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.

The day after the Nekton cruise I had another photo class at Cathy Church's Centre. This time it was with Cathy herself. I had arranged that before coming to the Caymans.

Since I didn't know anything about macro photography, I decided this to be the subject that I would like to cover. First we had a classroom session to review the theory, then a dive to practice the skills and finally a photo critique.

The Classroom Session

During the classroom session we reviewed some of the theory behind macro photography. The settings for macro photography is very similar to a studio situation where you have a fixed distance between the camera and the subject and fixed strobe position (very close to the lens). Therefore, unlike wide-angle photography, the variables are fewer.

I went over the table that I had reviewed with Eddy (one of Cathy's staff) and we reviewed it with macro photography in mind. In this table, the areas with light blue background are the ideal settings for macro photography.

Aperture (F stops)	Shutter Speed (secs)	Film Speed (ISO)
2.8 (+ more light)	1/15 (+ more light)	1600 (+ more sensitivity)
4	1/30 (blur)	800 (noise and grain)
5.6	1/60	400
8	1/125	200
11 (SLR)	1/500	100 (preferred)
22	1/800 (max sync)	50
(- less light)	1/1000(- less light)	25(- less sensitivity)
Master Control: Strobe Ambient Depth of Field	Controls: Movement Ambient Light	Controls: Overall Sensitivity

For macro photography, depth of field is an important factor. Since the camera lens will be inches from the subject, we want to maximize depth of field, so that the (small) subject is completely in focus. Therefore the smallest Aperture is ideal. An F/5.6 or smaller is required. Most point-and-shoot cameras don't even have F/11 and only SLR lenses can reach F/22.

Since all the light that we care in a macro picture comes from the strobe, the Shutter Speed needs to be specifically set to only capture the strobe light and no ambient light whatsoever. In macro photography, there is no need for metering the environment. A very fast shutter speed will give the best results, usually around 1/500 of a sec. A factor called "strobe sync-time" comes into play. Strobe sync-time is slowest time difference between the opening of the shutter and the strobe firing. For example, if a camera/strobe setup has a sync-time of 1/500 sec, the strobe will fire at worst 1/500 secs after the shutter. That means that with this setup you cannot use a shutter speed faster than 1/500 sec, since you might miss the strobe light altogether. Cathy explained to me, how a strobe gives power over time. This graph illustrates how a strobe gives light:

Most of the power in a strobe is given off after 1/1000 of a sec. The difference in light power (from the strobe) among 1/500, 1/250 and 1/125 secs (after the shutter) are really minimal. However, the slower the shutter speed the more ambient light (the ugly blueish light) we will get. So the shutter speed that we pick needs to capture most of the strobe's light, not get ambient light and account for the sync time. According to the graph the shutter speed of around 1/500 is that ideal number.

In terms of Film Speed we want to minimize noise and grain since we want to probably "blow up" macro pictures. Also, since in macro photography we are setting up for a controlled environment, ie. fixed distance from the subject and position/power of the strobe, there is no point in using higher film speed. A film speed of ISO 100 or slower works best.

After going thru the lighting theory. We took the camera, an Olympus SP-350 and made a couple of "test" pictures on land. This was to become familiar with the controls and how the camera feels. The SP-350 has a "super macro" mode that allows you get really close to the subject. I took a couple of test pictures of a written page being about 1 inch away from it. Almost touching the subject! Since being close to the subject and remaining close to it for some time is critical to macro photography, Cathy emphasized good buoyancy control, which we would practice in our practice dive. Since it is almost impossible to remain suspended in the same position in the water column above the subject, Cathy told me about the "underwater photographer's finger" technique (which I alredy knew). It consist of finding a dead spot in the coral and use one finger to remain fixed above the subject.

Guided Dive with Cathy

About 30 minutes after the classroom session, we met by the water at Sunset House's dive dock. Getting into the water was a bit challenging, since we didn't want to jump with the equipment. We used the stairs instead. Cathy was wearing a writing pad (looked like a edge-a-sketch) so that she could give me instructions under water.

The camera setup that we used was the Olympus SP-350 --capable of taking 8 MP pictures-- an Olympus PT-030 housing, Sea&Sea YS-90 strobe, Sea&Sea TTL sync-cord, Heinrich-Weikamp TTL bulkhead and Ultralight buoyant arms.

