’t have to travel far to go diving so she is “living the dream”. Monica and her favorite dive buddy, Jason, love to do shallow shore dives because there are no boat deadlines to meet and no dive time limits except the air in the tank.

Monica’s underwater photography started in Roatan, Honduras. Her instruction was simple, go out and take pictures and bring me back something in focus. It took many dives to get a photo that wasn’t blurry using an old point and shoot camera with a really long shutter lag but she didn’t mind going out diving again and again. It is there she earned the nickname “Mermaid” because she was always in the water. Since then she has shot many camera systems including the most inexpensive point and shoots, an Olympus Pen, Jason’s old Nikon D100 system and now her current Sony Nex6. Over time the camera systems have changed and the equipment has upgraded but the joy of being in the water and capturing images is still fresh and new, like that first dive.