Eddy's Scuba Blog

After the Nekton cruise I had decided to stay for several days at Sunset House, in Grand Cayman. The main reason had been to take a class with Cathy Church. I was so impressed with the capabilities of the Olympus SP-350 that I decided to buy it. I was already looking for a new camera to replace my Sony Cybershot. I had been looking at the point-and-shoots with manual settings. It came down to two choices: the Canon S80 and the Olympus SP-350. During my scuba trips I had heard many good things about the Olympus 5060 series, which was already discontinued. The Olympus SP-350 was the continuation of that pedigree. The big seller for me was the TTL capability. Having used a fiber optic connector, often times I would end up with overexposed pictures. With TTL you would never get an overexposed picture. The SP-350 is one of the few point-and-shoot cameras that have a hot shoe. Getting the Canon S80 would imply the continuation of the use of the fiber optic cable.

So I decided to buy the camera and the housing. Prices in Grand Cayman were full price, so I ended paying far more than I would have back in the US (I later learned that you could get the camera even at Costco). I decided not get the strobe, thinking that I could get the strobe back in the US. In addition, I already had my existing strobe, a Sea&Sea YS-25 which had performed well so far. So I went with the fiber optic option. Cathy even made a custom gromit on the housing plate (in front of the flash) to fit the fiber optic connector.

Anatomy of a Flooded Strobe: Trinity Caves and Royal Palms Ledge

It's funny how fate is, after deciding not to get a new strobe, something happened to my own strobe. This was the first time I was on a boat dive at Sunset House and we were at a site called Trinity Caves. The site consisted of a series of caves and channels. By the end of the dive, I noticed that tiny bubbles were coming out of my strobe. Immediately, I said to myself "uh-oh". It was strange that a leak happened at the end of the dive, not at the begining. Could it be because of the pressure? I was down to 98 feet at that dive. When I looked at the front of the strobe, I noticed that the water was already inside and it was dark. It looked like something had corroded really quickly. The strobe was completely lost.

Once on the boat I knew that strobe was already useless. We still had a second dive so I promptly detached the strobe arm from my camera and planned to use my (new) camera without a strobe. The area around the flash on my housing was (neatly) taped up (so that the built-in flash would never be used), so I didn't want to take it out. I was going to take pictures with ambient light.

Unfortunately, on our second dive, we went to dive site with very little ambient light. The site was Royal Palms Ledge. As it names suggests, it was a round ledge, like circular channel with overhangs in some areas. Actually this was one of the most interesting sites in Grand Cayman. There were lots of small creatures like coral banded shrimp, juveniles and this Caribbean scallop that I have never seen before:

I was kicking myself for not having a strobe. The scallop was inside a hole on one of the ledge's walls. The reason the picture looks washed out was because of the very low light conditions. My dive buddy Gordon and I were using our flashlights to try to illuminate the scallop. It was really a shame that I didn't have the right equipment.

Once back at my hotel room I examined closely what happened to my strobe. When I removed the battery cover, I found that the o-ring out of place towards the inside. I was trying to figure out whether I had closed the cover incorrectly with the o-ring out of place. If I had, bubbles would have come out when testing it. This was really strange. Another things that happened was that the batteries were seriously leaking. This probably caused the water inside to go dark. If there was something wrong with the batteries, the strobe would have not worked at the begining. I was able to take pictures at the begining of the dive with the strobe. In conclusion, the most plausible explanation was that the o-ring was a bit out of place and caved in with the pressure. However, it never broke, it was just out of place.

Flooded Strobe: Sea & Sea YS-25

Flooded Strobe: Dark waters coming out

After the strobe incident I immediatley went to Cathy's shop to rent another strobe. It was Sunday and they were all out for a photo shoot! The store itself was closed. This was my unlucky day. Since I couldn't do anything about the strobe I decided to relax and have a stroll in downtown Georgetown. Sunset House is located within walking of distance of downtown. It was about 10 blocks away. Since it was in the middle of the afternoon, it was really hot. There was nothing out of the ordinary in Georgetown. There were the usual jewelry and watch stores, clothing stores and souvenir shops. After a couple of hours I was done and returned to the hotel.

It was past 6:00pm when I was sitting at the outdoor restaurant right next to bar when I saw one Sunset House's boats unloading divers. It was Cathy and her crew returning from the photo-shoot. Then it went to my head: Salvation! They were going back to the shop. I took the opportunity to "intercept" Cathy at the shop and told her what happened to my strobe. According to official business hours the store was already was closed. However, she told me to return the next morning before the dive boats leave (8:00am), she said somebody will be at the store at 6:30am. I also asked her about her photo shoot, it turned out that they were at Royal Palms Ledge that day. This kind of confirmed my opinion on the dive site. If the dive site was good enough for a photo shoot, something must be out of the ordinary there.

