Little Cayman Day 6 - Best for Last

The briefing started just like all the dives this week, "60 minutes, max of 110 ft". Becca and I just looked at each other and smiled. Without a spoken word, I knew what she was thinking. Of course I was thinking the same thing, "max of 110, what are they going to do, kick us out on our last day?" At 113 ft I found not one, but two lionfish together. I'm going to take the blame for this, but the discovery of the lionfish changed the dive plan. It wasn't until we came up that I found out how bad Becca wanted to hit 120. In the end, our guide wasn't even around to catch the lionfish, so we missed our chance to increase our record. If I could do one thing over from this trip, we should have done this. I hate it when Responsible Mark shows up, when Cool Story Mark was a measly seven feet away.

The dive site was called the Bus Stop and I think I'll remember it for more reasons than missing my chance to hit 120 ft though. One of the women on the trip had a dream earlier in the week about one of our guides, Dottie, driving us on a bus instead of the boat and at some point either she was naked or we were all naked. Either way, it made for a funny visual and it summed up the attitude of the boat (group) for the week. We really did get paired up with a good group of people and it made the time spent on the surface enjoyable.

Apparently, stingrays like Bus Stops too because we ended up finding five of them. We spent a good chunk of time watching two playing together. I think it worked out well, once they separated, Becca and I tormented one of them with the camera and video camera while I hope the rest of our group could enjoy the other one. We also found one hiding, completely covered in sand, only eyes sticking out. Up until this point, never had I found two together, let alone one not moving.

The last dive of the vacation, I don't know if it was my imagination, but it sure felt like everybody was moving a little slower. Trying to conserve air, make the dive last a little longer and take in more. My final minutes of my underwater vacation were spent watching a hawksbill sea turtle having breakfast. He probably didn't think so, but I thought the moment was very peaceful. For once, no cameras, just enjoying the moment. Then it was time to come up. Even though this seemed like a deep moment for me and you begin to wonder if somebody else is writing this, I'll ruin it with this, at my safety stop I finished trying to buddy breath with a barracuda. Go figure the barracuda didn't want to share air, but I thought it would make for a humorous picture.

Even though I labeled this post as the Best for Last, it's really hard for me to pick what my favorite dive of the trip was. I absolutely loved diving the Tibbetts. The night dive, with the UFO squid was spectacular. The Bus Stop was also special in it's own way, so I'm calling it a universal tie.

It hardly seems fair, but our diving ended today. Sure we still have about twenty-four hours left on the island, but it went by so fast, even with the initial problems. I did get seventeen dives in (Becca got eighteen) and I did accomplish my one goal of seeing a shark, so I have to say in the end it turned out to be a great trip. When's the next one?

Little Cayman Day 5 - Night Life

I love to party! The girls, the dancing, the drinking, the smoking (did you know that the Caymans have Cuban Cigars) did I already mention the girls? Granted anybody reading this blog probably already knows me, but in case you don't, I'm going to let you in on a small secret, if I ever mention dancing in a positive way....it's a sure bet that I'm using sarcasm and watch out the BS is going to be getting deep.

Little Cayman is not Cancun, no spring breakers here. It's not Vegas, it definitely sleeps, usually by 8pm most nights. It does do it's impression of American (Idol) Karaoke on Friday night, which almost had me swimming to Cuba. The real night life, in my opinion, happens on Tuesday and Thursday the night dives. In our case, Thursday. As luck would have it, a buoy needed for navigation was missing on Tuesday, so we only got one night dive this trip.

Diving three times a day is tiring by itself. Today we did four, well most of us. Wait, make that only Becca and I. We were the only ones of our group to sign up to do the night dive, guess we know who the true divers were. It was an extra $60, which I thought a little pricey, but thinking back to our Cozumel trip, the night dives were my favorite. Just like our trip, the night dive started out slow. The first fifteen minutes of the dive, nothing. I did come face to face with a large barracuda, then a good sized lobster and then a lemon ray, but hardly something to make a cool dive. The whole time the little voice in my head, "I spent extra money on this?". A good sized crab eating, then small spotted lobster, a puffer and a turtle, better probably worth $30 at this point. Finally, an octopus and not just a brief glimpse, but a solid five minutes! Worth it! Then a bonus, a school of squid that looked like a formation of UFO's, now this is some night life!

