On Mon, 27 May 2002 10:02:17 -0400, Reef Fish
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>On Mon, 27 May 2002 07:58:46 -0400, Huw Porter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>How far is poor viz in the Caymans?  :-)
>
>30 feet or 10 meters to you Romans.  :-)   Or, on the pragmatic side,
>when the BOAT hanging off the wall is invisible until you're 50 feet
>off the ledge into the milky-blue water.  :-))
>
>That's no exaggeration on a couple of wall dives.


>>The CAIV captains log for the
>>week before your trip mentions 'Visibility must have been close to 200
>>feet' and 'Visibility this morning was outstanding. 200 feet easily'!
>
>Where do you find such "captain's logs"?

I found it -- on the www.aggressor.com page of course.  :-)

The log was written, not by Capt Kurt, but by Randy, the DM, PhotoPro,
who was the only "surviver" from last year's crew.  :-)  The report was
very accurate, as a matter of fact, accentuating the POSITIVE while
not mentioning some of those murky details I mentioned.

Randy is a great guy in every respect -- unfortunately the CAIV02NEDfest
divers won't see him because he'll be joining the crew of the Okeanos
Aggressor -- which I am sure he deserved -- to get some REST:  two days
of crossing each way, and only 3 dives a day, instead of 7 days a weeks
with no break on the CA-IV and 4-5 dives a day on most of non-crossing
days.

But Capt Kurt will be on your June 8-15 charter.  Ask Kurt about the
vis last week.  :0)

Yup.  It was photog and videog galore on the boat.  We saw lots and lots
of turtles -- on almost every dive.  The ONLY time visibility was
explicitly mentioned was in this paragraph:

*> Monday morning began with a dive on Randy's Gazebo, after which all of
*> the guests agreed the bad crossing was well worth it in exchange for
*> the amazing wall diving.

It was the smoothest crossing I've had yet, thanks to the Sturgeron
pills which was good enough to keep me eating and up for 24 of the
32 hours of Cocos crossing.  :-)  Slept through the crossing only to
hear the horror from one guy who was barely alive the next morning. :-)
I gave him one of my Sturgeron pills for the return trip.  It worked.


*>  Viz was, as usual, 100ft.+

Randy's Gazebo (no relation to DM Randy) perhaps had the best vis of
all, and could be close to 100 ft, once one found the wall.  :-))
That was the one I dived the Gazebo (chimney) and the Great Wall
West -- two sites in one.


My LOGBOOK has only 4 ratings:  A GREEN smiley (great), a BLUE
smiley (above average), a BLACK reverse-smiley, as in :-(  for
(below average), and a RED reverse-smiley for (it suckes!).
Lea Lea's Lookout on Bloody Bay Wall had the distinction of being
the only site that rated a RED reverse-smiley in my log.  :-)

When Randy said only two brave souls went on the night dive at Lea
Lea's, it was more the BAD VIS rather than the weather.   :-)

Viv can verify this when I show her my log pages.  Only Randy's
Gazebo and Big Tunnel rated a BLUE smiley.  All other dives rated
BLACK or RED in vis.   :-(


> and diving conditions couldn't have been better.

Now THAT's a clear case of extreme hyperbole or VERY Tall Tail.  :-)
I couldn't recall worse diving condition in the Caymans in all
previous years on the Aggressor.

Cheer up -- that means the odds greatly favor the June 8-15 week
diving conditions to be better than last week!  :-)


>>It'll be interesting to see what they write about your trip. :-)
>
>ME TOO!!!   Especially about Rum Point, Randy's Gazebo, Great Wall,
>and Lea Lea's Lookout.  Those all qualify as "can't see the boat
>from the ledge" dives because the boat was hanging OFF the wall,
>above the abyss.  :-)

Randy's "Captain's Report" said nothing that contradicted the above.  :-)

-- Bob.