Eden Rock

The next morning at 6:30am I was able to secure a Sea&Sea YS-90, just like the one I've used during the two classes I took. I was breathing a sigh of relieve. Since I already had a fiber optic connector hookup, I was ready to go. I just needed to set the strobe in "slave" mode.

Today's dive boat was heading to two sites: Sand Chutes and Eden Rock. Sand Chutes had some channels and some swim thrus. I was surprised about the desolation though, there was not much coral life. I didn't like this particular dive too much.

On our second dive we headed to Eden Rock or Devil's Grotto. This site is quite famous because of the dramatic lighting effects inside the numerous grottos and swim thrus and it is only in 30 feet of water (average). The site was located not far from Sunset House. In fact, you could see Sunset House from it.

Eden Rock was quite interesting from the get go. At the begining of the dive, I found this purple-tipped anemone and stopped by to take a picture. Julianne, one of Cathy Church's staff, who was with us as a "photo buddy", took this picture of me taking the picture. To this day, I don't know whether she took the picture right at moment my strobe fired or if she triggered my strobe thru the slave mode. Anyway, the picture turned out to be great!

I didn't know that Julianne had taken this picture until I showed up at the store. Julianne was very excited and told me "you have to see this picture of you". When I saw it, I had to get it. It cost me $US 30, again priceless.

And this is the picture that I was taking while this picture was taken:

This was not the only anemone around there, soon after I ran into another anemone, this time it was a green-tip one.

So far I had noticed, that using the SP-350 with the fiber optic connector was more sluggish that using TTL. Since the built-in flash had to be charged every time, the cycle time and responsiveness was slower than with the TTL connector. With the TTL connector, only a small electrical signal was needed, this obviously cut down on the camera's battery life.

My dive buddy at Eden Rock was Gordon, a geology professor traveling with his son. We were passing one of the formations when I noticed a ledge at the bottom of it. It turned out that you could crawl underneath into the other side, which turned out to be a cave. I took the lead as I noticed it first, Gordon followed after. To my amazement, I ran into a tarpon inside the cave. I was at the right place at the right time. The tarpon got later spooked by two other divers coming from the cave side, it turned out that there was another entrance.

We went thru numerous swim thrus and caves. One of them I recognized from pictures: the Devil's Grotto. It is a smaller cave than what it looks in pictures. Only one person can go in at the time. There is an opening at the top of the cave and the noon sun light comes as a beam of light, like a spotlight into the cave. I took this picture with only ambient light with high aperture and slow shutter (F/2.8 and 1/60 sec).

Eden Rock was the best dive definitely that day and one of my favorites in Grand Cayman. Specially for the opportunities for underwater photography and best of all, it is not very deep, the max depth was 40 feet. So you can stroll around for even more than 1 hour.

Visiting the Mermaid Again

That afternoon I did a shore dive from Sunset House. I buddied up with Randy whom I was diving with on the same boat dives during these couple of days. This time I put my macro lessons to practice, as well as some of the lighting techniques that I learned in the past.

For example, with this yellow tube sponge, I used "rim lighting", meaning that I point the strobe right above the tube along its vertical axis. This illuminates the rim of the tubes and gives it a different and dramatic effect. This picture was taken at F/5.6 and 1/250 sec.

For this next picture, I was practicing "back lighting", having the strobe point in the opposite direction of the camera, with the aim to capture some "see thru" or transparent aspects of a formation or creature. I was taking a picture of this soft coral and making the strobe light shine thru it. While I was setting up my strobe, I noticed a small well camouflaged fish among the branches of the soft coral. It was juvenile scrawled filefish. This picture was taken with macro settings of F/8.0 and 1/500 sec. The fish was really difficult to shoot because it was moving around and the camera was going crazy with the autofocus.

In retrospect, I could have used manual focus; however, at that time I didn't know I had that capability with this camera. I could have just set the focus to say 10 inches and move the camera back and forth.

After noticing the sluggishness of the camera using the fiber optic connector, I decided to go for the TTL connector. Right after the shore dive, I went to Cathy's shop and told them to install the TTL bulkhead for my PT-030 housing. They did it right away, but I had to leave it overnight. The next day I picked it up right before the boat dive.

Northwest Point and La Mesa

This was my last boat dive at Sunset House. Today we were going to North West Point and La Mesa. At North West Point, I didn't manage to see anything interesting. I had buddied up with Randy and we went our own separate way. The other group had seen all the goodies including a moray eel and a turtle.

