Eddy's Scuba Blog

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

The crossing from Cayman Brac to Grand Cayman last night was pretty smooth. The Nekton ships have a pretty smooth ride. You don't even feel that you are even moving. We woke up today on the Northeast side of Grand Cayman. The plan was to do five dives around Grand Cayman: two at McCurley's Wall, an afternoon at Cayman's signature Stingray City, another afternoon dive at Tarpoon Alley and finally back for a night dive to Jax Dax, where did our very first dive on this cruise.

McCurley's Wall
The briefing today was given by Captain Nelson, who said this was one of his favorite dive sites. The main attraction of this site is a pinnacle right next to a wall that creates a little "canyon" that is 90 ft. deep. The canyon is filled with lots of black coral and sponges.

Indeed the site was spectacular. As we approached the pinnacle we went thru the canyon first. The crossing took a couple of minutes, but I stopped at the bottom to take some pictures. The bottom was at 90 ft. Once I crossed it, I stayed at around 70 ft and took some pictures of the surroundings.

The health of the coral was pretty good considering that Hurricane Ivan hit Grand Cayman in 2004. Perhaps the Northeast side suffer as much as the West side. On the West side you could not see black corals like this one:

At McCurley's we did two dives. On the first dive we visited the Pinnacle and on the second we stayed on the shallow area. We could not do the pinnacle again because it was too deep (90 ft.)
On the shallow area we found some interesting creatures. Like this whitespotted filefish, which I think is one of the ugliest fish.

When I was about return to the boat I noticed this barracuda hanging out near the surface at 40 ft. I put the skills I learned in one of the photo course to practice: take the picture from below the fish. I aimed the strobe at his head, so I got a good shot at the eye.

Once I was done taking pictures of the barracuda, I noticed something moving near the sandy area below the boat, near some coral heads. I checked my air and I had plenty of air left (more than 1300 psi) so I decided to investigate. When I reached the bottom at 52 ft, I realized that it was a juvenile yellow stingray. I took a couple of pictures of it. To make sure people got the idea of how tiny the stingray was when they see the picture, I put my hand next it in the picture. Here's that picture. This was truly something very unique.

In the effort to get a good picture of the yellow stingray my BS got tangled up with a soft coral. When I tried untangled myself I couldn't. So I unstrapped my left arm (I was tangled on that side) and voila, I was then able to free myself without breaking the coral.

The Signature Dive Site of Grand Cayman: Stingray City
After the morning dive at McCurley's Wall we sailed Northwesterly towards Stingray City, the Signature Dive of Grand Cayman, also a world famous snorkeling and tourist attraction. Any magazine, or brochure that talks about Grand Cayman has a picture of Stingray City. At first, it sounded too "touristy" for me; however, people that have done it before started saying to me "you have to do it, it's an experience."

Stingray City is a not a man-made attraction, it is a sandbar with 15 ft of water located on channel that cuts through the barrier reef that protects the North Sound, located in the Northwest side of Grand Cayman. When I departed Grand Cayman, I had the chance to take an aerial view of Stingray City. You could (barely) see about eight boats on a same point on the sandbar (in the middle of the picture, right under the airplane wing).

Stingrays at Stingray City are wild animals, not grown in captivity. The story goes that fishermen on their way back to port would stop at this sandbar to take advantage of the calm shallow waters to clean their catch and fillet them. Naturally they would throw the fish guts overboard. Stingrays who are fond of sandy shallow waters to eat mollusks and crustaceans found out about this practice and became very used to the easy food. Over time they even got accostumed to being fed. Many years later some local divers realized that not only were there lots of stingrays in that area, but that you could feed them by hand. In 1987, Skin Diver Magazine wrote about this place, and the rest is history.

We arrived at Stingray City at about 1:30pm. After lunch, Kat, one of the dive instructors, gave us a Powerpoint presentation right in the saloon. The briefing was quite interesting and useful. We were given instructions on how to "behave" around the stingrays. Here are some of the instructions:

• You should wear extra weight, usually 4 lbs, at least. The water is only 15 ft deep. All divers should gather around in one place in a circle and not move around. Kneel on the sand and stay in one place. Do not chase the singrays, they will come to you.
• You will be given a container with chopped squid. Stingrays are driven by their sense of smell and they suck their food like a vacuum cleaner. "Make the stingray work for their food", don't just give the food, tease them a bit and finally give it to them.
• Put the squid between your fingers and offer it exposing the back of your hand. Use your forearm as a "shield" as well. Do not leave your fingers protruding or they will be bitten.
• You can pet the bottom and the front edges of the stingray. Stay away from the top, back and the tail.

