Sorry this is a little late - Kuty has already given an excellent report on
life on board the CAIV, which I won't attempt to compete with, so I'm
concentrating on the diving... If I have missed anything out, please chip
in. :-)
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At her mooring in Georgetown, The Cayman Aggressor IV is unmistakeable -
gleaming white, her name plastered across the stern. A chorus of "get a
bloody move on then mate!" from Andy and Bjorn as I climb out of the cab, a
warm welcome from Russ, the mastermind and driving force behind this trip,
and a boat full of NED’s to meet.
Dammit, I’ve been on a plane all day, and even in the harbour the water is
too tempting to resist - jumping in, right under the boat there is 20
metres of visibility, some brutal urchins and a school of large tarpon
trying to look nonchalant as they smoke and gossip under the bow.
Day 1:
Dive 1: Doc Polson/Marty's Wall: 30.1m for 46 min. Viz 30m, buddies
Kuty/Dennis/Don.
In the water properly at last! Is it just me, or does that first night on
a liveaboard always take forever? A bounce to depth over the reef wall,
ending the dive on the little wreck of the Doc Polson. Below the main deck
is a nice space of slatted light, the wheelhouse is full of fish, and on
top a bristle worm crawls among sponges on a searchlight. First
impressions - clear, warm water and unfamiliar flrf.
Viv (floating along in her usual effortless 'I only breathe once or twice a
week' way) is the only person I've dived with before, but even the other
NED's I know already only from dry land - Bjorn and Soyong, Andy and T.A. -
seem very familiar under the water. So, to a lesser extent, do those
familiar through their websites; Russ, Elisa & Danna. Familiar or not, it
is a pleasure being in the water with such a universally skilled group.
Though there are no hoops to jump through, no fin pivots or mask clears to
perform, this seems to be some kind of discrete checkout dive. We must
pass, though no surprise there - with a mere 140-odd dives in water from 10-
30 degrees and viz from 0.5 to 50 metres, I still class as one of the least
experienced divers on board! As Kuty points out, the dive briefings from
now on get increasingly short, no superfluous reminders of safe diving, of
profiles, air reserves etc, and by the end of the week they have shrunk to
nothing more than a brief site orientation.
Dive 2: Sensation Wall: 27.7m for 49 min. Viz 30m, buddies Kuty/Dennis.
Dive 3: Rum Point Drop Off: 21.6m for 53 min. Viz 30m, buddies Kuty/Dennis.
Dive 4: Rum Point Drop Off: 17.3m for 53 min. Viz 30m, buddy Bjorn.
'Sensation' might be overselling a little, but these are perfectly pleasant
45 degree sloping walls. On close inspection, the hard coral is pretty
much shagged - the only boulder or plate corals are small, and there is no
staghorn or branching coral to be seen anywhere - these corals have almost
disappeared from the region in recent years. Filling in the gaps, however,
are Caribbean sponges and all kinds of soft corals - Gorgonian fans, long
whips, fingers and plumes. These last, often as tall as a man, waving in
the water like discarded tan feather boas really give the Cayman reefs
their character.
While the fish life certainly doesn’t have the intensity or biodiversity of
the Pacific, there are lots of striking new species to introduce yourself
to - female stoplight parrotfish, indigo hamlets, honeycomb cowfish, french
angelfish, black durgeon. Creole wrasse form matrices of bright blue in
the space above the reef. Bjorn hunts a playful juvenile spotted drum with
his vast lunar lander camera rig, which, casual as you like, always manages
to slip behind a tuft of coral just as he gets it lined up.
After the last dive we set out for the eight hour overnight crossing to
Little Cayman. Tonight is only rated ‘averagely rough’, but til sea legs
come back this is still a good moment to plead jetlag and go to my bunk. ;-)
Day 2:
Dive 5: Randy's Gazebo: 32.9m for 60 min. Viz 50m, buddies Kuty/Dennis.
Dive 5: Randy's Gazebo: 27.7m for 62 min. Viz 50m, buddies
Kuty/Dennis/Andy.
Ahhh, morning, gin clear water, vast reef wall architecture falling away
into the deep, swim throughs piercing the wall. 'Eagle eye' Elisa points
out a dainty longnose filefish on a soft coral, an back under the boat, a
big school of horse-eyed jacks and a lone barracuda who lets you creep
right up behind him, almost - but never quite - close enough to tweak his
tail.
