19 - 26 Feb 2000
The arrangement with World of Vacations, Air Transaat, and Island Air got us and our luggage there and back on schedule, but was a bit more eventful than I would have liked. Flexibility is the key. A couple of neat things, that I saw for the first time ever, were pilots wearing shorts & runners, and the co-pilot's seat allocated to a passenger.
Our room was clean & comfortable with functional plumbing and electricity. That is about all you can ask for. The food was fantastic. There was a book exchange, but only about a dozen books. Half of the books were English, the rest looked German. Entertainment consisted of sitting around and engaging in delightful repartee with the other guests. And it was indeed delightful.
Possibly the best I have ever seen. These guys have service down to an art form. They give each diver a numbered mesh gear bag. When you sign up for a dive, they bring your gear to the boat and set it up. Final adjustments are of course, the responsibility of the diver. On the boat, on and off with it, and at the end of the cruise, they rinse it out and bring it back to the shop. On the first and last day of diving, they even deliver to and from the room.
They have a nice method for getting divers off the boat. The drill is that the diver sits on a ledge at the back of the boat and puts on mask & fins. Either the Captain or DM will bring the tank/BC to the diver who puts in on, stands up and jumps in.
Another nice thing is that they leave the diver in charge of their own dives. They make recommendations, but each diver is on their own. A DM will enter the water on each dive, but since they deem it more important helping the diver on and off the boat, the DM is the last diver in and first diver out.
Air temps were in the mid 80s and it was usually windy. Water temps were in the high 70s and the water was usually a bit rough due to the wind. There was usually a bit of current.
The night before I left, I looked at my dive watch and noticed the battery was dead. Pas de probleme, there was a dive shop at the resort so I bought a new watch. On the first day, the wife noticed that her console was flooding. I offered to install the spare console, but she said, "Naw". Her dives, her decision. On the very last dive of the trip, the needle on her pressure gauge broke, but the DM gave her a spare regulator that just happened to be on the boat, or maybe it was the DM's regulator, and we carried on with the dive.
The boat left for a two tank dive and 0900 hrs. The first dive would be on a wall where, the top of the wall was anywhere between 50 and 70 feet. The second dive would be on a spur and groove formation where it would be hard to exceed 50 ft without a shovel. On really rough days, the boat would come back to the resort for the surface interval. The afternoon boat left at 1430 hrs to another spur and groove dive site.
The coral was a little beat up from 60 ft up, but in good condition at greater depths. While large fish were not in large abundance, smaller ones were. There seemed to be a lot of Fairy Basslets and Yellowheaded Jawfish. Interestingly enough, there were very few Sgt Majors. Also saw a good collection of Sting & Eagle Rays and turtles. Also got a close up look at a Flying Gurnard. That was neat.
They had something very rare at Cayman Brac - a dive site named after a fish (Tarpon Reef) where you can actually see that type of fish.
We also had a visit from Spot, the local wild but friendly dolphin. Our boatload only got to visit him on a surface swim after the second dive, but according to divers from the other boat, Spot also visited them during the dive.
The new wreck, Destroyer 356, aka the Keith Tibbetts or something, is a pretty neat site. It has almost no growth on it, so it still looks like a ship. There are places where you can penetrate, but that is not my thing, so I did not bother.
This was the first time I brought an ankle weight ( 1 lb ) with me to help adjust my trim. Put it around the tank valve and took a pound off the belt. Worked quite well. It was noticeably easier to stay horizontal.
Did 15 dives altogether, and the deepest I bothered to go was 83 ft.
Was even more fun than a week on rec.scuba.
| Trip Dates2000-02-19 to 2000-02-25 | Trip Report Index |