An so we went for the dive. The boat was right on Stingray City. Since the Rorqual has a pontoon (SWATH) design, it can dump ballast to make it more buoyant, so that's why it can navigate in 15 ft of water. That was very convenient for us, because we could just jump into the water there we were. I believe we were the biggest boat on the spot.

Once we were all in the water, we went to the bottom and formed a circle. One of the divemasters, pulled the squid out of the plastic containers and started feeding the stingrays. I first sat there and watched other people get mauled by the hungry stingrays. It was quite an spectacle! I watched my dive buddy Rodney being almost attacked by a stingray. He had to use both hands to push them back.

In the addition to the singrays, there were other "attackers" as well, namely sergeant majors and yellow tail snappers. They were like piranhas, very aggresive. You have to be very careful with your fingers with these guys, as the only "injury" that I got was a bite from a yellow tail snapper. You have to shoo them away when they get too close.

The environment was not great for pictures. There was a lot of silt caused by sand being kicked up; however, the experience of getting so close with wild animals was quite a rush. After a while I got the hang out of it and started feeding them as well. I also learned how to use my for arm as a shield so that my hand is not sucked into their mouths. Their bottoms are quite soft and nice to caress. Here's a picture of a stingrays mouth. It looks like a smiley face. I used the back of my left hand when I was close to the mouth. With my right hand I was holding my camera and taking the shot with one hand.

It was very difficult to "frame" a picture in this environment. It was very chaotic and you had to take advantage of the opportunities. It was almost like being a jounalist in the middle of the "war zone." In one of those ocassions, one of the the big stingrays got close to me that I managed to get this close up of his eye with a diver in the backgound.

Overall the experience was quite fun and memorable. We laughed at how some people in the group were attacked by the stingrays. We stayed on the water over one hour, about and hour and 15 minutes. The dive ended at about 3:15pm, but you had the option to go back in the water. Some people stayed on snorkeling.

Tarpoon Alley or Eagle Ray Alley?

For our second afternoon dive we moved slightly Northwest of Stingray City to a dive site called Tarpoon Alley. The dive site was also located at the mouth of the North Sound, right on the barrier reef.

For this dive, I was waiting for my buddy Nadine to go together, but she was chatting with Denise, one of the divemasters. It turns out that Nadine was thinking of joining the Nekton Rorqual crew. She did not finish talking, so I decided to tag along with the rest of the group that was already ready to go. I was however slightly behind.

When I jumped into the water, the rest of the group had already swam towards Tarpoon Alley. The water was unusually green on the surface. The top 10 ft of water was really green and the visibility was not as good as in previous dives. Once below 15 ft the visibility got better.
I could barely see the others in the group. As usual, I paid attention in the briefing, so I used my compass to go in the right direction. Lo and behold, I found the rest of the group already taking pictures of the tarpoons. There was a rock formation that looked like an alley. It was about 15-25 ft wide and 15 ft deep. The tarpoons would just sit there.

After being done taking pictures of tarpoons, I headed North towards the wall and drop off. There I saw Dina, one of the gals in the group, chasing something. I joined in the chase of what turned out to be a magnificent spotted eagle ray.

The eagle ray was apparently swimming from East to West and again from West to East. Dina and I chased the eagle ray on at least two runs. The eagle ray was apparently making a feeding run at an average of 60 ft. I later speculated that the green water on the surface was runoff from a river which is rich with nutrients. That would explain the sighting of the eagle ray. I managed to take this sequence of eight pictures and a movie. Dina and I were the only in the group got pictures of the eagle ray. We did however pay the price with a lot sweat. I was kicking very hard to keep pace with the ray. I believe that I got as close as 4 ft to it.

I later learned that Tarpoon Alley was right next to another dive site called Eagle Ray Pass. We must have been on that site, the name was very appropriate ;). This dive was quite a pleasant surprise, my initial dissapointing reaction of green murky water turned later into a quite exhilarating adventure in the end. Not only did I had the chance to see up close and personal a spotted eagle ray, but I also saw other big creatures like a sea turtle and a big stingray swimming on the wall. That was odd because they are usually around sandy areas.

Night Dive at Jax Dax

At dinner, all I talked about was the spotted eagle ray. In the end, my dive buddy Nadine never went on the dive. So she missed this great opportunity. I remember that at the MV Tibbets Destroyer site, she was very keen on getting a picture of an eagle ray. The one that we saw at Tarpoon Alley was double the size of that one, about 4-5 ft wide. I teased her about this all througout dinner.

