Grand Cayman Day 6

Thursday, May 6, 2010

We had another good day of diving. Again, we got up around 6:20 a.m. and had our breakfast and packed up our gear to head down to Ocean Frontiers for a two-tank morning dive. We got there a little early and checked in and then headed down to the boat. We departed about 8:30 a.m. and headed southwest for about 20 minutes to the first dive site. As is usual, the first dive was our deep dive, so we dove to about 100 feet. Eric and I decided to stick with the group on this dive. No large pelagic sitings on this dive, just the usual marine life. However, the crew did spot a Lion fish, which they captured and brought on board the boat.

We all got back on the boat and headed to the next dive site not too much further back east called Tarpon Terrace. Eric and I decided to go off on our own on this dive so we could take pictures and video at our leisure. I got some really good video of a midnight parrot fish, a gray angelfish, a French angelfish, and several lobsters. The crew also captured three more Lion fish on this dive. Lion fish are very pretty to look at, but they are a nonnative species that are moving into this area and if left unchecked will kill off many native species of fish. The Lion fish is equipped with poisonous spines that run down its back and unfortunately it has no predators to keep it under control. It is very unfortunate, but when the crew sees one they catch it and bring it on board to dispose of it.

We then all climbed back on the boat and headed back to Ocean Frontiers. When we started our day we heard a rumor that we had made it onto the night dive trip, so when we got back to Ocean Frontiers we checked at the desk to see if the rumor was true. We were amazed to find out that we had made it onto the night dive for tonight, which kind of surprised us because we were number three and four on the waiting list.

We returned for out night dive about 6 p.m. and headed out about 6:30 p.m. We went back to Sunset Reef, which is where they do all the night dives as it is a nice shallow dive with lots to see. We decided to go off on our own on this dive too. We saw several lobsters (one of them gigantic), an eel, a couple tiny squid, a sting ray, some banded shrimp, and a giant parrot fish After we climbed back on the boat we toweled off and enjoyed some hot chocolate and homemade blueberry muffins before returning to the dock.