Grand Cayman Adventure - May 12, 2007

We woke up back at Grand Cayman on a site named Rum Point Drop-off. It was gray and raining very heavily, our first real rain for the week. As we jumped in we were told that there was some current, so we descended quickly to the reef. It turned out that it was more than a little current and we had trouble just getting to the reef. We hung on and rested for a minute, then Rick tried to swim up over the reef, but made almost no progress against the current. We decided to call the dive and as we ascended we were moved very quickly away from the reef. After a quick safety stop, we went to the surface, where we were about 200 yards from the boat. Fortunately the current wasn't so bad on the surface, so we just finned back to the boat. Tim had been swept further out, so Piers went in the dinghy to get him. It turned out that a bunch of people had similar dives.

For the second dive we moved to Bonnie's Arch. As we dropped down, the current was even stronger on this site. We called the dive after only a couple of minutes, but by the time we reached the surface, we had drifted quite a ways from the boat, and were drifting further away at a good clip. We could see Pete, Kevin and Denny between us and the boat, also drifting. Jamie set out in the dinghy to get us all. The six of us barely fit in the boat, and we were only marginally faster than the current getting back to the boat. Quite an exciting morning!

After lunch the boat moved to the wreck of the Oro Verde (translates to Green Gold, it was an old shrimp boat that had been used to transport marijuana). As promised, there was much less current. The wreck had recognizable sections and other portions that were just a jumble of wreckage. This made for lots of nooks and crannies for things to hide in, which was lots of fun. We saw a six foot green moray sticking it's head out in one spot, looking menacing as usual.

We skipped the second afternoon dive and hung out on the top deck of the boat. After a delicious turkey dinner and video and still presentations from the week, a bunch of us geared up for the night dive. Rick was determined to find an octopus and a bunch of other divers followed us around to get a glimpse. It was like a big search party, Rick out front with his 'Light Cannon', Randy close behind with the HD camera and bright lights, and a bunch of roving lights trailing behind, very fun!  

Amazingly Rick found two tiny octopus and Randy was able to get one of the on video as it jetted across the bottom. We also saw a slipper lobster, which looked like a giant prehistoric bug. Matt was not amused (and was bitten for the second time that day by a small fish!)