The first exercise was to check my buoyancy. Right after we got into the water, Cathy grabbed a hermit crab on the sandy area and told me to get a really close picture of it. She laid the hermit crab on the sand with the opening facing up. While I was trying to get a shot whe would "correct my posture", sometimes pushing my feet down. My feet tended to float up while I was taking the picture. Then I understood why she was wearing ankle weights. The hermit crab would sometimes hide inside or turn over and walk away. It took several trials to take this shot.

Before this picture, I didn't realize that hermit crabs had so much "hair" around their legs! I guess that's how they cling to rocks and such.

After about 8 minutes and about 8 pictures, we moved on to another subject: Squirrel fish. Squirrel fish usually stay stationary outside their "home", a crevice or a hole in a coral formation. They are not spooked easily, so if you approach them slowly, you can get really close to them. This picture was taken less than one foot away. You can even see the curvature of the cornea of the fish.

The next subject was christmas tree worms and feather dusters. These guys could be challenging to shoot, since they would hide away if they sense movement close to them. So the trick was to have all the settings ready and approach slowly for a shot. I later was impressed at the the detail and color that I was getting with this camera. You could even see the feather details.

This next picture was a bit challenging to take. There was a slight current that was moving the feather dusters back and forth. And also it was hard to stay stationary in one position. One thing that is very gratifying, is to see (in the picture) the real color of what you see down there, thanks to the strobe light.

On the next exercise, Cathy instructed me to take a picture to something on a coral head. It took me a couple of minutes to even notice this tiny guy. It's a "spinnyhead blenny" that has carved out a hole inside a coral head. This image is a magnified image (at least 200%). The guy looks like a green martian. I was so close to the coral head that my camera lense was touching the coral head slightly.

On the next set of pictures, we focused on taking close pictures on the resident gray angelfish. I've seen this guy before on my previous lesson about a week ago. The staff at Cathy Church's use a can of Cheese-whip to lure him and pose for the picture. Here's a picture of Cathy's hand luring the gray angel.

On this picture, Cathy put the can of cheese-whip inside the barrel sponge. And you thought those "perfect" underwater pictures happens by chance? Sometimes they are staged, like this one:

Finally I took a picture of the gray angel while it was swimming round. Digital point-and-shoot cameras have the disadvantage that they have a lag time between the time you press the shutter and the actual picture is taken. So the trick is to put your subject in the frame for a long time (like shooting viedo) because the picture might take a while to be taken. While I was putting this guy in my camera sights, Cathy was positioning me in the "right place", that is helping me turn around.

It was about the end of the dive, the batteries on the strobe were starting to run out. We headed back to shore and I was shooting at whatever we saw on our path. Like this "saddled blenny" which is tiny, about 1.5 inch long.

Cathy Church's Photo Centre: the Shop

Cathy Church's Shop is located in the basement of the main building of Sunset House. It is a well stocked underwater photography store, camera rental, repair shop and poster/print store of Cathy's underwater pictures.

Cathy Church's Centre: Photo Rental Corner

Cathy Church's Centre: Olympus Galore, with a big inventory of Olympus SP-350 and PT-030

The Shop is a big fan of the Olympus SP-350. They use it for rentals, professionally for photo shoots and obviously resell them. They offer a "photo buddy" service in which one of their staff will join Sunset House's boat dive, take pictures of you and sell them to you later.

There is an area in the shop where you can review your photos with the assistance of one of their staff. They are a Macintosh shop with two iMacs in the back of the store and use iView Pro software to review the photos.

Cathy Church's Centre: Photo Review Stations

Cathy Church's Centre: Poster Corner

In general, the whole experience with Cathy and Cathy's staff was great. They are very knowledgeable and I learned a lot from them. However, their services, as anything in the Caymans, is pricey for the priceless experience.

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.

The second day at Bloody Bay Wall continued to be great and getting even better. The weather was great all around, it was sunny and visibility continued to be great (70-80 ft), but not as good as yesterday's (80-90 ft). The water temperature was in the range of 82-86 F. I was wearing my 1 mm wetsuit all the time, primarily for protection against scratches.

Today we were diving three sites: Marilyn's Cut, Magic Roundabout and Jackson's Reef and Wall.