La Mesa was a more interesting dive. It was similar to Royal Palms Ledge. It was a circular ledge with a lot of nooks and cranies. On this dive I was able to practice both macro and wide angle. And since I now had a TTL connector, my macro pictures won't be overexposed. I took a number of macro pictures of coral formations. These were taken with inches away from the camera.

Smooth Coral	Coral Closeup
Web-like Coral	Arrow Crab inside Vase Coral

I also took a picture of this juvenile rock beauty. Unlike adult rock beauties, this guy swam around, but around his home. Adult rock beauties are particularly hard to shoot because they swim fast and they don't stay in one place.

Another opportunity for macro was taking the picture of this diamond blenny. This picture was taken at F/5.6 and 1/125 sec. Blennies tend to stay on the ground for a bit, but then they "jump" to another place. The challenge is getting them in focus, because they are so tiny.

At the end of the dive, we were surrounded by big schools of fish, grunts and Caribbean chubs. This was a chance to take some wide angle pictures.

School of Grunts

School of Chubs

The past 3 days were a roller coaster experience with my new camera. I went from being excited of trying this great camera, the Olympus SP-350, buy it, flood my existing strobe, rent a strobe, feel disppointed with the fiber optic connector, and finally get the TTL connector. Every day something was going on with my camera setup. It was though a great learning experience to go with the different camera setup conditions.

Here is a review of the Nekton Rorqual on the Cayman Islands itinerary. Since the Nekton Rorqual is very similar to its sister ship, the Nekton Pilot, this review is a comparison to the Nekton Pilot, since I've written about the Nekton Pilot before (see my Nekton Pilot: Belize Central Review).

The Ship

The Nekton Rorqual was build a couple of years after the Nekton Pilot. It includes one major design difference which is the continuous strut on each side connecting the superstructure to the submerged pontoons that provide buoyancy. For that reason the Nekton Rorqual looks more boxy than the Nekton Pilot; however, this design improvement provides slightly higher speed and range than the Nekton Pilot.

The layout of the superstructure of the Nekton Rorqual is almost identical to that of the Nekton Pilot. The living space layout is almost the same. The Nekton Rorqual has three decks as well: A lower deck for mostly guests and crew quarters, a mid-deck for guest quarters, the galley and dining room, and the top deck or Sun Deck, which houses the bridge, a shaded meeting area and the jacuzzi and lounge area. The Rorqual has 16 guest rooms and is able to house up to 32 guests. It has all the amenities seen on the Nekton Pilot, although, I noticed that the Pilot has more audio visual equipment. On the port corner, the Nekton Pilot has a TV and VCR set, whereas the Rorqual doesn't.

The Diving Facilities

The diving deck, as in the Nekton Pilot, is movable, that is it can go up and down depending on the conditions of the sea or whether the deck is open or not. There three ways to make an entry into the water: two on the side, which require a 3 ft jump, and one through the stairs in the middle. The way back to boat is through the stairs. Underneath the stairs, there is a hang bar at 15 ft with an emergency air tank with regulator. This is where you can comfortably do your safety stop. At night, the hang bar is illuminated with with glow sticks and a beacon.

The nitrox measurement is done right before a dive. A crew member would measure it and you would have to sign your name on the Nitrox sheet.

In the middle of the dive deck there is a mask cleaning station with a bucket just for masks and a sprayer with cleaning solution (I believe it's vinegar). On the two sides beside the middle stairs, there are two containers with fresh water for camera equipment. This where you would leave your camera right before the dive. A crew member would hand you your camera once you are in the water.

The dive deck has two rows of "diving cubby holes." This is a space assigned to you for the duration of the cruise. That is, you don't have to change tanks, as the tanks are filled directly using a network of hoses that can serve all tanks. Below you can see a picture of the "cubby hole" I was assigned, right next to the starboard exit platform, so I was able to get into the water rather quickly. Below the bench, where you lay your tank and BCD, you can put your fins, masks, snorkel and other wet belongings.

Right before stepping into the dive deck there is a "check-in board" where you have to sign the time you start your dive. On the way back you have to sign out. A crew member would keep track of your times and make sure you don't exceed your bottom time. Although this is not policed very heavily, as most divers that come here have dive computers.

Right next to the check-in board there are two hot water shower heads and a rinse bucket (with Clorox) for wet suits and booties. Above the dive deck (on the mid deck) there are two camera tables, an air hose for cameras and rinse bucket for leak testing. Right next to one of the camera tables, there is a dryer. The exhaust of the dryer warms the towels stacked underneath the camera table.

