Hi everybody,

I didn't attend the COZ99NEDfest and I was really eager to hear everything
I could about it.  I remember searching the list for every bit of
information, especially the little stories that gave me a better
perspective about the participants, the atmosphere etc.  So I decided to
write a "not really a trip report" which will sum up this experience from
my own biased point of view.  It will have very little to do with actual
diving and dive descriptions.  Just the small stuff :-)

I got to Grand Cayman on Thursday afternoon after a very long flight
schedule (started on Wednesday morning).  The moment I check into Treasure
Island Resort I asked the counter for Don Ward's room number (I knew he was
going to be there) and we met at the bar.  After all, we have been cyber
friends for years and we have never met so we had a lot of catching up to
do :-)  I was wearing the CAIV02 T shirt and Dennis who was also there,
spotted us and joined us at the bar.  After discussing our plans for
Friday, on a glass of gin and tonic and the local Sting Ray beer, we
decided to book an afternoon dive with the local shop (Bob Sotto's divers
).  Should I mention that we had a nice dinner in the local Greek restaurant?

Friday morning, don and Dennis just wasted time (I don't know what they
were up to :-)  ) but I went snorkeling to check the local reef.  The reef
was not in a very good shape and the visibility sucked so I was relieved to
find out, on the afternoon dive that it could get better.

The afternoon dive was interesting.  It was not such a big boat (10-14
divers IIRC) but it sure was a cattle boat.  On the boat were at least 4
resort course divers and it was funny to hear the DM say: "Resort course
divers, stay on the lower platform for dive briefing and certified divers -
go up".  It was my first :-)  The DM (actually the captain) said that it
was a reef and a wreck dive at about 50 feet so we should do a maximum of
50 minutes dive.

Don Dennis and myself went in and started cruising along the wreck and the
reef.  If we had brought a shovel we could get to 50 feet so we stayed on
the reef a little longer :-)  After 60+ minutes we boarded the boat and had
a short lecture from the captain (DM?) about our profile :-)  I humbly
argued with him which really seemed to upset him.  Don insisted that he was
angry with me only because I demonstrated the typical Israeli attitude of
arguing about everything :-)

When we got back to the resort, we could see a group of people, some of
them with the notorious T shirts, sitting in the lobby.  This was a great
opportunity to meet Bjorn and Soyong, Crusty, Lisa, Danna and
Lauren.  Finally getting to know all those great people that we heard so
much of and from them on the net.  Crusty, energetic as always, organized a
dinner at a restaurant (I don't remember the name) and we had a great
evening.  He made a mistake and mentioned that they were always curious
about what was the reef like in the middle of the night.  Say, about 3
AM.  He was going to regret this remark almost immediately because I
offered to do a night dive at 3 AM on one of the nights and later on
insisted on really doing it :-)

The next morning we just hung around the resort and it was fantastic to
find out that Andy and his TA, John and Brooxie, and Al Kirkland had
decided to join us before boarding the Aggressor.  What a great bunch.  At
about 2 PM we boarded the boat and slowly but surely, Mika, Viv, and Huw
joined us.  We were all ready to begin but someone was missing.  Someone
was late.  Brad Stambaugh.  Crusty called the airport and found out that
the flight that Brad was supposed to be on, had landed.  But Brad did not
show up.  Finally, it turned out that Brad had missed his flight and paid a
lot of money to board another one, to get to the boat.  When he boarded the
boat, he earned the title: "The 'Late' Brad Stambaugh" which haunted him
the rest of the trip :-)

After dinner the boat left the dock and the journey began.

On Sunday morning we started diving Grand Cayman and I suppose you'll get
some actual diving reports from other list members - more trustworthy than
I am :-)  I just want to say that I was really impressed by the diving
skills that were demonstrated by everyone on the boat.  I think that the
best proof for that will be the fact that after the first dive, the crew
did not bother to have a DM in every dive, and even if there was a crew
member in the water, he did not even dream of trying to lead anyone :-)

As a product of the decadent European buddy system I expected to dive with
buddies but it turned out that a lot more than half of the people on board
were photographers.  So, most of my dives were with Huw who was a product
of the same decadent system, Dennis, who carried a camera but did not
really bother with it ;-) and Andy (another European) when he was not too
busy with his lovely wife :-)  Don, my cabin mate, was too busy with his
rather new hobby (photography) so we did not really dive a lot together
because he wanted to watch and learn from the masters :-)

I think that this is enough for today so I'll leave it here and get back to
the second part tomorrow.


Regards,

                    Kuty