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Here is the Captain's Log from our trip.
June 21-28, 2008 (Photo: Mike Y. chasing a turtle on the
pre-breakfast dive at Three-Fathom Wall, Little Cayman.)
Water Temperature 82-84 deg F (27-28 Celsius)
Visibility 75 to 100 ft. and more! Air Temperature 80-85
deg
Wet suits: 3 mil to shorts and rash guards or skin.
Crew this week: Capt. Jon, Photo Pro Marc, Chef Savio,
Instructors Cassie & Samantha, Stewardess Muriaroha.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
This week the Cayman Aggressor IV welcomes The Dive Shop
from the Washington, D.C., area on board for a week of
diving and adventure! Hello everyone, once again from
George Town, Grand Cayman. With one late arrival
scheduled, we settled in for the Captain's safety
briefing and Chef Savio's famous welcome barbecue dinner
at the dock in George Town. With everyone on board by 8,
we decided to spend the night at the dock and let some
of the guests do some last-minute shopping.
Sunday, June 22, 2008 ESE 10-15
With an early wake-up call by our two big diesel engines
as we pulled away from George Town, we all got ready for
our first dive of the week at the wreck of the Doc
Polson. This cool little wreck, resting on a sandy
bottom in 50', is a great "check out" dive. Today we saw
a couple of Southern stingrays, brown spotted eel,
lobster, and also got our first look at a nice cleaning
station loaded with arrow crabs, Pederson cleaner shrimp
and pistol shrimp. After two dives here we headed around
to the northwest point of Grand Cayman and Bonnie's
Arch. This site offers a very unique formation carved
out of the coral wall. Under the arch today we spotted a
school of horse eye jacks, a couple of turtles, the
resident salt-water crocodile, a couple of flamingo
tongues and a school of curious Caribbean reef squid.
Soon it was time to pull the ladders, secure the yacht,
and head around to the north side of Grand Cayman and
make our way across to Little Cayman!
Monday, June 23, 2998 ENE 15
There is always something special about waking up in
Bloody Bay after a nice crossing, and this morning was
no different. A beautiful sunrise at Randy's Gazebo got
our first day of Little Cayman diving started. The two
morning dives at Randy's produced a shark, eagle ray,
green moray eel, yellow ray, several lobster, and a very
friendly turtle. After lunch we moved up into Jackson's
Bight and our afternoon/night dive spot, Bus Stop. This
site, referred to by the local divemasters as "Bus Top",
because you used to be able to see the top of an old
school bus from the site, is part of Shark Alley and
Jackson's Wall. Today we had our sharks, a couple more
turtles, a feeding eagle ray, several sea anemone and a
really good look at a feeding rainbow parrotfish. The
night dive was a good one, too, with octopus, more
squid, sleeping turtle, nurse shark, and several shrimp
and lobster.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 ENE 15-20
This morning we picked up and moved back into the Bloody
Bay area and our first site of the day, Lea Lea's
Lookout. Lea Lea's has two distinct features: first, a
nice crevice that leads to the edge of the wall and a
beautiful pinnacle full of schooling snapper and
lobster. If you go a little further along the wall you
come to another, deeper crevice sometimes called "The
Great Room" This crevice stays at around 75' until it
dead-ends and you go straight up to the top of the reef.
Today we saw a nurse shark, more turtles, barracuda, and
tons of little stuff like arrow crabs and cleaner
shrimp. After lunch we moved back into the Jackson Bight
area for our last three dives of the day at The Meadows.
Connected to Bus Stop, this area is a continuation of
"Shark Alley" with some amazing coral heads mixed in by
the mooring line. Today the resident lemon shark was
cruising all afternoon along with another eagle ray,
stingrays, lobster, crabs, and some really nice
anemones. After dinner, the night divers who braved the
dark were well-rewarded! The lemon shark came back,
along with several crabs out in the open, octopus,
lobster, sleeping turtle and feeding stingray! A bunch
of happy divers enjoyed hot towels and hot chocolate as
they talked about another amazing dive.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 E 20
With the wind picking up a bit today we opted to stay up
in the Jackson Bight area for our first dives of the
day. Sarah's Set, a deep sloping section of Jackson's
Wall is a beautiful drift-over-the-top-of-the-reef kind
of dive. Still part of Shark Alley, we weren't
disappointed and kept the shark streak alive. More
turtles and some squid back up on the shallow mini-wall
area rounded out another two great dives. Lucky for
Carrie it was her 100th dive, so we took the opportunity
to "make her a cake" right before lunch! After lunch we
moved down just a few mooring lines to the boarder of
Jackson Bight and Bloody Bay and our afternoon/night
dive site, Three-Fathom Wall. Sometimes called "the
Mixing Bowl", this site is one of the best sites
anywhere. Today was no disappointment, with a couple of
cruising sharks, turtles, several yellow-headed jawfish,
stingray, lobsters, and tons of little stuff up on the
top of the wall. After dinner it was time for another
night dive. Tonight, with the moon not quite up yet, it
was nice and dark and full of life in the mixing bowl. A
couple of nice octopus, eels, sleeping turtles, and a
curious school of reef squid made it worth the effort!
Thursday, June 26, 2008 ENE 17
Rise and shine early bird divers!! Time for a
"pre-breakfast" dive, not quite a pre-dawn dive, with
the sun already peeking over the horizon, but the
perfect time for fish action none the less. This morning
we had fun with a couple of feeding turtles, lots of
barracuda and every fish on the reef coming to life and
heading off to work for the day! Next we moved back to
the tip of Jackson Bight and Nancy's Cup of Tea. This
site has so much to offer, from little things to big
things. Today Sammie located two pipehorses. That's
right, not quite pipefish, not quite seahorse. Toss in a
couple of sharks, turtles, lobster, an eagle ray and a
beautiful wall and you have our average dive this week!
With one dive left here in Little Cayman before we had
to head back to Grand Cayman we chose the Great Wall.
Freddy the friendly Nassau grouper and all his buddies
were there waiting for us. Everyone got a nice photo op
with these guys and enjoyed one of the best wall dives
in the business. With the wind behind us and a boat full
of happy divers we headed back towards Grand Cayman
while we enjoyed Chef Savio's Thanksgiving turkey!
Friday, June 27, 2008 E15
This morning we were all rested from a nice crossing
back to the George Town area of Grand Cayman and ready
for our last two dives of the week. With all the
silversides and tarpon being spotted in Devil's Grotto
we decided to do two dives there. That turned out to be
a good decision, with one of the swim-thrus loaded with
the thread herring, sometimes called silversides, and
tons of tarpon! Bait balls and big-eyed tarpon were the
highlights of the last two dives of the week. The last
dive turned out to be Marie Celeste's 100th, so we had a
big celebration on the back deck in her honor. Now it's
back to George Town for an afternoon of shopping and
relaxing until our farewell wine and cheese party at
six, our chance to say thank you to everyone (and have a
little fun) for another awesome week of diving and
adventure on the Cayman Aggressor IV. Congratulations
again to Carrie and Marie Celeste for their 100th dives
this week. Also, congratulations to Tina and her son
Mike (this trip was his graduation present "Thanks,
Mom!") for completing a Digital Underwater Photography
course with Marc. Special thanks once again to Geoff and
Amy from The Dive Shop for bringing us a great group of
divers from the Virginia area.
Until next week,
Capt. Jon Kreider
Cayman Aggressor IV |