Nice Coral Formations at Marilyn's Cut
On this site we had the chance see some big specimens of corals. Since this was our first dive of the day we went a bit deeper (88 ft.) and had the chance to see tube sponges, sea fans, and barrell sponges. Here's a collage of variety of corals that we found on this dive site:

On this dive we also saw many Nassau groupers. By the end of the dive, I was really mad that my camera was fogging and my battery was running out. There was a ledge that lead into the deep wall. A Nassau grouper was next to a green moray eel. I managed to take some pictures, but it came out foggy and the moray was undistinguishable. So I decided to return to the boat and follow some other divers that were heading in that direction. While I was swimming at the back of the boat, I noticed a small hawksbill turtle near the surface, as I was close to my safety stop (20 ft) I decided to chase it hoping that my battery will have one last bit of juice. This is when some other more amazing creatures appeared: squids. The turtle have led me to them. The squids were swimming close to the surface, perhaps at 15 ft. I tried to take a picture of them, but the battery was really dead. I was so mad. Anyway, I decided to follow them and continue observing them. They are so graceful when swimming with their flaps. They move in a strange way, almost like in space (perhaps because they look like from another planet). I also signaled other divers, since they were coming back to the boat as well. This was the first time ever that I saw squid on a dive.

Shark! at Magic Roundabout
We did one morning dive at Marilyn's Cut. The next dives (one morning dive, another afternoon dive) were going to be at Magic Roundabout. The name of this dive site comes from coral heads on the shallow area which you can swim around and swim thru. Most dive sites that we dove had a similar configuration with variations. They had a shallow area at about 30-40 ft and then a drop-off that plunged into 90 ft of deeper. On the first dive here, we did not bother with the swim-thrus, we went along the wall at about 78 ft. and were discovering big creatures like this black grouper:

I was lucky to get this shot since the grouper was swimming towards me and I happened to have my camera ready to fire. Sometimes you get shot like this and cannot redo them because it's very difficult to get the creature to pose. While I finished this picture, I took a look at Nadine, my dive buddy, and noticed that she was looking at something out on the deep water. Then she signaled Shark! Shark! with her hand on her forehead. And we started to chase what it turned out to be two reef sharks swimming on the deep water along the wall. I was kicking so hard to try to get closer, so was Nadine. We went easterly first and then westerly. By end of the chase we were really exhausted, breathing heavily and hot, but I managed to get this shot to prove it:

After the shark chase, Nadine and I headed back in a leisurely swim to the shallow area and towards the direction of the boat. I was ahead when I looked back and Nadine wasn't there. I swam back to try to find her, but could see her. So I decided to do my safety stop because I did not see the boat and I was towards the end of the dive. After the safety stop, I surfaced to look for the boat. I was away for long shot, perhaps 600 yards or more. I still had 700 psi of air, so I swam just below the surface to avoid the choppiness of the surface. This is when I noticed a small hawsbill turtle at about 20 ft.

Since it was close to the surface, I decided to chase it for a little bit and I got this brief movie out of it:

After taking this movie, I headed back to the boat.

That afternoon I was so tired that I took a little nap after lunch. That little nap turned into a long nap, to the point that Nadine, my dive buddy, didn't wait for me :( and wenton the second dive with Rodney, another of our dive buddies. We tagged along together as a group of three. Not to worry, one of the Nekton Rorqual's crew, Tucker, was happy to dive with me.

In the water, we did see Nadine and Rodney, exploring the West side of the wall. In the morning we were on the East side. We spend most of our time in the shallows going thru the swim-thrus. The dive was not ideal, because we were on a rush to finish by 3:00pm because the boat needed to reposition and we had started rather late on this dive.

Thru the Laberynth of Jackson's Reef and Wall

After the last dive, the Rorqual repositioned to Jackson's Reef and Wall. The plan was to have one afternoon dive and the night dive here. This dive site was very similar to Magic Roundabout in that there were lots of coral heads in the shallow area. We spent more time in the shallow area this time. On this dive I saw one interesting coral formation:

It was a bright yellow tube sponge, almost lemon yellow. The opening at the top of the sponge was not that wide and it had bumps all over. I could not find references to this particular kind of coral.

