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In June we went to the Caymans for ten days: five on Grand Cayman (pop. about 40,000) and five on Little Cayman (pop. about 100). We did a lot of scuba diving. On Grand Cayman we dived the East End area, and on Little Cayman most of our dives were in the Bloody Bay Wall area. The Caymans are at the edge of the continental shelf. The top of the shelf slopes gently down from the beach to a depth of around 45 feet, and then drops off dramatically to depths between 6,000 and 10,000 feet. Our dives were generally between 30 and 100 feet in depth, sometimes on the top of the wall, and sometimes further down. For those of you who don't dive, Bloody Bay Wall is known for having the best diving in this hemisphere, surpassed only by the Great Barrier Reef. After five days there, we agree. If you're using a dial-up connection, these photos may load slowly. When are you gonna get DSL?
A close-up of a coral formation on Bloody Bay Wall.
A
delicate arrow crab held in the hands of dive master Henri. Note the tiny little
claws. I found myself wondering what could be caught in such tiny claws that
might be tasty to a crab. This photo was taken at 100 feet down, at a dive site
called Great Wall West. Henri's hands appear blue because at that depth, all the
red and most of the yellow have been filtered out of the light by the water.
Small
tube coral (or sponge?) on Bloody Bay Wall.
In
a sand flat at about 40 feet at a dive site called Nancy's Cup of Tea, this
little guy lives in a hole in the sand. His life consists of sitting (standing?)
in his hole and occasionally popping his head out to defend his space against
other fish. I think he is a blenny, but he might be a goby. He's about an inch
and a half long. He attacked the guy in the mirror, thinking him an adversary.
A
giant barrel sponge at a depth of about 75 feet. We saw more giant sponges this
trip than we'd ever seen before -- majestic, proud things guarding the lip of
the wall.
Linda
took this photo of the bottom of the boat (the Lucky Star) on the way
down the wall, from about 40 feet down. Visibility was about 90 or 100 feet, so
often from 40 feet, we could actually see ripples on the surface of the water
from underneath.
In
the Caymans, sailors don't use anchors. Boats tie up to mooring buoys, put in
place to avoid damage to the reef. This buoy is about the size of a basketball.
I've
been on a lot of dives in the Caribbean, and I've never in my life seen anything
like this. It is apparently a type of coral or sponge, but no one was able to
tell me what kind. I saw several like this that looked to me like Chinese
lanterns, glowing faintly from the inside.
A
chub. There's not much to say about chub. They like to eat, are everywhere, and
have a perennial expression on their faces that clearly says, "Food?"
They swim right up to divers, expecting.
This
is some type of finger coral. It looked like deer antlers to me.
A
close-up of a large starlet coral. Each individual polyp is actually an animal.
This
photo was taken at Cinderella's Castle, on the East side of Grand Cayman. |
