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Scuba diving the Cayman Islands
I took off my shoes Sept. 26 and didn’t put them on again until the day before yesterday.
That’s what happens on live-aboard scuba trips — along with a lot of underwater time. I spent last week chasing sea turtles, exploring sunken ships, looking for sharks, checking out gigantic lobsters and plunging into the ocean after dark during a scuba diving trip aboard the Cayman Aggressor IV.
It was just me and Chris, my sister Angie and her husband John, and five other passengers on board the boat, which floats between dive sites. There’s no time for anything but diving, sleeping and eating. Pure bliss!
We dove four or five times a day, mostly around Little Cayman. Highlights? An octopus changing colors as it moved along the coral during a night dive. A 3-foot grouper that liked being scratched under the chin. Stingrays galore! Tiny, ruffled worms called lettuce nudibranchs. Spotted drums, trumpetfish, eagle rays, puffers, moray eels, sailfin blennies, pipefish, neon gobies, scrawled filefish, honeycomb cowfish, channel crabs …
I’ve got nearly 200 dives under my weight belt and can’t get enough. I’ll be writing about this trip soon. And I’ve already got the next one planned — diving the Galapagos Islands next May!
Who out there’s a diver? What’s your favorite place to scuba dive?
I took the photo above (of a friendly grouper) off of Little Cayman Island.
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By Mike
October 6, 2009 4:30 AM | Link to this
Not done Cayman islands as yet. Did Galapagos with Peter Hughes live aboard christmas 2007. Not for the faint hearted due to the various currents. Need 7mil wet suits. 7 Whale sharks sightings and film to prove it. Tons of every type of ocean life. Face to face with hammerheads. We are in Bonaire this week. Been diving 5 years with about 300 dives under the belt. Do lots of inland wet and dry suit quarry diving. Have fun in Galapagos…..
By Pam LeBlanc
October 6, 2009 10:11 AM | Link to this
Hi Mike. Very interested in your Gallapagos experience. I hear the diving is very different because of the currents. You drop straight down, hang behind rocks and watch the big stuff go by versus swimming along a reef, right? Hoping to see whale sharks when we are there; that’s on my list. I’ve got just under 200 dives now. We did Kona last year and saw tons of mantas. Amazing. Saw some hammerheads in Bahamas, but I know I’ll see tons in Galapagos. If you go to Caymans, be sure to head to Little Cayman. Much more pristine than Grand Cayman. Beautiful. How is Bonaire??? How is Peter Hughes? We’ve done Explorer and Aggressor. Both are good.