Tip of the hat to this badass animal videographer Scott Cassell. Read his recent tale of diving with Rojo Diablo otherwise known as the Humboldt Squid. This sounds like a ringing endorsement for Seacam Underwater Camera Housing Systems, and the folks at Seacam ought to be calling this cat up now with an endorsement deal…I mean c’mon read this excerpt below:
On the other hand, even with an extremely violent series of Giant Humboldt squid attacks, the Seacam system never had a failure. It was anvil-tough and very simple. In fact, it proved to be sturdy above and beyond the call of duty on one really violent attack. A large Humboldt had come up on me from behind and was trying to chew into my neck. I struggled to hit it with my camera, weakening my grip in the process. As I struggled to right myself and get my dive gear back in order, I accidentally let the camera go. Since the sea bottom was always more than 1,000 feet below me, I kept the camera system a pound positively buoyant so that if I ever dropped it, it would float. That’s exactly what happened. The squid had dragged me down nearly 75 feet before I dropped my camera, and it quickly floated up just out of Jacquie’s reach and continued to accelerate until it popped to the surface striking the dive boat.
Read the full story, it’s amazing: In Search of the Red Demon
Another story featuring Scott here: Behold the Humboldt
*update*
I wrote Scott an email inquiring as to if and where his footage might be available, he responded promptly with a link to his website where you can view some trailers and purchase DVD’s:
Official Website: Sea Wolves
Bitclone is a small Portland, Oregon based Web Design Agency owned by these two nerds Eric Baldoni and Alex Carey (pictured above somewhere in the outdoors, clearly lost without their trusty computers).