Little Cayman Yet Again!

Cattle class. Even the thought brings feelings of dread from seasoned passengers. Although some airlines are attempting to relieve the strain on travelers by providing more leg room, the vast majority of aircraft still are configured in a way that makes passengers feel much more like cows being led to slaughter than paying customers.

And so it was that the next saga of Little Cayman began. 5 am wake up call, trip to Dulles, and the first line. The line that extended what looked for miles. We had arrived with an hour and 1/2 to spare and were grateful for every moment. The helpful counter person gave us the exit row we’d asked for, we’d met up with John and Deane, the other couple on this adventure, and without much adieu were off through security, onto the midfield shuttle, and boarding the American Airlines flight. The old but serviceable 727 reversed out of the gate at Dulles, to be towed into Miami’s gate, a process that still confuses me. Then, it was hunting for Cayman airways. Unfortunately, this travelogue is interrupted at this point since my fingers have left the keyboard. I am being slammed into by the person behind me while she loudly complains to the flight attendant about my 2 inches I was allowed to push my seat back. Unfortunately also, the bitching is continuing as her knees dig into my back. This likely tells you something about the configuration of Cayman Air flights. If they wonder how "air rage" begins, I can likely give them a few pointers.

Well, back to the sequence. We actually found the Cayman Air counter, nestled somewhere around the G gates, were all 4 seated together (pretty neat, eh) and directed to the gate area. Curiously enough, at the gate the emergency door alarm was going off. None of the security people seemed phased by this in the least, ignoring the door and going about their business, even when people came close and likely could have exited through it onto the tarmac.

After an almost on time departure (that’s one for two, Cayman Airways J ) we were on our way. The Cayman Airways 737-200 is not being operated by those who subscribe to the "let’s reconfigure so passengers don’t get so pissy" school of aviation management. Immediately on taxi, the child in front of me slammed his seat back so hard it jolted. Unable to compensate by pushing my seat back (for fear of getting whiplash from being kicked by the lovely woman behind me), I am in a rather curious physical position, eating my Famous Amos oatmeal raisin cookies (much better than peanuts or pretzels I must say) and being very happy that this flight is only a little over an hour in length.

Wes, as usual, has been wonderful. He made sure I got out of bed, made sure we showered the night before so we would have some time, gave Spot the wonder cat his shot before we left, and even helped me with the bags. Now he is looking serene, eyes closed and breathing deeply, completely unaware of the passenger behind’s urge to kill me.

540 mph, 23,000 feet on the way to Grand Cayman. Once we arrive there, we will have 4 hours with which to hang out in the airport or go shopping before our flight to Little Cayman. As we fly over Cuba, I am reminding of the time with Reece when we started a rumor. We were on a cruise ship at the time, sailing past Fidel’s lovely country. I loudly said to him, in the hearing of some Americans, that we’d better be careful since it was illegal for Americans to look at Cuba. It didn’t take long for someone to kindly inform us that we really shouldn’t be looking over the railing if we were American, and we might get into trouble. Ah, the fun of rumors.

Once we arrived at Grand Cayman, we went to the Island Air check-in counter. And guess what? Nobody was there. Thus our plan to go into town and go shopping was thwarted. We waited in a line that never moved, likely because there was nobody working the counter. We were told that the designated ticket person would arrive in about an hour and 1/2. So we sat. And we sat. And we went and got some meat pie type things and sodas. And we sat some more. When the ticket person finally arrived and we finally got to the front of the line, we were told we were not going to be checked in until an hour prior to the flight. That, of course, would be 2 MORE hours of waiting. So I begged. We were finally allowed to check in after the 2:35 flight went. Of course, we were charged 50 cents per pound for each pound over our 55 pounds of luggage allowed per person. At least they took the luggage, which is always helpful to photographers who carry a gazillion pounds of stuff. Exactly on time, we boarded the Island Air twin otter and off we went once again to the little dirt landing strip they call the Little Cayman Airport.