On this dive I also saw an anemone, black groupers and Nassau groupers being cleaned. It seems that there was a large number of Nassau groupers around Little Cayman. We saw them almost on every dive. It must have been "Benji" and his family.

The site on the shallow area looked like a laberynth. You could either swim right above the sand through the grooves or swim on top of the coral heads. This was a good opportunity to get silloutte shots since divers were passing overhead. I took this shot facing West. Notice the sun coming from the top left corner, the silloutte of the two divers and the coral heads underneath. If I had manual settings on my camera I could have gotten a better shot.

We did a night dive at Jackson's and spent all our time in the shallow area. I did not keep good track of the number of pictures I had taken with my strobe, so my strobe died that night. That was a lesson learned. However, I did manage to get one shot of this huge green sea turtle that almost everybody in the group got a picture of:

From then on, I was more disciplined in replacing the batteries in my strobe. The turtle was perhaps the biggest turtle I've ever seen in the Caribbean (over 3 ft in length). It was also at night and swimming right towards me.

On Sunday night, we started the crossing from Grand Cayman to Little Cayman. The weather was rough that night. Even though they claim this is a "no sickness" boat. The rough weather got to me, it woke me up a couple times and in the morning I felt pretty dizzy. I had to lay down to put up with the dizziness. I immediately took some Dramamine to get the dizziness taken care of. By breakfast, I was feeling a bit better, but not hungry at all.

I had paired up with Nadine, who was interviewing for a position at the Nekton. We met up at briefing on Saturday and we became buddies for the rest of the trip.

At 8:00 am we had our first briefing on Little Cayman. The briefing was given by Kat, one of the dive instructors. This time, I made sure to capture this briefing on Bloody Bay Wall, one of the top diving destinations of the world. The weather was great, clear skies, sunny and 80-90F of air temperature.

I did find out about the origins of the name "Bloody Bay". The Cayman Islands had long history of pirate and privateer activity in the 16th and 17th centuries. Bloody Bay was so named after an horrendous battle that took place in this bay that left the water blood red. While being on the subject of history, the Cayman Islands was first a Spanish colony and it was known as "Islas Tortugas" or "Turtle Islands" named after the numerous sea turtles that inhabited the islands. In one of those wars between Spain and Britain, it was ceded by Spain to Britain in the 17th century and became a British colony. It later became known as "Cayman Islands" because of the many caymans that were sighted the islands. I guess over the centuries, the caymans ate all turtles and later humans hunted all the caymans. Nowadays, most of the caymans are gone or emigrated to Cuba, but you can still see some turtles in the wild.

We were also told about "Benji the Grouper" (named by a local divemaster called Jerry), an extremely friendly grouper that is fed by the locals. I was very excited to get into the water. After my experience at Grand Cayman, I was expecting a lot more, and as one of the top diving destinations, Bloody Bay had better deliver. Our dive site for the two morning dives was Lea Lea's Lookout.

Finally we got into the water. My first impression of Little Cayman and Bloody Bay was that the visibility was incredible (no blood in sight ;))! There was at least 90 ft of visibility and you could see the little details on the coral floor. Another thing that amazed me was the health of the sea floor. You could see tiny sponges and tubes growing on the sea floor. You could distinguish the bright yellow, finger-size tubes against the white lime sediment floor. I have not seen something like it before.

Here's a picture of a yellow tube coral growing right on the sea floor. This one was about 1 ft tall, but the tiny yellow specs on the floor were actually yellow tubes as well! You had to be really careful about not touching the floor!

Encounter with "Benji the Grouper" and Friends

On the fist dive on Lea Lea's we went along the wall to a maximum depth of of 103 ft. We did not spend much time at that depth though and ascended to the ledge soon after. We saw groupers out on the distance going up and down the wall. But the big (pleasant) surprise was when returned to the shallow area (about 40ft.). On a small cave, there was this enormous Nassau Grouper sitting by its cleaning station. Unfortunately for me, there were 6 other divers (from our boat) already taking pictures. Since this was a sandy area, a lot of the silt had already been kicked up and the visibility was rather poor. I did manage to take several pictures, one of them is the first one on this set. This was the biggest Nassau grouper that we saw on Bloody Bay, so I presume it was Benji. It measured 3 ft. easily. This is the biggest Nassau grouper I've ever seen so far. This couldn't be possible if it wasn't for the protection given by the Caymanian government to these waters. I heard stories of the "scuba police" on Bloody Bay. This was a local goverment enforcement team that would "intercept" divers and check people wearing gloves (you get a stiff fine if you are found wearing gloves) or carrying "contraband" from the ocean.

