All this talk of binoculars made me look closely at this pair on special at AOE:-
http://www.aoe.com.au/aoe7x50marine.html
At $99 (plus postage) they look like good value. Particularly for a pair you can afford to bang around and drop in the one metre deep lake for up to an hour!!
I almost bought them for someone, but I know this person will also want to look at birds with them. In that case, the individual eyepiece focus, while ideal for astronomical, would be a pain for varying focus terrestrial work
Edit:- It's almost a bit amusing then, that they come with a desirable hard case, to stop them being knocked!