Waiting at the airport, just like every other time, was Anthony with his Little Cayman Beach Resort van, ready to pick us all up and whisk us off to the condos. We checked in at the resort, saw Cathy the bartender who fell over and asked if we were getting married this time. Nope, not quite yet. We saw the wonderful Scottish woman behind the desk whose name I forget (ok, just shoot me). Then it was off to the condos. We were in Conch Club 1, a wonderful 3 bedroom two floor condominium with a TV in just about every room, full modern kitchen, bathroom for each bedroom, remote control lights, televisions, and ceiling fans, and a wonderful place to stay in paradise. We highly recommend it. The only drawback is that you have to walk or bicycle to the resort for meals if you’re on the meal plan. It’s not really feasible to cook meals here even if you do have the time and means to get to the small supermarket and buy materials. Logistically, if you love to dive, you won’t have the time to get from the Little Cayman Beach Resort dock back to the condos, cook, eat, and get back to the dock in time for the afternoon dives. It makes much more sense to just eat at the resort. Food is likely better too, if you consider that anything I cook would be…..uh……"different."

The way things work is that you leave most of your gear at the resort, the BC, weights, and regulator on the boat, everything else in the drying shed. The only thing that gets taken back and forth is the camera gear. The Conch Club Divers guys, Captain Bill, Tim and Dan, transport that in their truck. That is definitely a lifesaver when you consider that my camera gear weighs at least 15 lbs or so.

Monday morning was our first set of dives. We showed up and got to annoy Liz, who never answers her email or instant messages (naughty Liz). Then it was onto the Sea-Esta to Lea Lea’s Lookout, also known as Jack’s Jump. The reason why it’s called Jack’s Jump is, as we are told, someone called Jack committed suicide there by deliberately descending below either 240 or 340 feet, depending on who tells the story. They know this because a divemaster went down after him, catching him and bringing the body back. He knew that the man was likely dead since he could see him below him with his regulator out of his mouth, motionless. The man had left a suicide note, asking that everyone forgive him including the divemaster. We were very grateful that the divemaster had removed the body, however. We had quite an interesting dive, seeing many cool things, as we always do. Second dive of the morning was Barracuda Bight where we saw no barracuda but did see puffers and a scorpion fish. Water temperature was really nice, approximately 85, and visibility was marvelous. The afternoon dive was a place I don’t even remember, but it sure had a ton of shrimp. All kinds of shrimp. Banded coral, peppermint, Peterson’s, all kinds of shrimp.

Tuesday morning we were up in time, and got our buns onto the boat. We were headed for Randy’s Gazebo, but we never actually got there. You see, as we were heading out there, someone yelled "DOLPHIN." As might be recalled from previous iterations of Little Cayman trips, we had traveled by evil boat all the way to Cayman Brac, an hours worth of ride, all the way out to the Russian Frigate in order to hopefully see Spot the dolphin. Each time, no Spot. Yet this time, on Little Cayman there he was. Everyone jumped off the boat with snorkel gear and started playing with Spot. Spot was amazing. He certainly seemed to love the attention, and loved playing with people. He played with the weighted chain that hung from the boat, 15 feet below for safety stops. He played on the mooring line. He played with the regulator that hung at 15 feet with the chain (just in case someone runs out of air during the safety stop). He played with us. It was the greatest dive I ever had, playing with Spot. It was something I’ll always remember. I got a few pictures, but not too terribly many because my camera was set up for macro. Oh well. That didn’t matter, however. I got to play with Spot J .

Second dive of the morning was off to Ringers Wall. It was necessary for us to leave the area, because soon every boat in the whole marine park knew that Spot was there and had descended upon the place in droves. It was amazing to see the lemmings jumping almost in synchronized lines off the backs of the boats. We got out just in time. At Ringers we saw a gorgeous eagle ray gliding over the top of the reef. He was absolutely gorgeous.

During the lunch interval, I went back to the condo and brought out my dome port and 18 mm wide angle lens. That was actually a great idea since we went to Marilyn’s Cut where someone was waiting for us. Spot was there again! Two times in one day to play with the gorgeous dolphin. It was magnificent. We passed the camera back and forth to get pictures of each other with Spot. No matter what else happened, the week was made. Spot was definitely worth the price of admission.

Tuesday night we went on a night dive. Instead of our expected trip to the Soto Trader, we went to Windsock Reef. There were several people there on their first night dives, and it certainly showed. Although Liz’s dive briefing was very specific and precise as to shutting dive lights off on the way up the ladder, to making sure not to shine dive lights in people’s eyes, etc., they heard but did not listen. They traveled around in a pack, lights swinging everywhere, looking like a group of underwater Borg. One of them kicked Deane in the head, and was later rewarded by being stung by sea wasps when she refused to turn her light off on the way up the ladder, attracting them. Of course, the light swinging off her BC hit me square in the eye, but also illuminated a couple of sea wasps heading for me that I could fend off with air from my octopus. To make things worse, my pictures didn’t come out well. Unfortunately, they included pictures of a Clearmouth Skate, a beautiful octopus, and a strange looking circular jello like creature that was white with black speckles. Very disappointing. We’re still not sure if it was just bad film (it had a green tinge to it when it was supposed to be black) or something with the camera synch. It wasn’t the photo chemicals because other people’s film came out fine in the same batch. Very strange.

