In too deep

Well that was a shock to the system!! It was just the other week we were diving in 28 degree waters now it's back to throwing ourselves off a boat into 6 degrees. 

Warm water diving is great, but diving in the Scotland is far more challenging and for me more rewarding as you have to work hard to find the good stuff and the conditions are harsher. Call me a masochist if you must.....

Winter repairs for the boats

It's still a while before the season officially starts but as we dive all year round, we jump off a boat whenever we can and luckily the conditions were good for Saturday. Not too many boats where on the go and the numbers aboard were low. Peter still has some work to do on Selkie, Paul had nearly a full compliment on Tiger Lily and Billy was going mad in his new Wavedancer powered by ridiculously large engines! I'm sure you could feel the wake hitting the shores of Norway....

We were jumping of Pathfinder with Captain O, and the fact there was only five of us made the deck management even better.

I elected not to take my camera rig with me due to some changes I had made to my cylinder configurations and I want to do some shut down drills without faffing with taking photos.

The set up worked perfectly but I am kicking myself a bit for not taking the camera. First dive was on Black Carr (never a bad dive on Black Carr) where the wolfies were being difficult little buggers, but right above the anchor on the wall, Elaine spotted a nice big lumpsucker gliding along which is unusual to see them out and about as opposed to hiding amongst the kelp.

Not many boats out today

We hid Ebb Carr for a second splash and and again found another big lumpsucker cruising along in the open. Never a camera in your hand when you need one.....

With a vis of about five metres and quite a surge underneath and some chop above, it was typical for this time of the year on the East coast but I wouldn't have missed the chance to get into the cold waters again. 

Two weeks time, we'll jump back in weather permitting but next weekend we have our final powerboat course which will be a long weekend with most of it done at night time. Challenging!

End of days

Well the last couple of days in the Keys were nice apart from the torrential rain! Every other time we've been there it's been glorious sunshine but I think we lucked out this visit.

Not quite singing in the rain

The stores make an absolute fortune selling rain capes to the tourists. I'm obviously in the wrong line of work. We didn't decide to do any diving whilst we were at the Keys but it's probably just as well as we got two days free diving just walking around!

Mallory Square. No sunset here today.

And this also meant that the ritual of watching the sunset in Mallory Square didn't happen which was a shame but at least we did the usual tourist type things which we always do when we come here. Like go to the Southernmost point.

The girls head South

And enjoy the sights of the Southern most chickens. Which is fitting as chickens have played a consistently key role during the entire holiday!

Not Kentucky Fried, just Southern Wet Chicken

Also on this visit we went and had a look at the Mel Fisher museum which is always worth a visit, especially if you've been brought up on stories of high adventure on the seven seas and watched Errol Flynn buckle his swash.

Getting very wet and not happy by this time

Another place we definitely had to visit whilst we were here was Blue Heaven to try the Key Lime pie. We've pie before down here, but several people recommended Blue Heaven.

Blue sign for Blue Heaven, with strange women hanging around on street corners.....

The pie was excellent, the girls thought there was too much meringue on the pie, but I thought it was just right with a nice base and sharp lime filling. Service was utter pants though, so best just to get in there, eat the pie and go.

Some great pie

We kick started breakfast the following day with a visit to Dennys. I know its hardly adventurous, but the choice is good and the food is good.

Why cant we get food that looks and tastes this good back home???

Some last minute t-shirt shopping and a hunt for some knick-knacks, reluctantly loaded up the car and headed back up US 1 to Miami and the homeward flight. Excellent diving, superb sights and lots of fun. One day soon we'll be back to do it all again......

On the road again.....

Back to the past.....or is it the future?

Caymans was a great experience and a grand time was had by all, so it was sad to leave it all behind. On the plus side we had a night in Miami and a couple of days in the Keys, so it wasn't all bad. One thing I really wanted to do on the drive to the Keys was stop off at the Diving Museum in Islamorada. I never managed to get there on previous visits to the Keys, but this time it was happening.

Old, older, oldest.....

Its a great way to spend an hour or two if you're down in the Keys and if you have any sort of interest in diving at all, it should definitely be on the list of things to do. Even non divers would find it interesting as they make reference to lots of things even non-divers would have heard of; Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea, Seahunt, etc., stuff that people would have grown up hearing about.

Where it all began

And there's plenty of interactive activities to keep people occupied as well, such as the "How long you can hold your breath" test. I'll admit that I gave up at 1m 22s.

Mabs puts in a time of 43 seconds, the quietest she's been the whole holiday!

They also boast one of the largest collections of antique diving helmets in the world and you get a full voice guided tour through the history of them and key events involving them.