Dive 7: Bus Stop: 25.6m for 60 min. Viz 40m, buddies Kuty/Dennis/Andy.
Dive 8: Bus Stop: 14.0m for 68 min. Viz 40m, buddies Bjorn/Andy.
The reef wall here comes up to form a wide rim, riddled with swim throughs
and small caves, and a wide bowl of sand behind. In the sand, Hogfish and
Spotted Eagle Rays swoop and hunt.
Wandering back to the boat in the space above the lagoon, watching hermit
crabs inching deliberately along. With the clarity and the light bouncing
back from the sand it is a bit like diving in a vast swimming pool. One of
the (many :-)) things I love about diving is the way that this effortless
escape from gravity seems impossible back above the surface when limbs are
weighed down and feet stuck fast to the earth.
Dive 9: Bus Stop: 19.5m for 56 min. Night, buddy Kuty.
Sea wasps - nasty, painful - can be attracted to the top couple of metres
of water behind the stern by the lights of the boat, so night dive entry
procedure is head first with hand on nose and BC empty to drop straight
down. Mika goes in first, turns on his new HID light, and all the fish put
their fins over their face and go "bloody hell, my eyes!" :-)
5 minutes in, the canister torch Russ has lent me fades to black - no
problem, hopefully it is just the batteries (Russ, please tell me it just
needed a charge?), out with my backup and on with the dive. A large red
reef crab waves his claws at us, an anemone is full of shrimps and
porcelain crabs filling the niche that clownfish take in the Pacific.
Dive lights attract hideous little fast moving worms - shine a light on
your palm for a couple of seconds, and you are enveloped in a dense,
repulsive hitchcockian swarm. This could be intensely creepy, but we
quickly find that the coral eats them - the worms stick fast, and within
seconds kind of implode in a gratifyingly grisly way. From then on, I feed
the coral as many of the little buggers as possible. :-)
A habitual prospective sweep with my torchbeam through the darkness over
the dropoff catches a brief mirrored glint of a reflective eye, and a
second sweep illuminates the sleek body of the Caribbean Reef Shark wrapped
around it. Thank goodness I get Kuty’s attention quickly enough for him to
see it too - no-one would ever have believed me...
Lights off, there is an amazing amount of bioluminescence in the water -
Kuty at my side is a shower of sparks, and the fringes of a comb jelly
pulse gently. After a brief and childishly enjoyable game of ‘make Alfred
jump by creeping up on him and appearing in a ta-dah! blaze of light at the
last minute’ it is time to pass the resident barracuda still keeping watch
under the stern back to the boat.
Five dives in a day - thank goodness for nitrox...
Day 3:
Dive 10: Russian Destroyer 356: 27.4m for 50 min. Viz 50m,
Kuty/Dennis/Bjorn/Andy.
Another brief spell of rock and roll as we head over to Cayman Brac, to the
only sport diveable Russian Wreck in the Western hemisphere. Cracked down
the middle during her scuttle, hurricanes have since twisted the two halves
so that the bow slopes at a jaunty angle down a bank of white sand. The
wreck is 100 metres long, but jumping in above the broken midsection you
can see both bow and stern. It is a novel experience doing a wreck dive
and being able to see where you are going...
Inside the front section is a nice clean corridor to swim along, rising
slowly, and tilted 60 degrees from ‘upright’ - it is a bit like being
trapped in a live action M.C. Esher print, and could be deeply disorienting
if you were to make the mistake of thinking of any tilted part as, for
example, ‘the floor’ or ‘a set of stairs’ - diligently considering it as
nothing more than a diamond shaped tunnel, and keeping a close watch on
your bubbles helps you keep track of which way is up. :-)
Even after several years down, many of the heavy bulkhead doors still swing
on their hinges. The guns, however are slightly comically stuck on
stilts. They were removed after the boat was sold, but the new owners
insisted on guns - you can’t have a destroyer without guns! - so have been
rather cursorily stuck back on.
There are several cattle boats up topside, the only time other boats are in
our near vicinity all week (and I don’t think I ever saw a non-familiar
diver underwater). Don entertains himself between dives by mooing loudly
at the muppet divers flapping around getting in the water. Oh the
arrogance of us, secure in our dive freedom paradise. :-)
Dive 11: Russian Destroyer 356: 23.4m for 54 min. Viz 50m, buddy Andy.
