Sunday, January 31, 2010

Little Cayman Day 1 - Rental

day1

The day started waking up at 6 am (which was planned) to the ceiling fan slowly spinning down and coming to a stop. Odd. Did we just lose power? Sure enough, the power went out. What a way to start a vacation! Did you know that on Little Cayman the water doesn't work when the power is out? So much for a shower. At this point, I actually made the comment to Becca that "at least we are guaranteed the sun will come up". Her response, "I'm not so sure". The good news is the power outage only lasted 45 minutes.

First order of business was getting down to the dive shop and securing rental gear. It wasn't a thrilling prospect not having my gear to dive with, but this trip would quickly turn to a disaster if I missed dives. Talk about insult to injury, this trip already had a feel of a Nation Lampoon's Vacation movie in the making, but I was very surprised with dive shop and I saw a glimmer of hope that the vacation would get back on track. Luggage not showing up must be a common occurrence because within just a few minutes, they had me outfitted with everything I needed to not miss any dives. Even though I was grateful to have rental gear, if my gear has feelings, I want it known how much I love it...there is NO COMPARISON!

The morning brought more good news, because a number of other people in our group were also missing luggage, the morning dives would leave a little later in the morning to allow the first plane to hopefully bring more bags. Another interesting fact about Little Cayman, there are no runway lights, planes only land in day light. The first plane landed, the bags were rushed to the dock we were standing on, the news only three bags didn't make it. Can you guess it? Of the three bags that didn't make it, Becca and I were two of them! Talk about the unlucky of the lucky.

There was no way I was getting in the water with my expensive new camera gear with rental gear I never dove before, so the goal of the day was avoiding whatever other bad luck lay in wait in the depths for us (mainly that shark). Keeping with the theme of karma, though our boat was very nice with lots of room, it was suffering from mechanical problems and was the slowest boat of the fleet. Our group was humiliated a couple times as the other boats passed us, once signaled by the swimming motion and the worse one, getting mooned by some very white butts.

Only experiencing Cozumel, I figured our first dives would be to less popular spots to let the dive masters check out how competent we were. Once in the water, my first thought was that if this is a "bad" spot, I can't wait see a "good" one. The purple coral fans along with the color and condition of the coral was amazing. It was also very apparent how impressive and shear the wall is on Little Cayman. At one point there is bottom at 40 feet, swim another 20 feet, and the bottom is completely gone to a very dark blue nothingness. There isn't gradual anything, it's either bottom or no bottom.

Our luggage did show up at some point and our gear was waiting for us outside our room when we got back to the resort after the first two dives. I didn't run up and hug it, but I did look forward to being able to dive deeper than 60 feet and not have it feel like I was breathing through a straw!

The highlights of the day included seeing a sea slug moving. I know that doesn't sound exciting, but it was cool to finally see one moving. Up until this point the only sea slugs we saw were, umm slugs. Think of a caterpillar underwater. On the second dive we did a fun swim through called Marilyn's Cut. The story goes that Marilyn cut her finger on some coral and it attracted some sharks, so she hid from them in this swim through until the sharks gave up. On this dive, we witnessed something that only happens once a year, a school of thirty-eight grouper swimming to the west end of the island for their spawning season. The last memorable event of the day was watching an iguana eat a cherry from a drink. I didn't see any cherry trees on the island, but apparently this lizard acquired a taste for them and learned if he hung around the bar at night, his chances vastly improved at finding them.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Extra Lead

Weight

Dec. 3rd:

Becca - "Our trip is approaching, put any thought into getting an underwater housing for your good camera?"

Mark - "Part of me says we spend too much time messing with camera stuff, I'm thinking this next trip we should leave the gear on the surface and go down and enjoy the moment."

Jan 7th:

Mark - "You know, it would be nice to come back with some great pictures, maybe I'll just check out what options I have."

Jan 8th:

Mark - "Becca, how much room do you have in your luggage? Oh yeah, and you can forget about any comment I made about diving and enjoying the moment"

Becca - "Thought so!"


What started as good intentions of trying to burn in some great memories of a fantastic dive a month ago, not to mention being financially responsible, quickly changed as our vacation drew ever closer. The reality of the situation is, I have my parents genes and I see their failing memories, there is no way I'm taking a chance forgetting something cool! These trips don't happen as often as I like, I have to have something to capture the moment with something more than just my mind, I want hard copies...you know just in case my mind fails. Plus, it's darn fun to have new toys to play with.

First there is the housing, to keep the camera safe. Then two ports were needed for the two different types of lenses. Finally, a strobe to make all the colors pop. When it was said and done, my wallet is what went on a diet this month. So, I'll be wearing extra lead for my sudden weight loss this trip. But, all it takes is that one shot to make it all worth it though.

Vacation, here we come!