The evening ended with a boat ride in what I can only describe as a planetarium. The number of stars visible from the resort far out numbered a typical sky back home, but on the boat away from the lights of shore, amazing! Yup, sign me up for the night life!

Little Cayman Day 4 - The Hunt

Now that the vacation turned into what it was suppose to be, I was ready for my secret wish to happen, seeing a shark. Though I knew Little Cayman was hardly the shark capital of the ocean, I had read reports that an occasional reef, hammerhead, or whale shark were sometimes visible along the walls. It just so happened that on our first dive of the morning at about ninety feet, I was able to give Becca the official signal for shark (hand to the top of the head, for fin out of the water JAWS made famous). Of course the reef shark was probably at a hundred and thirty feet, so a good forty feet below us, and hardly a man eater seeing as he'd probably choke trying to fit even a small extremity of mine in his six to eight foot body, but still our first official shark! Sure, we have seen a number of nurse sharks, but they don't count. Nurse sharks are just like my cats, they find a nice place to lay down and all they do is sleep. It wasn't up close and personal and it wasn't very big, but I'm calling this my first official shark dive.

One would think that seeing a shark would be the most memorable event of the dive, it wasn't. The king of the jungle (or is that deep in this case) is the Lion, okay make that Lionfish. The Lionfish are an invasive species that have the potential to change the reefs for the worse. Though actually very beautiful, they have a tremendous appetite and unfortunately don't have any natural predators, well besides Dottie and Phil (our dive guides). On this dive Dottie was with us and ended up catching and killing four of them. I was lucky enough to get video of her netting one and I believe Becca is the one who spotted it. Not to be outdone by Becca, I found my own and although I don't know if it's the one Phil caught, I'm pretending it was. For the day, our boat ended with seven confirmed kills, which by sounds of the complaining coming from the other (faster) boats, I think it was a record.

It was satisfying to think that I helped do my part to help keep the reefs safe. In the end, I know it didn't even scratch the surface of the problem. Although my resume shows lack of experience, I would like to make it known that any resort or island in the Caribbean willing to pay my way and fill my tanks, I'll gladly hunt Lionfish on every dive.

Little Cayman Day 3 - Wrecks, Always Make Me Smile

Smash, crash, shatter, break to smithereens, it doesn't matter on the verb describing what happened, the fact is, something was destroyed in a spectacular fashion when a wreck is involved. To say it's always been that way, is probably an understatement. Now, my dad would say that I did my fair share of wrecking things as a kid, mainly his radio equipment. Personally, I think I got blamed for the things he broke! I know I'm not alone when it comes to viewing carnage though, any time spent backed up on the expressway, it's almost always because people are rubber-necking an accident, so I'm not the only one.

This trip had the makings of a small train wreck in progress the way it started out. Who knew that an actual wreck would get the trip back on course though? For a mere $30 extra, we had the opportunity to take our boat over to the sister island of Cayman Brac to check out a sunken Soviet frigate, designated 356, but called the Tibbetts after the man who had her sunk. Diving purists I'm sure will scoff at the thought of diving a wreck sunk on purpose, but I don't care. Little Cayman is known for it's wall diving, Cayman Brac seems to be known for this wreck. The thought of accomplishing both types of dives on two different islands on the same trip was far too tempting, so Becca and I were the first ones to sign up for the trip.

The boat ride out was about forty-five minutes, which wasn't too bad. They did give us the more reliable boat, which meant it was almost twice as fast as the barge they stuck us on for the week. The seas were choppy that morning and I know Becca was happy to get in the water after bouncing across the waves (I think she was most concerned about also feeding the fish, and didn't want to take the title from me).