Several areas of the 356 - like the leaning corridors of the bow section -
have been extensively cleared for divers, with none of the cables, pipes,
features, fittings and other hazards you might have expected in a warship -
other unsanitised parts have been sealed off with heavy grilles. The
action of storms and rust have torn holes in some of these, meaning there
are now dangerous open holes leading to the dark and hazard-strewn parts of
the interior. Obviously Andy is in there like a ferret up a trouser leg,
with me right at his heels.
Even with endless visibility, ample light and no silt, without redundancy I
am going no further than the second room from the exit, but there are
plenty of impressive pieces of machinery to admire. Fun to come back with
a twinset and see how far you could get...
Two deep dives, and my conservative Suunto is creeping close to deco even
at 10 metres, so once round the bridge and a brief hang with the Sergeant
Majors (finally a familiar species!) over the mast.
Dive 12: Eagle Ray Roundup: 17.3m for 59 min. Viz 40m, buddy Kuty.
I can recall the conversation so clearly it seems impossible that we
weren’t talking:
Kuty: "Well, I could have sworn the wall was this way!"
Huw: "Me too! Where the @*$&^%$ is it then?"
Kuty: "Look - there is Alfred, wonder if he knows?"
Huw: "Hi Alfred - any idea which way to the wall? Er, not that we are
lost or anything, just, you know, checking!"
Alfred: "It's that way, you muppets..." :-)
Ahem. So, wall found, and with it most of the rest of the group, and we
are on our way. There is a nasty, insidious little current flowing -
barely noticeable, the kind which, when sneaking up behind you, makes you
think "Hey! Old finning legs in good shape today!", but just at the point
when you think "Hmmm - turnaround point, and we seem to be a long way from
the boat..." manages to turn into a raging torrent...
I redeem our earlier navigation, errr, deliberate error by working out from
first principles just where the boat must be, and Kuty and I make it -
just - back under our own steam. Unlike several other members (with, say
5,000 to 10,000 dives experience between them...;-)) of this august group
who have to be picked from about three dive sites further down the wall in
the tender. ;-) Viv and John are the only people wise enough to have
started their dive against the current.
Dive 13: Eagle Ray Roundup: 11.8m for 65 min. Viz 40m, Solo.
I swim with Kuty and the group over to the edge of the wall, but keep going
and spend 5 minutes hanging on my own just within sight of the reef -
relishing the delicious terror of the vastness of the blue.
By I get back to the reef, Kuty is off conversing with another turtle and
little by little after about 20 minutes I end up properly solo for the
first time. Well, no worries - I try to take advantage of it, getting
another extended manicure at a cleaning station, and sneaking up, head
down, to hunting southern stingray/grunt combinations out in the sand - but
in the end, to be honest I get a little bored. This solo thing is all very
well, and it obviously suits the photo-hunters - Viv, John, Don, Alfred -
but I have to admit I find diving with a decent buddy much more rewarding.
After 65 mins, I still have 80 BAR left, and consider setting a new
personal time record, but it looks like even 'the late' Brad will be back
on board before me ;-) - so I give up.
A little sniffly this evening, a nasty head-cold (or should that be NED-
cold?) is doing the rounds of the boat, so I skip the night dive and hope
it clears by the morning.
Day 4:
Dive 14: 3 Fathom Wall: 36.6m for 48 min. Viz 30m, buddy Bjorn.
This is where we keep all the fish, says Captain Tom in the briefing, and
true enough, schools of yellowtail snapper, blue striped grunt and
squirrelfish wheel between the coral heads. Bjorn bails out early with a
misbehaving strobe, but gets some good shots first.
Dive 15: 3 Fathom Wall: 23.9m for 53 min. Viz 30m, buddy Andy.
Andy has spotted an intriguing canyon, so we set off to explore. Lined
with sponges, it passes under a high arch at 20m and splits into a couple
of dead ends before one branch becomes a secret tunnel popping us out onto
the reef top like worms from a hole.
The weather isn't ideal - a tropical depression sits over the Caymans for
most of the week, and huge breakers are crashing on the other side of the
island. It is calm enough here in the lee, though, just a little swell at
the safety stop, a few showers and grey skies.