The Food and the Crew

As in any dive trip, divers need their source of energy. The food on the Nekton Rorqual is served buffet style. On lunch and dinner, there's always rolls, a salad, a side dish or soup, and a main course. The picture below is of our last dinner, in which Capt. Nelson is serving enthusiastically each and everyone of us (bbq ribs). One thing that is very noticeable, is how much Capt. Nelson is involved with the operation. Since he is an diving instructor himself, he gives the briefings and even dives with you. And he doesn't skip galley duty either ;). It is really a pleasure to have him as a captain. You feel that he would go the extra mile for you.

Brett (making a face, above) is an excellent cook and he would come to you to serve you snacks during surface intervals (like the eggrolls below). 10:30am and 3:00pm are the times when snacks are served. Kat is another tireless member of the crew (above, on galley duty). She gives the Stingray City briefing and is also the resident photographer. She is also the MC for the picture competition and she is the one that compiles the CD that you can purchase at the end of the cruise. One thing that is noticeable as well (compared to the Nekton Pilot) is the quality of two of the briefings: the one of the MV Tibbets Destroyer and the one of Stingray City. Both of them were well-prepared and informative Powerpoint briefing presentations.

At dinner, there is always dessert at the end, like chocolate cake with vainilla ice cream and whip cream (below).

Cayman Islands Itinerary

The Cayman Island Itinerary is an itinerary that has lots of variety. It has a wreck (MV Keith Tibbets Destroyer), "petting zoo" (Stingray City), big animal encounters (Benji the Grouper and Spotted Eagle Rays) and wall diving with the best visibility on Bloody Bay Wall.

On this itinerary my favorite dive sites were Lea Lea's Lookout, Jackson's Reef and Wall, MV Keith Tibbets Destroyer, McCurley's Wall, Stingray City and Tarpoon Alley. Below is a table of the sites we visited. Click on the site names for detailed accounts and pictures and the littele map for the diagram that was presented on the corresponding briefing.

Day	Dive Site	Location	Highlights	Map
1	Jax Dax	Grand Cayman	Porpcupine fish, Spootted Butterflyfish, Snapper, Blue Tang, Rock Beauty
1	White Stroke Canyon	Grand Cayman	Trumpetfish, First Encounter with Big Stingrays, Lobster
2	Lea Lea's Lookout	Little Cayman	Benji the Grouper. Great Visibility
2	Randy's Gazebo	Little Cayman	Turtles, Groupers galore!, the Gazebo, Banded Butterflyfish, Dog Snappers, Green Tipped Anemone, Foureyed Butterflyfish, Lobster, Nurse Shark
3	Marilyn's Cut	Little Cayman	Groupers, Swim-thrus, Big Tube Sponges, Sea Fans, Barrel Sponges, Turtles, Green Moray
3	Magic Roundabout	Little Cayman	Two Reef Sharks!, Black Grouper, Turtle, Swim-thrus
3	Jackson's Reef and Wall	Little Cayman	More Groupers, Laberythn like Formations, Big Green Sea Turtle
4	Joy's Joy	Little Cayman	Black Grouper, Brain Coral, Barracuda, French Angel, Queen Trigger, Nassau Grouper
4	Randy's Gazebo	Little Cayman	Playing with Groupers, Turtle, Chasing Nurse Shark, Unicorn Trigger, Whitespotted Filefish, Lobster, Black Grouper
5	MV Keith Tibbets Destroyer	Cayman Brac	The Destroyer Wreck, Big Guns, Barracuda, Grouper, Garden Eels, Spotted Eagle Ray!, Banded Butterflyfish
5	Land Excursion	Cayman Brac	Bat Caves, the Bluff, Columbus Botanical Garden, Maritime Museum
5	Radar Beach	Cayman Brac	Dolphin and Stingray Sculpture, Channel Crab, Sea Star, Slip Lobster
6	McCurley's Wall	Grand Cayman	The Pinnacle, Black Coral, Whitespotted Filefish, Barracuda, Juvenile Yellow Stingray
6	Stingray City	Grand Cayman	Stingrays!
6	Tarpoon Alley	Grand Cayman	Tarpoon, Long Encounter with Spotted Eagle Ray
6	Jax Dax	Grand Cayman	Smooth Trunkfish, Ocellate Swimming Crab

Days before today we were told about the excursion on Cayman Brac and the possible options on shore. You had option to rent a car, do a hike on the many nature trails or go on an excursion. A big group (from Tennessee) decided to go on their own and rent a van. I decided to join an excursion. Joe and Laura decided to come along as well. The excursion was a guided tour to the beach, the bluff, the "lighthouse", a botanical park, two caves and the maritime museum. The excursion cost was $US 100.

At noon we were to shuttled to shore using the 2 skiffs on board. These small boats were capable of carrying at least 8 people at the time. The transfer was pretty smooth. Although getting on the skiff was a little of challenge because of the waves. The skiff took us to the local port where we were picked up by an air conditioned van. It was really hot on shore and gals from the excursion fortunately provided us with bottles of water.