After dinner we did our last night dive (for this cruise) at Jax Dax, the site where we started on the West side of Grand Cayman. When I first dove that site, I wasn't very impressed. So I wasn't expecting any surprises. We did see some interesting creatures like this smooth trunkfish.

Towards the end of the dive, somebody spotted this crab. It was a species that I had never seen before. It had two eyes on the back of its shell. As many other marine species, the "fake eyes" are usually on the tail of the animal in order to fool predators. This one is called "Ocellate Swimming Crab."

That was end of an action-packed 5-dive day and the end of the Nekton Rorqual cruise. That night was our picture competition. Anybody could submit three pictures and the audience would "vote out" picture by picture until a couple of finalists are determined. I submitted the picture of the eagle ray, the one with juvenile yellow stingray and the one of the reef shark. I ended up being a finalist, but I did not win :(. I did end with the satisfaction, though, that I was able to record unique encounters that not everybody was able to have. With that thought, I headed to bed.

The ship was already anchored outside Georgetown port, which for the last night, was kind of lame. I would have preferred a more "remote" dive site for the last night dive.

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.

Today we woke up in Cayman Brac which is less than 10 miles from Little Cayman. The name "Cayman Brac" comes from the Gaelic word "Brac" that means "Bluff" for the bluff that stands at 140 ft high, which is the highest point in Cayman Brac. This bluff is home for a wide variety of birds like the Red Foot Booby and other species like bats who live in caverns that are more inland.

The plan at Cayman Brac was to do two dives on the wreck of the Capt. Keith Tibbetts Destroyer, have an island excursion in the afternoon and finish the day with a night dive at Radar Beach. Part of the reason for the afternoon excursion was because the Rorqual needed to be resupplied and every guest needed to be out of the boat.

The Only Russian Destroyer in the Western Hemisphere: M.V. Capt. Keith Tibbetts

We started the day with a briefing about the Keith Tibbets, which this time was in the saloon, rather than on the sun deck. We even got a Powerpoint presentation for it. The story of the boat was quite interesting. The Keith Tibbetts was a 330ft. Russian destroyer that was positioned in Cuba. After the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was bankrupt and did not have the money to send the ship back home. So they sent the crew of about 110 officers and sailors home and practically abandoned the ship in Cuba in 1992. It sat in a Cuban port for many years until the Cayman government bought it in order to create an artificial reef. To get a perspective about the magnitude of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destroyer cost originally 30 millions dollars to build and it was bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars. After the Cayman government bought the ship, they renamed it from "Patrol Ship #356" to "M.V. Captain Keith Tibbetts" after a Brac businessman who was very active in the community.

The Tibbets was sunk on Sep 17, 1996 on the north side of Cayman Brac near Garden Eel Wall. The sinking story is equally interesting. To mark the ocassion scuba celebrity Jean-Michael Cousteau filmed the whole event, and even went down with the ship while it was sinking with the cameras rolling. However, the sinking was not as smooth as planned. Here's a funny account of the Tibbetts sinking by Tucker, one of the Nekton Roroqual's divemasters:

At about 5:00pm, when the Tibbets sunk, it settled right-side up in 90 ft of water with its radar tower reaching 30 ft from the surface. The bridge is in about 50 ft, the bow at 60 ft and the stern (gun turret) in about 50 ft of water.

The stern (back) of the ship is where the biggest gun turret is located. This is the turret you see in many Cayman Island ads. Here's a picture of my buddy Nadine passing by the turret.

We started the dive from stern to bow, the bow was under deeper water (60-80 ft). I took several pictures of the turret. To photograph wrecks I realized that a wide angle lense is desirable. Another challenging aspect of photographing wrecks is that in order to get something within the frame (in this case the turret) one has to be several feet away (in this case, about 10 to 20 ft from the subject). For this reason, a strobe would have very little effect and pictures will have a lot of the "blue" of the ambient light.

Near the bow of the ship there was a sand berm where you could see lots of garden eels. This is where the name of the location "Garden Eel Reef" came from. This is the largest group of ganden eels I've ever seen. Usually they are so difficult to photograph because they would hide once you get too close. In this picture, you at least can see them.

We went around the wreck in a counter clockwise direction starting at the stern. While exploring the starboard (right), I noticed the opportunity to get a picture of the wreck that wasn't blue and dull. There was a yellow tube sponge growing on the wreck. So I decided to get the sponge as the foreground subject and the wreck as the background. I was lucky that a diver was on the background on the right side. I figured that this was "the" way to photograph wrecks.

On the way back to the boat, I heard that Nadine, my buddy had spotted an eagle ray behind the wreck behind the garden eels; however, I never saw it. We had another dive on the wreck, so hopefully we would see that eagle ray again.

