Melanie and I have been going back to the Carib Inn in Bonaire twice a year for the past four years. We started taking pictures with a small P&S camera, then a prosumer camera, and finally dual-strobe dSLR setups. By the time we got up to our current housing configuration, we realized the rinse tank at the Carib Inn would not hold our cameras. We purchased some 48-can soft-sided coolers to use as rinse tanks, but these were a little short. It took some time to find our current rinse tanks - larger 48-can soft-sided coolers by Polar Bear. These coolers are excellent. They're large, well padded and constructed - a little expensive, but well worth it. Several UW photographers I know use them as carry-on and/or to lug around their setups. If you decide to pack them in your luggage, they can take up a bit of room. We've found that camping compression bags, often used for clothing and sleeping bags, compress the coolers to an acceptable size.

Our camera setups are Ikelite Canon 20D Housings with customized Top Mount Assemblies, Ikelite 8 inch dome ports, Aquatica WA port shades, dual Ikelite DS-125 substrobes and some very long ULCS arms. Although sizeable, each kit fits nicely in the coolers, with a little room to spare for a set of regulators. There are a few downsides to having your own rinse tanks though - they take up room in the shower / bathroom, and you have to clean them (and fill them back up) every 5-7 days. The upside is you can leave your gear in there as long as you like. We often left ours for a few hours during lunch and between dives.

The first time we travelled with two complete dSLR setups we found it hard to leave the room with peace of mind. After all, with camera bodies, lenses, housings, substrobes, etc., the combined value of our assembled housings is about $12k USD. We preferred not to leave them on the table in plain view, and dive-ready housings of this size are not easy to hide. Large hotels might offer a better sense of security, but we prefer to stay in small Inns and apartments.

It took some thinking and research before choosing the StormCase iM2975. It's large enough to hold both of our setups configured with 8 inch ports and extra long arms for wide-angle photography. The only problem with the iM2975 is it's size and weight for travelling. It's slightly oversize for airline checked luggage, although we haven't been hassled for this yet - the agents seem to be more concerned about weight than luggage size. You can remove the wheels - which reduces it's linear size slightly - but the airline could still charge us for the excess size at some point (American Airlines charge $80 USD for oversized luggage). We'll probably remove the wheels in the future since we travel with four checked luggage and two carry-ons - we have to use airport carts anyway.

The standard iM2975 case has a hole for a lock on each of two corners. Since the case is made of plastic, I wanted to make it a little harder for thieves to cut away the locks. I bought some Master Lock 510KAD Keyed Alike Adjustable Padlocks and drilled four holes for them. I run a tie-down cable through the locks and close them flush with the case. This makes it very difficult to cut away the plastic in a reasonable time. The problem with these padlocks is they can be locked upside down. Then you'd be really up the creek, so I marked the wrong side with a large black "X" and take my time before locking them.

We also use a PacSafe with one of our hard-sided luggage to secure lenses, cameras and various electronics. Housings usually come directly from the rinse tanks when we secure them, so we call the iM2975 the "wet box" and the PacSafe protected luggage our "dry box". The wire mesh can be a little difficult to work with, but you get used to it quickly. The trick is to open it just enough to pull up the luggage top and close it again.