We first stopped for a bite to eat. They took us to a restaurant right on the beach (I could not remember the name). The prices as in anywhere in the Caymans were relatively expensive. Sandwiches were upwards of $US 7.

Our first point interest in the excursion was a bat cave. Caves in Cayman Brac were formed by coral formations that were once submerged in the ocean millions of year ago. When the ocean receded, it left a series of limestone formations which with the erosion of wind and water became caves. These became the home of bats. Following are pictures of these caves. You could also see the jungle forming on top and around it.

Afterwards we headed to a beach in front of the famous "Brac Bluff." This beach was littered with white pieces of dead coral. Since we could not touch anything from the bottom while we were diving, I took this opportunity to pick some souvenirs from the shore.

Minutes later we were atop the same bluff that we had seen from the beach bleow. The bluff was made of grey limestone with lots of holes. The stone looked like a a sand castle that had been rained on. This was the home of many species of marine birds like the native brown booby.

At this place there was also the "lighthouse" which was essentially a light a top a metal tower. We were "warned" not to expect too much from this particular lighthouse. I guess coming from the US you expect a full building with a spiral staircase, like the ones in New England.

From here we drove to the West side of the island to a place called "Peter's Overlook". It was a point atop the bluff overlooking downtown Cayman Brac. It also had a series of caverns that are used as a refuge when hurricanes hit the island. The opening of the cave was somewhat narrow and you had to crawl to get inside. It was really hot inside the cave.

Our next stop was the Christopher Columbus Botanical park. It was nice little park with trails, several gazebos and fountains. One thing that caught my attention was the ability of trees to grow on the limestone rock.

The base of this tree (limestone rock) seems so hostile for trees to grow. When seeing the jagged edges of the rock one can't believe that roots can get hold here, but mother nature finds its ways.

The excursion concluded at the Maritime Museum. It was a little house with 4 rooms depicting artifacts from the colonial era like a small boat, utensils, turtle shells, some jewelry. It showed how life was when the island was first populated. Overall the excursion was ok, I would not do it again, but since it was my first time in Cayman Brac I had to explore.

Twilight Dive: Radar Beach

At some time past 5:00pm we returned to the Nekton Rorqual where we would have dinner before our night dive. Captain Nelson made sure that took advange of all the time available to dive. Even though we went on a land excursion today, I managed to do three dives.

When we came aboard, the crew was rehearsing some safety drills, so we would hear announcements on the public announcer. Dinner was served at 6:00pm and after dinner we had a lecture on tunicates by Captain Nelson himself, who also did the night dive briefing. One interesting note about Captain Nelson, was that he is a dive instructor himself. So you would see him giving (very enthusiastic) briefings and even dive with you while another crew member is piloting the boat.

I don't remember exactly but it was today or yesterday, when US airports elevated its security condition to "orange" because somebody tried to board a plane with liquid explosives in Britain. So this is when the ban on liquids started. Most people on the cruise were flying in two days (Saturday).

Captain Nelson gave us the briefing on "Radar Beach", named -appropriately- after the radar tower that stands before it. He told us about several efforts to add underwater sculptures in Brac. There was a whole underwater city planned called "Atlantis"; however, we did not go there (it's near Radar Beach) because it was still being constructed. Captain Nelson told us about this bronze sculpture of dolphins and stingrays on Radar Beach though.

Radar Beach had an underwater telecommunications cable running along the beach, so that was a good reference for navigation. At the begining of the dive, I ran into a spotted drum fish. I don't know about spotted drums in Cayman, but they are really hard to photograph here. It would move around different places, unlike in Belize and Cozumel where they would go left-to-right, right-to-left, but staying in the same place. In the end, I only got a picture of its tail. So after more than 10 minutes, I decided to go where the rest of the folks in the group were going.

When we started the dive it wasn't quite dark yet, so this was a twilight dive. I did manage to find other creatures to photograph. So far, in the Caymans I had had not enjoyed the night dives too much. However, this one was becoming one of the more interesting ones. This was a good shot of a channel crab and an on-looking soldier fish.

This is a picture of a species of sea star that I had not seen before. The red piece of coral underneath makes it look even better.

One of the good things about night dives is that you can notice your fellow divers from afar by noticing their lights. Sometimes you would see lots of commotion and flashlights pointing to the bottom. That is when you know that somebody has spotted something interesting. This is what they were pointing to, a slip lobster.