So many helmets to choose from

They also had an excellent section on underwater photography and filming over the years with the pioneers who have brought the underwater world to dry land prominently displayed like Lottie and Hans Hass, Roy Miner and Wes Skiles to name a few.

Always one of the most interesting exhibits for me

They also had a great selection of homemade diving helmets made by people over the years, some showing great ingenuity and most being downright scary! And they show the pressure damage to prove it too. Nutters.

Mabs does her best to steal the 32kg ingot. Typical Dalkeith lass......

They also had a good history of conventional dive equipment over the years with display charting the evolution of rebreathers and open circuit. The principals have always remained the same but the technology has come a long, long way. It's scary to think what it may be like 20 years from now.

Some early rebreathers....

.....and some early regulators

There was a scary moment during the visit though with an unusual sighting of a pair of marine creatures seldom seen, luckily I was quick enough to document it on camera. These pair make the yeti and the Loch Ness monster pale in comparison!

The creatures from the black lagoon! Run! Flee!

As you come to the end of the tour, there are some fine examples of atmospheric suits which look so heavy and cumbersome on land but can move so gracefully in the depths, demonstrating mans ability to continuously push the envelope and explore the oceans which we haven't even began to fully understand yet.

The girls take a new friend home with them

The museum is well worth your time, effort and support to keep it going and to help educate others about how man has strived to explore the unknown over the centuries. Hopefully it will still be around to witness the underwater technological breakthroughs over the years to come. And don't forget to buy a t-shirt!

This one fits!

The girls from Hell

The last day on the Island and we decided to get some sight seeing in which meant an obligatory visit to the tourist trap that is Hell. Literally, it is Hell.

Hell is........Hell

It's probably the most interesting three minutes of your life then there's nothing else to do. At least you can say you've been to Hell and back. Which is nice that Hell exists as there is certainly an over abundance of churches on the island. Nearly as many as there is chickens and that's saying something!

Lounging around in Hell

The scenery is made of short black limestone formations and speculation on how the place got it's name is a bit mixed but common consensus is that a local remarked that "This is what hell must look like". 

You can get all the t-shirts, nick-nacks and send postcards from Hell and all the other touristy stuff. When the cruise ships come in with the tourists then it gets pretty mobbed pretty quick.

Tourist cruise liners ready to spew their load on the quiet George Town waterfront

Thankfully the liners don't come in every day but when they do, George Town is mobbed and there is barely room to swing a chicken, I have no idea how the locals cope with it. Best to avoid the place like the plague on those days. 

The best place to be

As always when escaping the maddening crowds and you're looking for some solitude, the beach front with a white russian (the drink, not a woman!) is the best place to be. 

Drink in the scenery, drink up the alcohol and contemplate your navel. Bliss!

Diving with Cathy

One of the best gifts and opportunities I have had was to spend the day with Cathy Church. If you don't know who she is, Google her right now and then come back here. She's one of the best photographers above and below water of this generation and we had the good fortune to spend the day with her, to trade opinions, discuss techniques and learn some new tricks.
Cathy took a look at some of my previous work and was suitably impressed with it if I do say so myself (so it's not just me that has a high opinion of my work!)

The gateway to enlightenment......

Cathy herself is quite a character and has been there, seen it and done it. She's like your favourite Auntie who's had a couple of gins! She's just so friendly, enthusiastic and a real lively character. 

With just the four of us on Cathy's private boat (myself, Jill, Cathy and T to drive the boat) there was no rush to the day and we had plenty of opportunity for discussion, especially as Cathy had yet to see or use a Sony ILS camera system, so the pupil got to become the teacher for a little while. 

We hit Orange Canyon which is one of Cathy's favourite places for photography due to the colours and clarity. She also took plenty of time to coach Jill on how to be the perfect model in the water.

Cathy gives Jill some last minute advice before the shoot

Also over the next several days, Cathy gave me access to her extensive collection of ULCS kit to experiment and play with which shows great trust on her part! 

"Left a bit, right a bit, down a bit, shoot!"

So I got to play with some nice kit over the course of the week and try things on my own I wouldn't have been able to achieve back home without a great deal of time and expense. I did spend far too much money in her shop afterwards though, but hey, perfection always comes at a price.

Tranquility

Cathy also has the same approach to photography as myself which is there are no rules to photography. Play, adjust, experiment. Photography doesn't need to be difficult it just takes a little patience to play around to achieve something that you are happy with.

It's the little things in life

And we also spent a good second dive bimbling around doing macro shots (which is always dear to my heart) despite the lack of small critters on the Islands. You can set up some interesting shots if you try hard enough.