Anyway, after having my chance at taking pictures at Benji, Benji decided that his spot was too crowded. So he swam away from the paparazzi.

On the second dive at Lea Lea's Lookout, I got a second encounter with Benji. After swimming along the wall and returning to the shallow area, I somehow ended up around the same small cave where we found Benji the first time. He was there again, being cleaned. But this time, I got him for myself! There were no other divers around. I spent close to 15 mins taking pictures, observing him and and petting him. I wanted to get a picture of Benji with my hand, to give the picture some notion of scale. His head was bigger than my hand.

I also had the chance to take this brief movie of Benji while he was being cleaned by wrasses:

Unfortunately, you can barely see the minuscule behavior that was going on. Benji was sitting still, opening his mouth and gills while wrasses were moving around his head and his mouth. This picture shows what was going on in better detail:

After watching Benji for a while, I started seeing other creatures "joining the party" as well. Small arrow cabs (I believe) were approaching the bottom right side of Benji's mouth which can be seen on this picture:

After this picture, my strobe battery was dying, that's why the picture came out greener.

In addition to Benji we also found "his friends", other smaller Nassau groupers that were also very friendly. These groupers would approach us, be pet and even swam along us. I thought that the friendliness was in the family and this was not going to be the last time we were going to see them at Bloody Bay. Here's a picture of one of Benji's friends, a smaller 2ft Nassau grouper:

Afternoon and Night at Randy's Gazebo

During lunch we moved to another dive site: Randy's Gazebo. The plan is to do two afternoon dives and a night dive here. This site got it's name because of an archway located along the wall at about 60 ft. The coral formations at this site were very healthy and creatures abundant and diverse. Here we saw lot black coral in addition to tube and barrel sponges.

So far, on every dive we had seen Nassau groupers of all sizes, occasional hawksbill turtles like this one:

And difficult to shoot creatures like the banded butterflyfish. These guys are usually found in pairs (I believe they mate for life) and are so difficult to shoot because they swim up and down along coral and never stay in one spot. I have read that the best strategy to get a shot at these guys is to wait in one spot that is in their travel path. That's what I did and got this picture of this banded butterflyfish. Unfortunately his (or her) mate did not come up that well in the picture:

So far, my night dives in the Cayman islands were uneventful. This one was going to be different. To begin with we found this beautiful green tipped anemone:

Here's a close-up of the same anemone:

Speaking of the difficulty of taking pictures of butterflyfish, I got very lucky that night. I saw couple of four-eyed butterflyfish and I was lucky to get this shot of a pair, swimming in opposite directions:

On the way back to the boat, I was following my buddy Nadine, who looked back at me and made some sort of signal. At beginning, I didn't know what she was signaling. Suddenly a 4ft brown creature swam toward me and passed me almost between my legs. When I finally understood Nadine's signal, I realized it was a nurse shark. Once she passed me, I tried to chase her a little bit, but she was too fast, but I managed to take this picture to prove that we had seen her. It was a shot from the hip, because I could see her on my visor and she was swimming too fast.

After a day at Sunset House with a great photo lesson at Cathy Church's, I got ready to board the Nekton Rorqual. Unfortunately, Sunset House was not very tolerant about a late checkout, so I had to leave my room by 2:00pm. My dive with Eddy finished at 1:07pm, so I had less than 1 hr to clean up and pack all my scuba and camera gear. That was quite a rush. In retrospect, I wish I had finished the lesson earlier. In the end, I ended barely making it. I was out of the room in record time, by about 2:15pm. I left my luggage at the counter with instructions to load certain pieces to the Nekton. They were loading luggage already all afternoon.

Once my luggage and bill was settled, I had a little time to relax and have lunch. My lunch choice at Sunset House was "My Bar", their outdoor restaurant overlooking the water. Everything on the Caymans was pricey, for lunch, for a burger and soft drink you would look at least US$12.

That afternoon, I had time to go to Cathy Church's Shop for my photo critique and browse around the shop. Again buying that camera was very tempting. They certainly "prey" on that impulse buying feeling.