Wednesday’s dives were nauseating. Likely because it was a bit bumpy and we took an hour long boat ride to the Brac for the boring ole Russian Frigate again. We skipped the boat for the most part, and slithered onto the coral patches nearby. We saw a few critters, and we saw Norman the evil green moray that gets really angry if you take his picture. Luckily, only Wes tried to take the picture J .

The second dive of the morning was Jackson’s Reef. I love Jackson’s Reef. It’s a great dive site. We decided to sit out the afternoon and just hang out. We took a nice long nap, then got back to the resort in time to have a nice dinner with Liz, have a few drinks, and relax.

Thursday morning it was time to experiment with wide angle. Off to Randy’s Gazebo we went, where we got to mess around with funny attempted portrait shots. If they are on the page, then they came out. If not, well there goes my synch problem again. I will blame the gods of Fuji film and Sea and Sea housings. Second morning dive was the Meadows. I love this dive. There are lots of sandy places, as well as beautiful coral heads. The sandy places included tons of yellow headed jawfish. They were everywhere, drifting out of their holes up to about 3 feet. When you come near, they slip backwards down into the holes tail first. It’s rather interesting to try to figure out how they know exactly where they are without looking when backing into the holes. Afternoon dive was my personal favorite, mixing bowl. We got to play with Ben and Jerry the resident pet groupers who follow divers around and look to be petted. We frolicked around with them for awhile, then snuck off and followed a stingray, tried sneaking up on garden eels, and otherwise were strange.

Friday morning, 6 am. We woke to high winds, thunder and lightning. Looking out the patio doors, the seas looked to be about 3 feet inside the cut, and higher outside. Someone in a motor boat was heading out to who knows where, and was being tossed all over the place. Looked like a real live little storm. Things did not bode well for diving, or even for making our way to the resort for breakfast. Here at the condo, we had 1/4 of a box of wheat thins, some chocolate, and some tea. That might hold us until lunch. If we can get to lunch, that is. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any information on the island about weather and warnings and all of that. The radio was useless. Everything was broadcast in Spanish. The Weather Channel was in English, but it was tough to find anything about the Caymans. It’s difficult when the "local" station is in Miami. The question is….will the electricity hold out until they show the Caribbean forecast? A loss of electricity would be a real problem here, given that we’d lose air conditioning too. Can’t open the windows without drowning.

So guess what? We went diving anyway. Seems that Captain Bill knew something we didn’t. He figured the leeward side of the island would be calm enough to dive once we got out of the cut. When we arrived at the resort, wet and soggy as our bicycles, we found the Reef Divers staff rushing around preparing for their morning dives. They were all wearing heavy windbreakers with hoods pulled tight around their faces. When I asked one "divemaster who shall remain nameless" why they were diving today, they said "because you idiots want to." This became the quote of the day since it was so apropos.

As it was, Captain Bill was correct about the weather being better on the leeward side. Unfortunately, however, we had to actually get out of the cut and slip on over there. That was not easy. It was actually more like bump, crash, and get thrown from side to side over to the other side of the island. Seas were quite high; I’d estimate about 5 feet. Although I wanted to chum for the fish, I held back for fear of being picked on. We went to Bus Stop first. It was most interesting. Visibility had been cut slightly due to the rain and wind, but the lack of people on the boat more than made up for that. We saw many jawfish, and other macro creatures. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a macro lens set up on the camera. I had an 18 mm wide angle instead. That was a royal frustration. Next it was on to Marilyn’s Cut. Although there is fabled to be a seahorse there, we didn’t see one (although we looked). We saw french angels, and a bunch of other cool things. We also saw Ben and Jerry, two tame groupers that we got to play with. That was serious fun. What was NOT serious fun was coming back through the cut and being tossed around the boat. Luckily, my stomach contents remained where they belonged — in my stomach.