Dive 16: The Meadows: 19.2m for 55 min. Viz 30m, buddies Kuty/Andy.
Lock up your daughters, here come the Hells Angelfish! It’s time to take
the rental Apollo scooters out for a spin, Kuty, Andy and I zoom about the
reef terrorising man and beast. It is strange being able to outrun - for
once - many of the creatures. No such luck with the resident ‘cuda though -
he just plays with us, staying as usual just out of reach with lazy tail
sweeps.
Russ takes a fly-by picture, and I swoop down to have a look - a little too
fast. Damn! If I wasn’t already a little sniffly it wouldn’t matter, but
this time I get a pain in the right ear which clears only after extensive
jaw-wriggling. Rising back up to the reef top afterwards I get a twinge of
reverse block and it is obvious the damage has been done. Andy's scooter
is near to running flat - I swap with mine, call it a day and head for the
hang chain.
Day 5:
Dive 17: Great Wall: 33.2m for 53 min. Viz 30m, buddy Kuty.
I skip a few dives to rest my ears - which is the only reason I didn't get
up for the 3am dive that Kuty, Russ, Elisa and Lauren did last night,
honest! - and go in really easy on this one, creeping down the stern line
to 5m to be sure my ears are OK. They behave themselves pretty well, and I
get to fall straight down the wall until it disappears - still plumb
vertical - far below my MOD. Huge barrel sponges and snow-laden tufts of
black coral decorate the wall down into the abyss.
Dive 18: Joy's Joy: 20.4m for 68 min. Viz 30m, buddy Kuty.
The reef that Kuty and I swim over here is sadly in terrible shape - the
coral is choked by thick clumps of snotty green algae. Hmmm. There must
be a sewage outlet or something nearby - fasten lips tightly round reg.
More evidence - those old poo-eating scavengers, Lobster, are hanging
around in the open. There is the largest green moray of the week in a
small ravine, and the reef flat is pleasant as usual, spending the last 15
mins of the dive watching goatfish shelter in sinkholes in just a couple of
metres up on the hardpan.
We have been promised a storm and a half for the crossing back to Grand
Cayman - a small craft warning has been in place for the last couple of
days, and there is every possibility of a hurricane developing - so Captain
Tom decides to cut the afternoon dives and make the crossing in daylight.
It doesn't gets as bad as all that, even though the boat rolls like a
drunkard - anything not fastened down (including the jacuzzi) crashes
about - a weeks worth of sea legs make this seem far easier than the first
crossing.
Day 6:
Dive 19: Stingray City: 3.3m for 48 min. Viz 5m.
Most people on board (yes, me included) are affecting world-weary poses 'Of
course, I'm *far* to experienced to get excited about such a touristy dive
as this, but I suppose I'll join everyone else in the water', but
nonetheless everyone comes out grinning. It is a hoot being mugged by
hungry Stingrays - even before the squidbait comes out, one has a damn good
chew at my sleeve, and leading a metre wide ray about by the nose with a
fistful of squid is comical. Yellowtail snapper have also learned the
feeding routine, and any stray bits of tentacle poking from between
clenched fingers will be taken by force, with injuries if necessary.
Lauren has managed to smear squid juice on her wetsuit, and disappears
below a scrum of eager rays.
Dive 20: Devil's Grotto: 16.7m for 49 min. Viz 20m, buddy Kuty.
Within sight of the harbour, the last dive of the trip could be nothing
more than an afterthought, but a couple of minutes in I see a lone turtle
out over the sand, and set off in pursuit. I read somewhere that the best
way to get close to a turtle is to use it's own vanity - swim parallel to
them, let them know you've seen them, but then appear to find something
else much more interesting. Before long, the turtle will be muscling over
to say "Oy! Wat'cha lookin at? Looka ME!" and what do you know, it works!
I get to swim with him for five minutes or so, my best turtle action of the
trip.
I catch up with Kuty, but keeping pace with the turtle in borrowed Jetfins
has burnt gas like there is no tomorrow, and I have to cut short. Danna
and Lauren enliven the safety stop with a kung-fu routine.
How can a week - and not far short of 19 hours underwater - go so quickly?
Roll on the next NEDfest...
Cheers,
Huw
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http://www.huwporter.com
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