That night we boarded the Nekton Rorqual at a dock near downtown Georgetown. A shuttle van was picking up people from Sunset House starting at 6:00pm already. Before getting to the boat, there was the "mandatory" stop at a liquor store and grocery store. I did a quick stop at the grocery store for some wafers and mints.

That night, we got a welcome briefing at the "Saloon", the dining and A/V room located on the middle deck of the Rorqual. Having been on the Nekton Pilot before, I was already familiar with the routine. The crew would introduce themselves and talk about the facilites and procedures. One thing different though, to my pleasant surprise, was that the briefing was given with a Powerpoint presentation:

Here's Scooter, one of the crew, talking about the availability of the Sat phone, should have to call home. The briefing concluded with a simulated fire drill where you had to don on your life jacket and walk to a designated area. After that we retired to our rooms to get ready for first day of diving.


First Day of Diving with the Nekton Rorqual at Grand Cayman

The plan was to dive one day on the West coast of Grand Cayman on Sun and then sail that night to Little Cayman. The "crossing" as Capt. Nelson referred it would last all night. That Sunday we would dive at two locations on Grand Cayman: Jax Dax and White Stroke Canyon.

The reef conditions on Grand Cayman were not good. After being hit by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Grand Cayman lost a lot of it's big specimens of tube corals and sponges. Ocassionally we would run into interesting creatures like this porcupinefish:

Or this trumpetfish, trying to hide among the soft coral. You could also see patches of barren rocks as well. The diving was overall average or below.

To add to the disappointment, Eddy, the instructor at Cathy Church's shop had made changes to my camera setup, trying to "tune" it. He ended up changing my settings to the point that my pictures were not coming right. I learned my lesson about this, if you are getting what you want out of your camera setup, don't let somebody else "tune it", no matter how experts they claim to be. He was well intentioned, but it took me a couple of dives to figure out the settings I had before.

However, it looked like our luck was changing for the good. We saw a glimpse of what Grand Cayman is known for: Stingrays. Here I ended up seeing the biggest stingrays I've ever seen in the Caribbean. This one, being photographed by my buddy Nadine, measured about 1.5 ft.

But this other guy, measured at least 3 ft., not including the tail.

That day we did one dive at Jax Dax and 3 dives at White Stroke Canyon. I was very unhappy with my camera, my strobe was not firing correctly. Our last dive was a night dive, when I finally got my camera work right and managed to take a picure of this lobster:

After having done two shore dives the day before, I was ready and eager for my first lesson at Cathy Church's Photo Centre. I had talked to them the day before and I was scheduled for a classroom session, a guided dive and photo review. The instructor was Eddy (curiously named like me).

The Classroom Session

The classroom session started at about 9:00am at the Photo Centre. We first talked about the basic relationship between aperture, shutter speed and film speed in underwater photography. Eddy (the instructor) made me realize that notions in underwater photography have special considerations (if you are coming from land photography). For example, nobody would make pictures darker (by turning down aperture or faster shutter) and use a strobe in plain daylight in land photography (unless you want very special effects). In underwater photography, you do, because ambient light is your "worse enemy", this is the light that makes your pictures "green". Most of the time you want the light to come only from your strobe. The exception is when you are taking pictures of big animals, things close to the surface or sillouttes.

The discussion centered around this table that depicts the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and film speed:

Aperture (F stops)	Shutter Speed (secs)	Film Speed (ISO)
2.8 (+ more light)	1/15 (+ more light)	1600 (+ more sensitivity)
4	1/30 (blur)	800 (noise and grain)
5.6	1/60	400
8	1/125	200
11 (SLR)	1/500	100 (preferred)
22	1/800 (max sync)	50
(- less light)	1/1000(- less light)	25(- less sensitivity)
Master Control: Strobe Ambient Depth of Field	Controls: Movement Ambient Light	Controls: Overall Sensitivity

The first column is Aperture. This is the master control for strobe light, depth of field and ambient light. The bigger the aperture (smaller F stop number), the more strobe light and and ambient light the picture is going to get. The relationship between aperture and depth of field is inversely proportional, the bigger the aperture the less depth of field, the smaller the the aperture the more depth of field, because of the "pin-hole" effect. Depth of field is the range of how many subjects are in focus in your picture. The more depth of field the more subjects in focus you have. Depth of field tends to matter most when shooting macro (small creatures). If a creature you are shooting is along the line of your lense, some of it might be out of focus (unless you purposely want that effect). It is recommended to stay around F stops 5.6 and 8, but if you have 11 and 22 (with an SLR) even better. The rows shaded with light blue are "recommended" settings in underwater photography.

