Diving — Page 14

Spanish Anchor, dive 30

December 4, 2008

Dive: 30
Cayman Dive: 6
Date: 12/4/08
Site: Spanish Anchor, Grand Cayman
Avg/Max Depth: 36/52
Temp: 79
TBT/CBT: 0:47/23:20
Buddies: Kristen, Curtis, Ted

After a surface interval filled with Matty’s jokes, we quickly geared up for our second dive. The site was aptly named because of an Spanish anchor almost completely overgrown with coral (I missed it, apparently Curtis got a photo). Matty said it carbon dated back to the 1500s. Kristen and I were the first ones in today and we immediately descended. None of this bobbing on the surface nonsense.

The fish were plentiful on the coral fingers. The stoplight parrotfish are my favorites here and there were lots of them. I also got what I think will be a quite stunning picture of a French Angelfish.

Curtis and Kristen headed back to the boat a littler early. Ted and I continued exploring. After about 10 minutes we decided to head back to the boat. We spotted the boat almost effortlessly and did our safety stop. Right about the time my stop was complete, I looked at Ted. He was shaking his head and pointing at the boat. I turned to look and saw the boat was now surrounded by divers. What was wrong? Why were all these strange divers at our boat? Oh, it wasn’t our boat. Woops. We headed in another direction. Our 40 minute time limit had passed, and I was afraid that they would think we were a couple of rogue divers like the one from Tuesday. Since I was only at 13 feet I decided to surface and have a look around to make sure we were going in the right direction. I spotted the boat up top and descended again, pointing the direction to Ted. That was the first time I longed for a compass. At least we were close, a couple hundred feet away at the most. It was then my ear started acting up again, so I hovered at about 8 feet, shallow enough not to hurt, but deep enough to not struggle against the current. We saw a barracuda, and as much as I wanted to swim closer for a picture, my ears weren’t having it. Probably a good thing anyhow.

We got to the boat quickly and we weren’t even the last ones on. On the drive back Matty came on the CB and asked if Frank was donating his camera to him. Crap, I realized it was my camera. I left it in the freshwater bucket. I tried telling the driver, Nicole, that it was my camera and I was with the Lahr party. Somehow she misinterpreted it to be “the misses of Frank”‘s camera. Matty came back on and said, “that’s not Frank’s misses, but I know who you mean.” He said he’d leave it at the dive shop for me to pick up tomorrow. I was only disappointed because I’m quite positive I had some rockin’ pictures on there and now I have to wait a day. Pooey.

Sand Chute, dive 29

December 4, 2008

Dive: 29
Cayman Dive: 5
Date: 12/4/08
Site: Sand Chute, Grand Cayman
Avg/Max Depth: 60/100
Temp: 79
TBT/CBT: 0:35/22:33
Buddies: Kristen, Curtis, Ted

Kristen and I were disappointed to learn Dreamy Jonny *swoon* would not be accompanying us today. Instead we had Matty. What he lacked in looks, he made up with personality. He was a very animated character, complete with a rolodex of [bad] jokes.

We drove down the street from our hotel to a public beach area where some boats were pulled on shore. Hmmm… boarding a boat sans dock, that was a new diving experience for me. There were the four of us, as well as two gentlemen (not together) we dove with before (Frank and an older gentleman) and an unfamiliar couple.

Our first dive site was Sand Chute, a short boat ride from the shore. Kristen and I were the first ones in the water, followed quickly by Curtis and Ted. Personally, I was sick of waiting up top for the other slowbies to get in.

This dive was lots of fun. We started through a short canyon that plunked us out near 100 feet deep. Matty pointed out a giant wall of coral to our left, he wanted us to see how insignificant we are. We also spotted a turtle in the distance and saw a massive starfish. Since the four of us had computers we got about 10 minutes at the end of the dive to ourselves. There was a jelly fish waiting to greet us at the ladder and I scurried out of the water as quick as I could, fully expecting a wave to push me into it. It got Curtis instead.

Crossroads, dive 28

December 2, 2008

Dive: 28
Cayman Dive: 4
Date: 12/2/08
Site: Crossroads, South Side, Grand Cayman
Avg/Max Depth: 23/42
Temp: 79
TBT/CBT: 0:37/21:58
Buddies: Nick, Kristen, Curtis, Ted

Our second dive site for the day was Crossroads. It was to be our shallow dive. Jon let the 11 of us dive without him. Our instructions were to swim around the reef with a max depth of 40-50 feet for no longer than 40 minutes. Seemed simple enough. We decided to follow Curtis since he has the mad directional skillz. No dumbheadedness from me on this dive, I got in the water right away to make up for the previous dive.

This dive was a bit more relaxing than the last one for me. I prefer swimming over the reef to swimming on a wall. I like to look below me while I swim about, it’s a more natural position for my neck, and on a wall there’s not much to look at below. My camera battery was going dead and it was shutting off on me the entire dive, but I was determined to be patient and get good fish photos. Photos of the same types of coral gets monotonous after awhile. I think I did good, better than normal anyway, but not as good as Curtis.

On the way back to the boat, the videographer pointed out a giant lobster. I descended a bit to take a peek. That’s when my ear started to ache. For the remainder of the dive I tried to stay at 12 feet so it wouldn’t bother me.