Chasing the Eagle Ray by the Keith Tibbetts

On our second dive, my buddy Nadine was dead set in finding that eagle ray again. She even was not interested in the wreck at all. The three of us, Nadine, Rodney and I were the first to go on the second dive. This way we avoided the "crowd". Rodney and I did a quick round around the wreck while Nadine spent most of the time in the sandy area behind the wreck.

By the mid section of the ship, I had another opportunity to perfect my wreck technique of putting something in the foreground with the wreck in the background. This time there was a yellow tube sponge with cleaning gobies. I was again lucky that a diver was in the picture, but not with a good profile. The perspective of the weck, was, however a lot better. You see more depth and portholes along the side of the ship. The stobe was on the left side and above, aiming at the sponge and the fish.

All this time while, Nadine was behind me by the sandy area on the lookout for the eagle ray. In the meantime I was taking pictures of the wreck and look over her once in a while. At one point, I decided that I was done with the wreck and swam slowly to where she was. All of a sudden I noticed her speeding up, it was an eagle ray! The spotted eagle ray was swimming right above the sand. We kicked with all our hearts to keep up with it and managed to get a couple of pictures. I was about 15 ft behind Nadine. At one point the eagle ray was too fast for us and we let it go. Nadine and I looked at each other and we both made a gesture of exhaustion and happiness. We managed to get very close to an eagle ray and here are the pictures to prove it:

After the ardous kicking we decided to start heading back to the boat, but first I hanged out at a nearby coral (head at 40 ft) that had lots of fish around. I spent about 10 minutes taking pictures. I managed to take a good one of a pair of banded butterflyfish which are usually hard to photograph.

We ended the dive that morning at about 11:30am. We were quite happy (an exhausted) with the eagle ray encounter. Afterwards we got ready for the island excursion on Cayman Brac.

Today we woke up to our last day at Bloody Bay Wall in Little Cayman. We had two days of great diving and great weather so far. Luckily this continued on our last day in Little Cayman. The plan was to have one more day of diving here and then move to Cayman Barac overnight.

That morning I took advantage of the great morning and sunny day to take this top-side picture of one of Rorqual tenders with Little Cayman on the background. Notice the transparent turquoise water that lets you see thru the bottom on shallow places.

Today's dive sites were Joy's Joy and Randy's Gazebo which we dove before on our first day at Bloody Bay.

Joyous Dive at Joy's Joy
Joy's Joy had a very shallow plateau (less than 20 ft) which then plunged into the wall. We were told that there was a "coral chain" at about 100 ft, if you followed a certain sand groove. My dive buddy, Nadine, followed the instructions but found no coral chain. After noticing that we had "missed the target" after reaching 122 ft, we proceeded to back to 50 ft. where ran into creatures like this french angelfish and this barracuda:

We also noticed queen triggers and several Nassau groupers. However, I kind of felt dissapointed that we did not find the coral chain that we were told about. So we returned to the boat. While swimming along the boat, I noticed that its starboard was facing East, therefore getting a lot of sun, while on my side (port side) was under the boats shadow. There were three divers on the starboard side, aparently returning to boat. That's when I took this picture that captures the silloutte of the Rorqual's propeller with the three divers. Notice how close the boat is to the bottom.

Benji's Family and Nurse Shark at Randy's Gazebo
After lunch we moved to our second site of the day, Randy's Gazebo which we knew from before. Lo and behold, we ran into Benji's family, a pair of groupers that followed us and even played with us.

Here's a movie that I took of Nadine, my dive buddy, petting and playing with a Nassau grouper. The groupers were so friendly that would not run away.

On the second dive at Randy's Gazebo, we explored the West side of the wall and run into a creature that I haven't seen before. It was a "whitespotted filefish":

It had an interesting orange color with white spots all around it. While I was taking a picture of this guy, I suddenly noticed some commotion with some other divers near me. So I looked up and I noticed a 4 ft. creature swimming along the wall and number of people behind it. Fortunately, they were swimming perpendicular to me so I had the chance to "intercept" them and get a close-up. It was 4 ft nurse shark and here's a video to prove it:

The guy after the nurse shark was Roy with a video camera. Roy was one of the most colorful guys on the boat. He was the one that always joked during the dive briefings.

After this dive we had the chance to relax and watch the beautiful Caymanian Sunset.
We had one more dive left here at Randy's Gazebo. It was also our last dive at Bloody Bay Wall.

The night dives at Cayman Islands had been disappointing to me so far, and this one was as well. Compared to Cozumel or Belize, I never saw any night creatures like an octopus. We did, however, see lobsters and groupers.