The second column is Shutter Speed. This setting controls movement and ambient light. A fast shutter speed (1/800 sec) will freeze the image of a fast moving fish, whereas, a slow shutter speed (1/60) will cause your image to be blurry. For point-and-shoot cameras, trying to shoot fast moving subjects is close to impossible because of autofocus lag time. SLRs are the king in this category, they have much better shutter response speed. For subjects that are more stationary, shutter speed also matters. If you take a picture with water as the background, shutter speed regulates how dark your water is going to be. With 1/800 it will be dark, with 1/60 it will bright. The shaded rows in the table, depict the recommend range for shutter speeds. Anything slower than 1/60 will make your pictures blurry or shaky (unless you have a tripod underwater ;) ) and anything faster than 1/800 will have trouble with strobes, because most strobes cannot synch faster than 1/800.

The third column is Film Speed, which regulates how sensitive your sensor is going to be to light. Anything higher than 400 will make your picture grainy and subject to noise which will ruin your picture for a blow up. It is recommended around ISO 100. There are more advanced concepts like increasing your ISO, so that you can take subjects with a faster shutter speed, but that's a subject for another course.

Then we spent some talking about strobe positioning. One key consideration is backscatter. The way to get rid of it is to position your strobe away from your lense; therefore, longer arms are preferable. Because of this reason you will most of the time have side lighting, causing a shadow on the other side. That's why a second strobe is used. Using two strobes gives you a way to simulate front lighting without the backscatter.

Here's an exercise that we did by shooting a model fish to explore the different strobe positioning possiblities.

Front Lighting - This is what we want with fish subjects most of the time. However, the fish appears flat. If a subject had more texture, you will not see that texture. Use side lighting instead.	Back Lighting - This kind of lighting works better for semi-transparent subjects, like corals. This effect will allow you to see the light thru the subject.
Side Lighting (Right) - If using a single strobe, this is the kind of lighting that you will end up having. In this particular example, the fish is swimming to the right, aiming the strobe to the head with lighting on the right side would be the recommended way.	Side Lighting (Left) - This is similar to side lighting on the right, but you have to switch depending on the subject. In this particular example, the fish is swimming to the right side and we are using left side lighting. A bad idea, a shallow will appear on the fish's head and we won't see the eyes and the mouth.

The classroom session lasted almost two hrs (with some interruptions). We tried to base it on the camera that I had (Sony Cybershot DSC-P9 with Sea & Sea YS-50), but quickly realized that we needed manual setting capabilities to make the discussion useful, so we based on the Olympus SP-350 (more on that below). We concluded the course with this summary of key considerations:

• Maintain close distance to the subject
• Regulate strobe power and aperture
• Aim your strobe correctly
• Mind your background exposure

After this we took a 15 min break to get ready for diving and apply the concepts that we just learned in the classroom.

The Camera

The camera of choice for the class and the dive was the Olympus SP-350 with an Olympus PT-030 underwater housing, 0.7x (wet) wide angle converter lense, buoyant Ultralight arms (ulcs.com), Sea & Sea YS-90 strobe with a TTL connector and Sea & Sea 5-pin Nikonos sync cord. I rented this setup for the dive. This is the exact same setup that Cathy Church's staff uses for some of their photo shoots and services. The lense of camera had an (35mm SLR) equivalent range of 38-114 mm, so the wide angle converter gave it a range of 27-80 mm. This was a very nice setup, it was compact yet powerful. All the main controls, were on the right hand side, so you could potentially shoot and make adjustments with one hand.

The Guided Dive

We started the shore dive by swimming down to the coral formations off of Sunset House. Cathy Church's staff has already "pre-defined" stations to take practice shots. These stations are spots on the reefs that are interesting to shoot. In addition, they have "trained" a number of gray angels and red snappers to complement your shots. They have done this with a can of Cheez Whiz.