Afternoon dive was Joy’s Joy. There we saw a nurse shark that bolted prior to our ability to catch up with it. We knew John wouldn’t believe that we had seen one, since he had been complaining all week about wanting to see a shark. Unfortunately, he didn’t see this one either. This divesite was rather interesting with lots of canyons, grassy patches with clusters of feather dusters, lettuce leaf slugs, tons of Peterson’s shrimp, and lots of tiny critters. Of course, I was using the wide angle lens. Wide angle would have been great for the nurse shark, but it didn’t stick around long enough. It WAS good for the midnight parrot fish and the huge french angel. It was also good for shots of playing with Ben, Spot, and other large critters. Unfortunately, Spot was nowhere to be found. It is thought he went back to Cayman Brac. Although it’s easy to whine about it, we actually got to play with a wild dolphin not once, but twice. That is rather amazing for any one lifetime.

As night fell on Friday night, the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in. It could be quite interesting come tomorrow.

Tomorrow came, and our last day of diving was quite bumpy. The seas pitched, the tourists tripped, and Mikki came close to barfing but not quite. I floated in the water for the dive briefings. This seemed to help a lot, so I am trying to figure out how I can be towed along the back of the boats when diving from now on. We’ll see if they go for it.

Saturday’s dives were to Cumbers Caves, where we saw an Eagle Ray that didn’t let me close enough to take great pictures, but I actually snapped a few. Second dive was Sara’s Set where I was using macro and got shots of a cute little blue eyed crab. Real nice dives to end the vacation with.

After diving, it was a moral imperative to make a board so Wes decided to get completely polluted and paint a little board with the cyberdive URL on it and cute little hearts and stuff. If you go to the resort, you will find our board nailed over the entrance to the bathroom, so everyone will see it at least once in awhile. John and Deane also did a board and put it up on the opposite end of the bar. It’s actually very nice with a little poem on it. As we were getting quite drunk, we dragged Naomi and Liz into our misery about leaving, causing them to also drink entirely too much. After a fun dinner and much more drinking of alcohol, we went to sleep for an early rise to catch an Island Air flight out of Little Cayman.

Or so we thought. We woke up to find out that one of the Island Air planes had broken down the day before making for a backlog from hell for Sunday, the day we wanted to fly out. After much sniffling and talking about our 12:50 flight on Cayman Air to Miami, they promised they would get us on board an airplane "real soon." Wes went to phone Cayman Air about whether they could wait a bit for us in case we were late. Wes got good news and bad news. The good news was that they would wait. The bad news was that they would wait until 5:30. Yet another day stuck at the Grand Cayman airport. But wait, there’s more…

Arrival in Miami at 7:45 would mean that we would miss any and all possible connections from Miami to Dulles. There were also no flights to National or to BWI from Miami that night. The best Cayman Air could do was to put us up in a hotel for the night in Miami and get us out to Washington at 7:45 in the morning on United. We agreed, and the arrived in Miami without incident. After arriving at the Cayman Air counter in Miami, the nice counter attendant got us hotel rooms at the Miami International Airport Hotel, right near the concourse we were currently standing in. The room was pretty good for a freebie. The restaurant was fantastic. We had an excellent meal, settled in to bed, and were awakened at 5 am by people vacuuming the floors outside the room and very loud water pipes. We grumbled our way out of bed, made our way to the United counter, and waited to get checked in for the 7:45 flight. But wait, there’s more…

United informed us that they had cancelled the Dulles flight and our only choice was to go to Chicago, then to National. Knowing that there were serious thunderstorms in the midwest that day, we stood our ground and insisted they find us a flight on another airline. They told us they couldn’t even though they were Cayman Air partners in their Star Alliance thing, and we would have to go wait in the line from hell at Cayman Air. We refused and told them they’d better fix it because we had originally had flights on American, and our tickets were taken and we were given to United, therefore we were now their problem. They stole a supervisor from Cayman Air, our tickets were redone, and we went off to American to catch the 9:05 flight to DCA. But wait, there’s more….

After waiting in the line from a deeper hell than Cayman Air, we got to the front, actually got seats in the exit row (yay legroom!) we were told that all four of us had been randomly chosen to receive the special prize of getting our luggage X rayed. Seems they may not have believed us when we told them our scuba bags did NOT contain tanks. So, off to X ray our tons of stuff went while we stood in another line while they put our bags in this huge monster of a thing that they cautioned us to have our film out of first. Of course they found nothing interesting, so they put our stuff on the plane, we got to DCA, bussed to IAD, and finally, at long last, got home.

Again, a great vacation with lousy transit. Again I didn’t take my own airplane. Again I kicked myself for doing so. Maybe someday I’ll actually learn J