Cathy "borrows" some of my shots from the day... ;-)

The day was awesome and I learned a few things as well as the secret to everything in life. Unfortunately I can't tell you what it is but if you really want to know then I strongly suggest you go and spend time with Cathy and maybe, just maybe she will tell you what the secret to everything in life is........

The end to a perfect day

City of rays

Well for the last day and the last dive of the holiday we decided to do it in style and we would be remiss if we didn't do Stingray City.

Rays everywhere

We were in quiet season and we chartered a private boat so apart from one other boat, we were the only four people in the whole area diving, which was awesome!

Kisses from the rays

Now I know a lot of people think Stingray City is a tourist trap and rays should be fed and humans shouldn't interact with marine life, etc., etc. Yes, I firmly believe in non-contact with marine life and not interfering with their normal habits, but consider that the rays have been hand fed for over twenty years and there is now a symbiotic relationship which is unlikely to be be broken any time soon, would they survive without humans stopped visiting and feeding? probably not.

One of the many happy, friendly rays to visit us

Semantics and politics aside, it was a bloody good time had by all and the rays were all like big, medium and small puppy dogs flapping around you from all sides and gently bumping and nuzzling you for attention and tidbits.

Rays! Fishes! Girls!

The site isn't deep at just under five metres, so a hundred minutes on a standard two hundred bar fill is easily achieved and probably enough time to be all ray-ed out and gushing come time to go up.

Three amigos

Word of warning though, the sand here is incredibly fine and gets into every nook and cranny so make sure you flush your dive kit and camera rigs thoroughly. I'm still finding sand in places where sand shouldn't be.........

 

This little fella followed us around the whole dive

Whatever you may think about the wrongs and rights of Stingray City, put that to one side as you would be doing yourself a huge dis-service if you missed the opportunity to swim with these wondrous creatures, just go and enjoy the experience.

Grand diving on the big island

Little Cayman was very nice place to dive, we had a great place to stay and valet diving as well (which I personally can't get used to just because I'm used to doing everything myself) but it was very, very quiet and amazingly expensive if you decide to buy groceries from the only shop on the island. After a lot of dives and even more cocktails we moved over to Grand Cayman.

Coming in for a landing....

The big island has a bit more of a vibrant feel to it but still very, very laid back. We stayed on the East End of the island which is remote and quiet but you could still drive to civilization if you wanted a bit of fun. We had a great appartment overlooking the beach and just 5 metres from the sea and less than a minute from the jetty as well.

"Anchors away me hearties!"

Apart from the first day, the winds were relatively gusty running ENE which meant we were diving mainly on the South side of the island which was fine as the diving there was as good as on the North and East sides.

"That's it, work those flippers, love the camera!"

Normal script for the day would be wall dive followed by shallow dive on or near the hardpan, with occassional swim throughs and caves. Turltes were in plentiful supply along with jacks, groupers, grunts, rays and the occassional carribbean or reef shark making an appearance.

Stunning scenery

Even without the marine life, the walls and reefs are covered in an explosion of colours to keep the most ardent of photographers happily gurgling away in their regulators.

Sponges, corals and colour

My only slight disappointment is the lack of little critters such as nudibranchs. There is small stuff to see but not not on the scale as you would find in the Red Sea, Indonesia or Philippenes but then I expected this. Still it was a fun challenge to find what small stuff there was and shoot it in strong surge.

Found one!

The boat crews were primarily Brits, Americans and the odd Canadian and were very laid back about the whole thing. If you didn't want guiding, you can do your own thing which is exactly what we did and as long as we didn't kick the arse out out of the deco, they were more than happy to let us stay down for as long as we wanted. My kind of diving!

Once more unto the deep....

Grand Cayman itself isn't massively huge and you can drive round it in a couple of hours easily but thats not the point, it's the whole vibe and lifestyle that really makes you feel like you want to just not bother going back home. That and some excellent food and cocktails!

Flamingo tongue cowrie hanging around the reef

The quality of the diving is excellent and we were well looked after and catered for by Ocean Frontiers, especially the desk staff for who nothing was too much trouble to arrange. One of the best dives we had was the second to last on Jack McKinneys. 

Come to daddy....

Right from the start we had a black tip shadowing us soon joined by a couple of caribbean reefs. All through the dive they were getting comfortable with our presence and getting closer and more inquisitive. Had I ten more minutes of gas they would have been right up for a good nose but alas it was not to be.

No, not that way, this way!

Ah, well, there's always next time. The lads did say that shark encounters were a bit of a rarity and we were extremly lucky on the dive, so I can't complain really. Another day for another dive as my granny always said.

Red Reef crab on a sponge

Stay tuned for our last dive of the holiday at Stingray City. It's going to be a corker!