I have no idea what the rush was, but all the divers went rushing to the bow once in the water. That worked out perfect for Becca and I. We dropped down to the aft of the ship, swam along the starboard side nice and slow. By the time we got to the bow, everyone was gone, then we came up the port side and back to the aft again where we came up. Even though we had 15 to 18 people on the boat, the two of us were alone for almost the entire dive, which was awesome for pictures and video. I honestly don't care if that ship was sunk on purpose, it was frigg'n (frigging because it's a frigate) cool! When the Tibbetts was sunk, it's bow came to rest over a small shelf and a subsequent storm cracked the bow down the incline. Even though I know better, it looks like it struck a mine and suffered a horrible death. This development only adds to the wreck's personality.

This dive is one of my favorites to date. The ship was so easy to see with the visibility, it hasn't been on the bottom long, but has plenty of life around it already. With as serious as we take diving, it also provided us a chance to get pictures of us riding the guns and bow, so it had every element to make it a memorable dive (cool, yet give us an opportunity to goof off) and it was perfect timing to provide a change of pace to all the wall diving we had been doing.

Doesn't matter the circumstances with how it got that way, a good wreck always makes me smile! Officially, this was the turning point of the trip.

Little Cayman Day 2 - What goes down, comes back up

Sure glad that all the problems of the trip were behind us now! I spent extra time and care putting my new camera housing together, after all this morning would be it's first official dive. To say anticipation was flowing through the veins would be an understatement. All the gear was assembled prior to breakfast.

At breakfast, I had some cold cereal, bacon, a danish, and some OJ. There did seem to be some confusion though, apparently the act of pointing to her seat is the Jamaican symbol for wanting two omelets, because Becca ended up with two cheese and ham omelets. I was perfectly content with my breakfast, but to help my dive buddy not look wasteful with her order, I forced down an omelet. Good thing that wetsuit of mine stretches!

Dive time! Our dive site for the morning was the Mixing Bowl. I've heard wonderful things about this site. I can't wait to be able to dive my own gear to the 110 ft limit, play around with my new camera, and check out this famous site. This turtle, I've decided is my first subject, we bonded, and he/she posed for me along the wall. After the wall, the Mixing Bowl has white sand bottom good for rays and smaller things. It was at this point I had a headache starting, so I decided to hand the camera over to Becca and relax for the rest of the dive. We continued the dive until we got back under the boat. I didn't think my headache was too odd, but now I started feeling a little queasy. I gave Becca the signal that I wanted to go up, but she still had three minutes to go for her safety stop. I didn't feel great, but I didn't feel horrible so I decided to hang out with her. A small barracuda decided to chill with us at our safety stop. The three minutes passed, up we went, at five feet from the surface my stomach turned upside down. I broke the surface, pulled my regulator out of my mouth and out came breakfast. Now, there's a reason they call it feeding the fish, breakfast didn't agree with me, but the fish sure loved it as they swarmed me. Granted, you never feel great when you are vomiting, but all I could think about was that barracuda rushing in to take out one of these fish and leaving me with bite marks, vomiting was the least of my worries that that moment in time. Luckily, nothing happened and my imagination was greater than a stray bite.

I got on the boat looking even more white than the day I arrived on the island, if that's possible. Of course the crew of the boat were concerned that I did something stupid and they would need to put me on oxygen. The only real treatment I needed was keeping me away from those omelets in the morning, and I learned that lesson all on my own!

I did sit out the next dive, which of course I felt fine fifteen minutes after everybody went down, but it probably was for the best anyway. Up until this point, I thought my navigating the South Haven pier would be my most embarrassing dive moment. I suppose it's still probably worse, but expelling breakfast on calm seas isn't a very proud moment either! Thanks dive buddy, I owe you for this! I suppose it doesn't matter in the end, provided when we go down, we both come back up.