Kristen and I were the first to board the boat. She was parched, and my ear was telling me it was time to wrap it up.

Slowly everyone filtered in… except for one guy. His wife came aboard, he apparently wasn’t ready to quit yet. We waited, and waited. They knew he was alright because they could see his bubbles swimming around the boat. It went from being humorous to quite irritating. I’m sure it had been at least 30 minutes since everyone else had boarded. After trying various attempts at getting his attention, Jon reluctantly took off his warm jacket (swoon), grabbed his mask and fins and moped to the back of the boat, hesitating before diving in. It only took a few seconds, Jon was back on the boat, looking disappointed to be wet, and the rogue diver climbed up after him. Apparently he thought we were supposed to swim around until we reached 500 psi. WTF? At every dive briefing I’ve ever had the divemaster has said come up with no less than 500. That’s like the danger line. Industry standard minimum. How could he misinterpret that? We’re all certified divers, I assume he learned the same basic safety principles as everyone else. And where was the little voice in his head that should have been saying, “I’m down here all alone, this isn’t right”? I felt bad for his wife, I’m pretty sure she was embarrassed by the whole situation.

At least it gave an ample opportunity to completely dry off before the windy boat trip back. It was still overcast, but the air felt warmer, especially being dry.

Twisted Sister, dive 27

December 2, 2008

Dive: 27
Cayman Dive: 3
Date: 12/2/08
Site: Twisted Sister, South Side, Grand Cayman
Avg/Max Depth: 66/117
Temp: 79
TBT/CBT: 0:28/21:21
Buddies: Nick, Kristen, Curtis, Ted

After waiting 30 minutes for the dive van to pick us up, we headed to the south side of town for our dives of the day. There were already four other divers in the van, and we got off to a bit of a late start because of rush hour traffic. When we got to the boat there were two more divers waiting. Our divemaster of the day was Jon again (swoon), and there was another videographer, who’s name none of us can remember, but I’m sure we’ll see her again.

This time we were in more of a traditional style boat. They called it Pegasus. It didn’t take too long to get to the first dive site, Twisted Sister. I was the last one in the water due to some dumbheadedness on my behalf. First my mask was tightened and the band was misaligned because of my snorkel. I frustratedly fixed that, only to get my snorkel caught under my BCD shoulder strap, so I had to pull it out and fix it again. It felt like it took me forever. I was thankful that the chick was helping me so I wasn’t making a fool of myself in front of Jon. When I took my giant stride into the water, my mask completely leaked on one side. We were told to surface swim with our snorkel to the front of the boat. It was going to be a deep dive and he didn’t want us using our air up top. I swam against the current to where the others were waiting. When I got there I removed my mask to get all my hair out of the way so it would stop letting on water. It’s much easier to do when my hair is wet and not blowing around haphazardly in the wind. By the time I got it in place everyone had descended but I couldn’t find my regulator. I fumbled around, trying to remember all the techniques for locating it from way back in my first open water class. I figured in the current it had got tossed behind me, or maybe it had wrapped around to my left side. They seem to strap the tanks really low on the back here, so I couldn’t reach the top of the tank to follow its hose. Again, it felt like it was taking forever. I was all alone on the surface and when I peeked underwater everyone was tens of feet below me. So much for getting help. Then Jon called over the side of the boat, asking if everything was alright. I told him I couldn’t find my reg, and he told me it was over my shoulder and patted his collar bone. Of course it was practically right in front of my face. So much for not making a fool of myself.

I descended quickly after that, trying to make up for lost time. I was surprised to see that Jon was already down there starting to lead the way. I must be slower than I previously thought. The dive went smoothly after the fiasco in the beginning. We went through some caves, which I got a good video of, and saw basically the same fishes as yesterday.

Toward the end of the dive I stopped to take a picture of Nick. He decided to take out his reg and smile at the same time I pushed the button. The resulting photo turned out quite humorous.

We got back to the boat and took some time being gassy on the surface. The wind was a bit chilly, but the fact that it wasn’t raining made it a little more tolerable than yesterday’s surface interval.

Leslie’s Curl, dive 26

December 1, 2008

Dive: 26
Cayman Dive: 2
Date: 12/1/08
Site: Leslie’s Curl, North Wall, Grand Cayman
Avg/Max Depth: 47/66
Temp: 79
TBT/CBT: 0:32/20:53
Buddies: Nick, Kristen, Curtis, Ted

For our next dive, Jon didn’t come with us. He gave us a run down of the area and a couple options for our game plans. Melissa dove with us though, tagging along with her camera. This was to be a short dive. Maximum depth of 60 feet and 30-35 minutes tops. There were much more schools of fish on the second dive, and when we were just about finished we saw two Spotted Eagle Rays swimming around 80 feet down. Almost better than seeing the rays was seeing Kristen trying to signal to everyone that there were rays among us. Melissa hovered right over them, recording their graceful journey. I think they were the deciding factor for buying the DVD.

After another safety stop and another [unsuccessful] attempt at air rings the dive was over. And shortly after I was on the boat it was raining and storming. That’s one of the best things about diving. Even when the weather is crappy we can still enjoy vacation to the fullest!!