When Captain Nelson gave us the lecture about tunicates after dinner, he told us to look under the propeller housing of the boat during our safety stop. He said we would find tunicates in there. Not only did I see a variety of tunicates there, but I also saw a tiny juvenile angelfish. It's just a little bit left of the center, with brown color right on top of the white spot in the middle. You can even see the eye of the diminute fish.

This was our last dive in Cayman Brac, and from the pictures that I managed to take, I would say that this was one the best night dives that I had in the Caymans. Next, the plan was to do the crossing back to Grand Cayman overnight and dive the East Side and Stingray City tommorrow which would be our last day on the cruise.

This trip to Cayman Islands was a trip that was put together rather hastily; however, it turn out to be pretty good. On this trip, I was going on the liveaboard Nekton Rorqual (nektoncruises.com) and staying several days at Sunset House for photography lessons with Cathy Church. I had been on a Nekton cruise before with the Pilot, and I knew what to expect (see also my posting on the Nekton Pilot and Belize). I also had attended a seminar with Cathy Church at Beneath the Sea and I knew that she also was an excellent underwater photography instructor (see my posting on her Mastering Strobe Techniques seminar). So in my mind I had this trip kind of planned, but I didn't know when it was going to happen. But I'm glad that the opportunity came up :).

The flight to Georgetown, Grand Cayman was pretty convenient. I took a USAir flight that departed Boston at 8:00am and arrived Georgetown at 1:00pm with a layover in Charlotte, NC. Here's a picture of Georgetown as the plane approached.

I really like flights that take you to the Caribbean by noon or early afternoon. That way you can dive the same day you arrive!

First Shore Dive, off Sunset House
I arrived at Sunset House at about 2:00pm. The ride from airport was pretty quick, no more than 15 mins and cost about $15. The first thing I did after checking in and drop my stuff in my room was to check in with the dive shop (Sunset Divers) and Cathy Church's Photo Centre. I had scheduled 5 days at Sunset House, one night before the Nekton cruise and 4 nights afterwards. My plan was to take the first day as "aclimatization", a first lesson with Cathy Church's staff and then another lesson with Cathy, after the Nekton cruise.

My first task that afternoon though was to look for a buddy for a shore dive. I have learned over the years, to plan always for a "low impact" dive the first time in a trip. That way you have time to check your gear, re-acquaint yourself with your equipment and in my personal case to practice equalizing my ears after a period of non-diving. Soon enough, I ran into Justin who had to travel with a non-diving friend in the last minute.

Dealing with Sunset Divers was quite painless, we got our tanks and weights and off we went. The setup at Sunset House is quite convenient for divers. There are gear lockers, although the choice of having wooden lockers seemed to be a bad idea for me. I remember the lockers at
Scuba Club Cozumel to be made of cement. Much better choice to deal with the wetness, and consequent smell. There were also large camera-only rinse tanks, which was to be expected given Cathy Church's op. There was also a shower and gear rinse tank by the shore.

It was almost 5:00pm when we got ready to get into the water. The shore dive off Sunset House is quite famous. People from other places come here to visit the famous Mermaid or Amphitrite , as she is called. However, on this day we did not find her. We swam all the way to the last buoy which marks the site of small wreck (didn't get the name, it was a 50ft+ boat). The swim
was quite long, must have been over 100 yds. Finally, when we reached the buoy, we could see the wreck from above. It was siting at about 65 ft. of water. The marine life around it was not that abundant. Although, occassionally you ran into the likes of a gray angelfish:

I later learned that this gray angel fish is a local resident and the "super model" of a lot of Cathy Church's pictures. This angel fish gets fed every time there is a person taking a photo course. The guy was unafraid of human presence and I was quite lucky to get this shot with strobe pointing downwards to his head. The first thing you notice on this picture is the eye of the fish. I think somebody has told me in one photo class that people always focus on the eyes of creatures.

Except for this gray angel, the dive was becoming somewhat uneventful. There was not much coral on the wreck, therefore I suspect that it was relatively recent sunking. I went around wreck several times, inspecting every nook and crany. On one corner of the wreck, there was a gaping hole and saw this fish sitting in the darkness. I believe it was a tiger grouper being cleaned by damselfish. The odd thing about this guy, was that his head was colorful while the rest of his body was bleached out. So I'm still not quite sure whether this is a tiger grouper, because you cannot distinguish the stripes. The other fish with similar characteristics is the graysby; however, this guy was quite big, over 2 ft long.

On the swim back to shore, we wanted to stop by the Mermaid; however, we could not find it underwater. Our navigation went out of whack, because we had gone north, and we should've headed east. Anyway, we surfaced and turned out that we were going in the wrong direction. We had another long swim back to shore.

