Little Cayman Day 4: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

We missed the alarm clock this morning, and didn’t wake up till we heard the breakfast bell! After fruit and tea and a quick trip to the dive shop, we gathered our things (or so we thought...) and headed out for our morning dives. I ran back to the room to make Steve a PB&J, and when I got down to the dock everyone was yelling at me to “run! Hurry up!” – even though it wasn’t even 8:10 am! Jeez! I hopped on to much teasing (we’re supposed to be on the boat ready to go at 8:15, it’s not my fault everyone else got their early!!), and we got underway. About 1 minute out, Steve realized he’d forgotten to grab our wetsuits from the gear room. Panic! It was too late to turn around though, so we spent the ride out trying to decide if we should give it a go anyway. Most dives have been 80-82° near the surface, 79° at any major depth. Scary!

Well of course, we get to the first dive site and Dottie says the word “hammerhead,” and that was all she wrote. We were going in sans rubber, despite the fact that the story went on to report that there had been only one (unsubstantiated, at that) report of a lone hammerhead at this site, years ago, and not a one since. Nonetheless … who’s willing to take that risk?!?

Dive #1 — Lea Lea’s

Named for Lea Lea, the famed hammerhead sighter, we’d heard great things about this dive site. Dottie tried to take us there yesterday, but the current was a bit too strong and we had to go elsewhere. But today the sea was calm as glass, and we were a go. Steve and I waited until everyone else was in, then bravely started donning what little gear we had – booties, fins … yeah, that was about it!

Dottie, sea goddess that she is, offered me her mini-beanie and her hooded vest. The vest was a bit big, but I gladly took her up on it and quickly put it on over my measly DAN t-shirt and floppy blue shorts. Steve had a t-shirt and his “Snoopy” beanie.

The bad: Well, I won’t kid you. It was cold. But we kept telling ourselves “It’s not 70° cold like Florida was” and “It’s definitely not 42° cold like the @#%$@! quarry!” Hm. Well, it was still pretty cold, but we managed – a 40-minute dive no less! We saw another beautiful landscape, alternating sandy patches and coral heads, and lots of fish (more every day, it seems). Trunkfish (two this time!), a good-sized balloonfish, a nurse shark sleeping in the sand under a coral ledge. There were more Grand Canyon-like deep crevices in the coral; they look like someone took a giant knife and stuck it into the wall and then just dragged and zig-zagged it about. We found one neat sharp cut, Steve went down into it at one end, with a deep hole like a well. Then he swam along below me and I followed him about 20 feet above. It was quite cool.

Overall a nicely salvaged dive, thanks to Dottie. I don’t think I’d have made it ten minutes without those hoods!


Dive #2 — Great Wall East

I was encouraged after the first dive, having stayed much warmer than I thought I would. But then I did have to give up the mini-beanie, as Dottie was our DM for the second dive. Still, we figured the worst that could happen would be that we’d take a quick look around and come on up if we were too cold.

Results: BIG balloonfish, barracuda, two more trunkfish, a small, very pretty scrawled filefish, and a big stingray right at the end, just as Steve got up the ladder! (D'oh!) We were much cooler on this dive, but we did make it 30 minutes at least.

We were pretty ready for lunch – being colder really does make you even hungrier than usual! Today’s lunch was a Chinese dish (sweet & sour chicken, I think), rice, and some sort of beef sandwich with "juice." But I got mixed veggies, red cabbage, rice and sautéed Chinese veggies. I could really get used to this personal chef thing! Everyone was raving over the desserts – chocolate iced brownies, coconut cream pie, and authentic (and obviously homemade) chocolate chip cannoli. Impressive!

Took a small nap, then headed out to MAKE SURE we got our wetsuits. The silver lining here was that while everyone else had to put on cold, slimy suits, ours were perfectly dry and toasty!

Dive #3 — Barracuda Bite (BB)

The good: Awesome dive! We had Brett again (he’s from Alberta, we’ve learned) and Paul, the young British dive director here at Reef Divers. Dottie was feeling ill this morning, and apparently my two measly sudafed didn’t help the “ice pick between her eyes.” Bummer, she is quite a hoot. (Jokes told by Dottie on the morning dives were very funny, but not entirely suitable for a family blog … you understand.) We buddied with Christopher, too, so he and I were Steve’s lookouts. Great stuff! Christopher found a COOL web burrfish (very shy, but you can see him peering out from behind some coral, above), an arrow crab, a huge lobster, a small skate hiding under a coral. Steve stared right at it for approximately 6-1/2 minutes before he finally saw it! I pointed, pointed, pointed ... drew a line above it from head to tail, drew an outline of its shape in the water … he kept shrugging his shoulders: what? Finally I practically poked the thing in the eye (not really!), and he saw it. Phew!

We also saw a big crab, trunkfish, cute little blennies, queen triggers (one looked odd – either sick or a little … slow). A barracuda, a baby balloonfish, schools of jack, and a couple of BIG Nassau groupers. This dive was 65 minutes – 3 mm does make a difference!

Night dive: Windsock

It was much choppier than our morning dives, but still a very pretty ride out, with the full moon shining over the water and illuminating our wake. Christopher, Steve and I were the only takers from our group, so we buddied up again. We were warned to keep our lights off above 15 feet, as the sea wasps hang there and love the light. Solid advice. We made it down unharmed, and right away saw a a great big lobster hanging out right out in the open, on a ledge. Crabs, big grouper, shrimps (big ones, not even hiding, with bright shining red eyes – very cute, like something off of SpongeBob or Finding Nemo!). Also lots of little sleeping fish, some tiny but extremely colorful lettuce sea slugs, and …. a sleeping turtle! We’ve never seen one before; he was on the bottom between two coral heads, camouflaged, with his head tucked in. Then, at the end of the dive, I saw a large, blooming West Indian sea egg. Very pretty!

The ugly (almost, anyway): I was quite queasy on the way out, obviously because of the chop, but also likely due to the big dinner I had eaten barely an hour before (won’t do that again!). I’d probably have been fine, except for the constant surge underwater, rocking me back and forth the whole time, swaying me about regardless of depth or what coral head I tried to hide behind. As such, unfortunately, my belly didn’t have time to recover, and I felt pretty nauseated the whole dive. Ick.

Tomorrow we’re going over to Cayman Brac to dive the M/V Keith Tibbetts, a 330-foot Russian frigate, purposely sunk on September 17, 1996. Should be cool!

VERDICT, day four: a solid B+ (even with the seasickness!)