The first station that we visited was a rock where a red coral had grown. Underwater you couldn't tell it was red. Our first exercise was to practice "bracketing", that is, taking the same shot with different settings. Eddy, the instructor, had a writing pad with him and sometimes he even manage to talk thru his regulator.

Red Coral at F8.0, 1/60, ISO 100. Notice the light blue color of the background water. In some areas of the reef, it seems over-exposed.	Red Coral at F8.0, 1/125, ISO 100. Notice the darker background water, colors on reef appear richer. Some side background is still visible.
Red Coral at F8.0, 1/250, ISO 100. Notice side backbround turning black (almost dissapearing). Yellows on the reef are more visible. My favorite setting for this shot.	Red Coral at F8.0, 1/500, ISO 100. Notice everything is turning darker, even the main subject. Perhaps too dark for the main subject.

For this picture of the red coral, I had my strobe on the right side with the arm completely extended (close to 3 ft away) and I was very close to the subject, no more than 2 ft. For this type of shot, you want to move as close as possible, use a fast shutter speed like a 1/250 to isolate the subject and play with the position of the strobe. Positioning the strobe below the camera was an alternative. Eddy, would also try to lure fish around this shot, so that you could "compose" a shot with a gray angel or a red snapper with it. Unfortunately, none of those shots came out well. Now I knew how they came up with all those "nearly perfect" poster shots at the store, with the help of an assistant and Cheez Whiz.

Taking on Bigger Subjects

After a couple of more braketing exercises with coral subjects, we move on to bigger subjects, the "Mermaid" or "Amphithrite", it's original name. You might have seen her on the cover of scuba magazines. This particular subject had different considerations, the subject was about 6 ft tall, so you had to be at least 3 ft away from it to cover more subject. At more than 3 ft of distance from the subject, more ambient light got in the way. But after looking at the set of pictures, having that "green" look seem to look the most appealing, personally. So in this case, more ambient light was ok.

Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/60, ISO 100. Notice the reef background around her feet, it is still visible. Her surface has that "green" look from ambient light.	Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/250, ISO 100. Notice her "real" colors starting to appear, including some reds and oranges.
Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/400, ISO 100. Notice most of the background is already dark.	Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/800, ISO 100. Notice, the whole subject starting to turn too dark. Not the ideal setting.

In retrospect, I should done a 1/125 shot, but I didn't. My favorite of this set is the shot made with 1/60. However, I would have like to see how a 1/125 shot would have look like. On the 1/60 shot, being able to see the background appears to look better, it gives you the impression of the "beauty" contrasted with the not so appealing surrounding rocks. Also the "green" look, having more ambient light on the subject, gives her a more bronze-like appearance, which is how we are used to see statues (like the Statue of Liberty).

Practicing the Classroom Techniques

In the addition, to the backeting exercises, I did some fun shots as well, that is, working on my composition and some of the tecniques that I learned in class.

Here's a picture of tube corals with below lighting, that is, with the strobe positioned below the camera. It was taken at F8.0, 1/160 and ISO 100. This techniques allows you to present color in the foreground, and more "blueish" colors for more distant subjects. It emphasizes the sense of depth.

This next picture of a red snapper is almost exactly the picture that I took of the model fish in our classroom session. The side lighting was on the right side, while the fish was swimming to the right. The strobe was pointing right at his head. This picture was taken at F8.0, 1/800 and ISO 100. The slow shutter speed made everything in this picture a bit dark except for the head of the fish. However, it gives you a ghostly impression of the fish coming out of darkness which I think works.

This final picture is a close-up of Amphithrite. The picture was taken at F8.0, 1/125, and ISO 100. The strobe was on the right side and above almost aligned with the direction that she's looking.

After the dive we took a break for lunch and scheduled a session for a critique of the pictures that I took. A lot of the comments that I got, I already mentioned on this posting. After this course, I was more aware of the considerations when taking underwater pictures and I badly wanted this camera. In a lot of aspects it was better than my current camera, the response time, strobe cycling time, exposure control and manual settings. I thought of buying the camera for my upcoming liveaboard (which was boarding tonight), but I did not have a laptop with me, so I did not have a way to download my pictures if I had this camera. So I left that decision for another day, which would come sooner than I expected ...

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 :).