That night, Justin and I went for a night dive. Again we went for the wreck which in retrospect was a mistake. The swim from shore to there was exhausting and we ended up seeing very little. There was a french angelfish and another tiger grouper among the night residents of the wreck. The bottom geography was featureless, so the navigation again was challenging. This time we did not try to swim ashore underwater. We surfaced and swam back. During this dive I also noticed, that my BC has not holding my air, for some reason the air was leaking. It turned out that the ring that holds the inflator hose to the BC was loose. I managed to screw it tight, while underwater at night. I felt proud of myself :).

Here is a review of the Nekton Pilot as a scuba diving liveaboard. This was my first liveaboard and in general terms I was pleased with the Nekton Pilot. It was really a nice scuba diving platform, very convenient for someboday whose main interest is diving.

The Boat
The Nekton Pilot has a "SWATH" (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) design, it is basically a platform sitting on top of two submerged pontoons. This design makes it very stable and smooth when cruising. Sometimes we did not even feel the boat moving. This design came from the Navy, so if you've seen the the "stealth boat" this boat is similar (sans the stealth capabilities), in my opinion. The pontoons can be filled with ballast (ocean water) to lower the boat for greater stability in rough water. The ballast can be pumped out to make the boat higher when docking. Since the center of gravity can be made lower, you get the impression that you are on a bigger ship (8 times bigger according to Nekton).

The boat has three decks: The Sun Deck, the First Deck and the Second Deck. The Sun Deck is the topmost deck and has two areas, the Bridge and a recreational area. The recreational area has an open area and covered area. The covered area is a lounge with 2 round tables (for 8+ people) and a whiteboard. This is where the morning dive briefings happen. Next to this area there is a closet for rental equipment, a shelf for dry belongings and a rack with "no-fly" hangers (tied to the rack) for hanging your wetsuits. Here are pictures of the Sun Deck and the Bridge:

The Bridge sits at front-most part of the boat. Actually you get an unobstructed view of the ocean on this bridge, which you don't in most other ships. The bridge is equipped with modern communication equipment and also sonar which is seen on the left side of the picture. I guess sonar would very useful when navigating around shallow reefs. Captain Ephey will let you get into the bridge and even "drive" the boat on a quiet night. I heard that people have done this, but I didn't myself.

Here's a picture of the ship schematics that was hanging on the lounge. The guy in the corner is either the designer of the boat or was involved somehow in the construction or design of the Pilot.

The First Deck houses the main dining area, the A/V lounge, the galley and sleeping cabins. The main dining area has an "L-shape" and can sit more than 30 people. In each corner there is audio-visual equipment including monitors or projection screens, VCR, DVD and PCs with USB connections. There is a library of PADI instruction video-tapes and also on local information. One afternoon I remember watching a tape of the history of Belize and some of the "ground" attractions.

The Audio/Visual lounge is right next to the dining area and can be visible from the dining area. It has large projection TV, a PC with USB, universal memory card adapter (CompactFlash, SD, Memory Stick, etc). and DVD burner. This where you can upload your digital pictures (using the memory card adapter. At the end of the trip there is a picture competition. Anybody that has taken pictures on the trip can participate. The results are decided by popular vote on Friday night, the last day of the cruise.

Here's also where we have our nightly lectures. Every night after dinner, usually at around 6:45pm, a member of the crew would give a lecture. The topics varies from fish id, turtle species, mostly marine biology related subjects. Here's a picture of Ryan giving a lecture on turtle species:

The lecture is a good time to relax after dinner and rest a bit before the night dives. Sometimes the night dive briefing will happen right after the lecture in this lounge.
In the A/V lounge there is a library of Fish ID/marine biology books, mostly on local species. There is also a shelf of paperbacks for the bookworms.

The Second Deck houses the rest of the cabins, crew quarters and other utility rooms. My room was on this deck, which in my opinion is better, if you prefer a quieter area. The front rooms on the second deck are preferable in my opinion.

The Rooms
The rooms are small. Even though, I was lucky to be assigned the whole room to myself (usually they eleep two people) I found it somewhat tight. Make sure that your luggage is foldable, otherwise the space would be even tighter. The room has either two twin bed or a double bed, a sink (with a kitchen faucet), bathroom, A/C, a PA system (you hear all the announcements of happenings on the boat like dive briefings, lectures, etc.), and a small shelf/closet. The bed was quite comfortable and there were reading lights.

The bathroom space was tight but it served it's purpose. You have a shower head and a marine toilet that is close to the size of a regular toilet, although it's partially driven with air. You get fresh clean towels every day at around noon when they clean the room. You also get an ample supply of soap and toilet paper.

