Little Cayman Day 5: the Tides of March

Wow. Four dives yesterday + a little seasickness = cranky morning. We saw a t-shirt in the dive shop that says “I’m probably too old for this” … that’s how we felt this morning! We even had to get up a bit early, as the dive boat headed out for the wreck at Cayman Brac at 8 am. Neither of us felt much like breakfast, but we knew we needed to eat a little something. Eggs and sausage for Steve (and he didn’t feel like eating!); fruit, spinach, and little fried plantain for me.

And … even without a calendar or newspaper, we definitely know it’s mid-week. How can we tell, you ask? Despite our finest cleaning of wetsuits ever (the Simple Green washing after Key Largo last month), the gear is starting to ripen. Nothing like pulling on a cold, wet, slimy, stinky rubber suit first thing in the morning. Yee-ha.

The weather today was just perfect: dry air, a small cool breeze, water calm as glass. Sublime.

Dive #1 — M/V Captain Keith Tibbetts (Russian Missile Frigate #356)

Now this is a wreck dive!! I enjoyed this one more than any other wreck we’ve done (not that we’ve done a lot). More than the Hilma Hooker in Bonaire, more than the Spiegel Grove in Key Largo. It’s a large ship (330 feet), in relatively shallow water (we hit 82 feet max, and that was lying in the sand), with near perfect visibility (reportedly 200 feet, but we all swore we could see from bow to stern). The ship twisted apart in the middle upon sinking, with the bow end now resting on its port side, stern upright, with an interesting debris field in the middle. Lots of easy swim-throughs, although you did have to watch out for exposed metal beams and iron bars everywhere – I can't imagine it being allowed open for public diving in the US. (My octopus did get caught up at one point, and I had to pop it out of its holder to untangle it).

We saw the engine and missile rooms, the captain’s tower, the gun turrets, and an old stateroom that is now home to Natasha (Marc's "girl") and Ivan, two resident Goliath grouper who patiently put up with the stream of divers swimming in to shine lights on them. The ship’s been down nearly ten years, so the growth is impressive.

Rich, Reef Divers’ videographer, was with us, so we saw quite a bit of him getting footage of the ship and of us divers. We followed both Marc and Rich for a while, figuring they'd be going for the good stuff! They did, and Marc even found some sort of hopping clam to show us. It was white outside, deep red inside, and had long silky tentacles; when released on it's "spine," it hopped along the surface of the ship with the tentacle fingers wiggling up in the air. We'd never seen a clam do that before, and it was pretty neat to watch. Even our safety stop did not disappoint -- a large stingray swam to and fro right underneath us, which helped pass the three minutes at 18 feet quite nicely.

On the way back to the second dive site, someone spotted dolphins again. Marc navigated and Brett drove the boat slowly around in circles. Then, there they were, ready to put on a show for us. There were four of them, and you could definitely tell that one was a baby. IT WAS SO COOL! They raced us just under the bow, played with us, flipping up and out of the water, 3 or even all 4 at a time leaping out together, one even flipping over to swim belly up, then ending with a giant splash of his tail! They stayed with us for probably 30 minutes, and even hung around a bit while Rich (who said he’d never even seen dolphins in Little Cayman, much less been able to swim with and video them) hopped in with his snorkel and video housing (we're hoping for some great footage of that). IT WAS SO COOL!!

Dive #2 — Marylin’s Cut

Just beautiful. We saw so much! Several rays, a turtle, cowfish (a big and very pretty one), another enormous Caribbean spiny lobster, goliath grouper, lettuce sea slugs, blennies galore. Unfortunately, it was so awesome I can’t remember everything we saw! (I think I’m going to get a dive notebook at the shop to keep in my pocket … ) This was easily just as great as the first dive, though we cut the dive itself down to 40 minutes so we could get back for lunch and then the afternoon dive (we ate up a good chunk of time playing with the dolphins!). I really hope we go back to this one.

We made it back around 1 pm, so we grabbed a quick lunch – waiting for me today was a big plate of vegetable lo mein, just the right balance of veggies and starchiness to make my belly happy! Steve had a reuben and …. some other meat stuff … I didn’t really notice, but he enjoyed it. Then we headed back for the 2:00 dive.

Dive #3 — Mike’s Mount

Steve, believe it or not, decided to skip the afternoon dive. He says he was just tired, and based on his level of crankiness, I believed him. So for once, I dove without him! Christopher didn’t have to help with training (he’s working on his AI – assistant instructor – while he’s here), so he was buddiless. He also has a camera, so we decided to find lots of cool stuff to show Steve. Well … the dive obliged!

It was just beautiful, I really love the terrain of the dives here. Tons of mountains and coral heads with wee little sandy patches in between, just big enough for something cool to “hide” in. Let’s see, Christopher and I saw a big French angel, several Nassau groupers, tons of little fish and all kinds of blennies (including a very playful diamond blenny), 2 big stingrays, a BIG reef sharks (6-7 feet long, very cool!), and, at the very end of the dive, a very curious little turtle (swam right up to us and admired himself in Christopher’s camera lens), a big, beautiful spotted eagle ray, and another big reef shark. Christopher even got the eagle ray and the shark in the same picture! Definitely a first, and waaaaaaaaay cool. :-)

I came back to find Steve just waking from his 2-hour nap, and in a decidedly better mood. We went down to hang in the hot tub for a while, then reclined poolside with our iPods and a few drinks ... Stingray beer for Steve and a Cayman Colada for me (that would be a frozen pina colada with Chambord - !!). At one point Steve said, Well, I guess this could be better, but I’m not sure how … Indeed!

Before dinner, we all met at the bar to watch Rich’s video. It was great!! Good shots (not too many fat pictures, even! good job, Rich!) and great music. This is the first one we’ve ever wanted to buy, and we certainly will. We had a good time talking with him and with Marc and Brett – we may join Marc and Sarah in Crystal River in November to spend Thanksgiving weekend with the manatees.

And after dinner (linguini with marinara and veggies), it was back to the bar for Trivia Night. I got there a bit late, and Steve had already joined some folks from our group as part of "Team Instigators." There was one couple all on their own, so I joined their team, the "Long Haired Republicans" (ha!). Steve soon seceded from his team and joined us, where he fit in a bit better. One question was about music in the late '60's. Mrs. Long Hair said "... but I was only 4!" Steve said "I was 2!" and Mr. Long Hair said quietly, "and I was stoned!" (We got the question wrong.) Later, our dive club leader Pete joined us, but after several martinis was of questionable value! (just kidding, Pete!) He insisted that the person with the most Sports Illustrated covers was Cheryl Tiegs! (Not the SIs in your basement, Pete, all of them! Ever heard of Michael Jordan? Just kidding again!) It was a fun time for all of us, and I think we came in second, thanks to the "number of bones in the human body" question (206).

VERDICT, day five: a well-earned A! No, make it an A+ … dolphins, turtles, sharks, eagle rays, 300-ft visibility … can’t ask for a whole lot more! (That being said, we are greedy, so we did ask about the possibility of a whale shark. Seems they have been seen here, though rarely.)