The Food
All meals on the Pilot are served buffet style, although you are waited on for drinks, second helpings and dessert. For breakfast you get usually eggs, sausage, an assortment of breads, cereal and fruits. Lunch usually includes a soup (made with the previous day leftovers ;)), salad and a main dish like tacos, a sandwich or burgers. Dinner is more elaborate with salad, a main course like roast beef, bbq pork or carved turkey. It also includes "homemade" dessert like key-lime pie, cheesecake, pumpkin-walnut pie. If you are lucky, there could be dessert leftover after the night dive. For more details on actual the menu checkout:

http://www.nektoncruises.com/Liveaboards/Dining.aspx

Here's a picture of one of the buffets:

I believe this one was bbq pork with mashed potatoes. For the most part, the food was consistently good to excellent. Considering that the boat is self sufficient for an entire week (it is not supplied every day), they do a good job at keeping the food and vegetables fresh. Some of the desserts were really out of this world. The cooking was done by Leslie and Cristina, two gals from Honduras.

The Snacks
Snacks are available on every surface interval :). In between morning dives, sometimes a line forms for the morning cookies punctually at 10:30am. The cookies vary every day, one day could be peanut butter, another chocolate with nuts. In between afternoon dives, you get other snacks like this conch ceviche.

This is the only afternoon snack that I remember having, maybe because I was not aware of it. I only found out about the afternoon snacks after chatting with Cristina. That particular day she was cooking the ceviche, which is one of my favorite dishes.

The picture is of two of the crew, Cristina and Helena cooking ceviche. Helena is one of the instructors, and lived in Costa Rica for a while. Sometimes they have "galley duty", that is one of the dive crew would help out in kitchen either helping cooking, serving or doing the dishes. Cristina, orinally from Honduras, was the second cook or cook helper and also in charge of the room cleaning every day.

The Diving Facilities
The Nekton Pilot is indeed a diving machine. It was originally designed for diving in mind, which you can't say about other boats. It has a movable dive deck that can go up or down depending on the conditions and needs of the day. The tanks are aligned along the whole back of the deck (except for the middle staircase) and one half of the front side. Tanks are refilled in place with hoses. At the beginning of the trip you are assigned a place and that's where you leave your equipment. I could leave my BCD attached to my tank for the entire trip, with no need to switch tanks or assemble or reassemble things. There was also a cubby hole underneath for your mask, fins and snorkel.

There were three entry points (to the water) on the dive deck, one on starboard (left side), one on port (right side) and one in the middle. For the ones on the sides you had to jump about 3ft into the water. I preferred to use stairs to get into the water because of my camera, most photographers did. You can literally walk into the water with the middle stairs.

The dive deck has a "hanging bar" that is lowered on every dive. This bar is a convenience to do your safety stop. It sits at 15ft deep. Next to the bar there is always a tank with a regulator, in case you run out of air during your safety stop, which never happened to me.

There is always a rope running from the mooring line and another one from the dive deck to one of the small boats. On every dive, one of the small boats is put on the water and tied with a line. In case, you need to be "rescued", that is you popped up too far from the boat, they will come get you. The bubble watcher observing on the sun deck will ask you with signals whether you are ok. This happened to me one time, we popped up about 500 yards from the boat and the bubblewatcher signalled me whether I was ok, I was ok, but had a long swim ahead. This is when I got the chance to take a picture of the Pilot from the water.

For photographers, there are several convenient features on deck. On the First Deck there is a padded camera table with a rinse bucket (to test your housing) and air hose to spray the water out off your equipment once the dive is over.

Down on the dive deck itself there is another two rinse buckets for camera equipment next to middle entry stairs. Also on the dive deck there are two hot showers and an igloo with warm towels. There are other designated rinse buckets to rinse masks and wetsuits. Some of those buckets are really plastic trash cans (50 gall.) with labels.

Nitrox is available on the Pilot. Although it's advertised to be 28%, I did managed to get up 34%. Nitrox is generated by their onboard machine, therefore it varies, some days I would get 32% or 33%. I guess I was lucky because I was the only one on board using nitrox. Otherwise my "share" of oxygen would have been lower.

A Typical Day on board the Nekton Pilot
Here's what a typical day on the Pilot looks like:

Time	Activity
6:30am	Cold Breakfast
7:00am	Hot Breaktfast
8:00am	Morning Dive Briefing
8:15am	First Morning Dive
10:30am	Cookies
10:45am	Second Morning Dive
12:00n	Lunch
1:00pm	Afternoon Dive Briefing
1:15pm	First Afternoon Dive
3:00pm	Snack and/or Movie
4:30pm	Second Afternoon Dive
6:00pm	Dinner
7:00pm	Lecture
8:00pm	Night Dive Briefing
8:15pm	Night Dive
9:30pm	Snack or Movie