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Maria Collins - PADI
IDC Staff Instructor
Cayman Aggressor IV May
23-30, 2009
Wow!
What a great week of diving to remember with beautiful weather and some of the
best diving the Caribbean has to offer. From Grand Cayman to Little Cayman all
the way to the Russian destroyer #356 wreck dive on little Brac, each site
served up a smorgasbord of marine life and colorful reefs everywhere you looked.
Divers encountered lobsters, turtles, crabs, reef and nurse sharks, stings rays,
lion fish, moray eels, the caves and swim thrus that make Devil’s Grotto famous
and much more. But nothing makes it all come together like the pleasure of
meeting and diving with such a great group of friends. Wes and I personally want
to thank all of you for the opportunity of diving and sharing with you this
great adventure. From the kitchen to the dive deck a big thank you goes out to
the crew for an outstanding job!
View the captain's log below for more information on the trip and snapshots
throughout this great week of diving the Grand Cayman's aboard the Aggressor IV.
Please visit
www.WeScuba2.com to see exciting pictures from the trip and share your dive
and liveaboard experience with us as well! After you get a chance to see the
incredible visibility in the pictures, the variety of diving that the Cayman
Islands have to offer, we hope that this will entice you to join us on the 2010
SDI Grand Cayman Aggressor trip! We will have a pre-trip party to give away
free stuff, and then off we go for our luxury diving experience!
http://www.sdiscuba.com/cayman_aggressor.htm
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at
12:00 AM
Entry By: Cayman Crew
Air Temperature 78-85
deg Water Temperature 80-81 deg F (28 Celsius) Visibility 75 to 100 ft. and
more! Wetsuits: 3 to 5 mil (if you get chilly easily) Crew this week: Capt.
Jon, Instructors Kory, Emma & Lowel, Stewardess Muri and Chef Savio.
Joining us:
From
Huntsville,
AL (the
Rocket City) and Southeastern Divers, Inc.
http://www.sdiscuba.com/ : Wes & Maria, Jim & Gina, Wes & Angela. Also
joining us this week: Richard & Cathy, Ed & Noah, Girard, Alex & Phil, Jeff,
Eric and Ted.
Saturday, May 23, 2009 Calm
Welcome back to the
Cayman Aggressor IV weekly dive log and trip report. This week we are looking
forward to another awesome trip with great weather and great diving here in the
Cayman Islands, located just south of Cuba. With everyone on the island by 2 pm,
we readied the yacht for an early departure to
Little Cayman. As we headed around the northwest point of Grand Cayman,
Chef Savio prepared his famous barbeque dinner and we set a course for
Bloody Bay!
Sunday, May 24, 2009 Calm
Check-out dive time
this morning and what a better place to do that than one of Little Cayman’s
signature dives, Randy’s Gazebo. The conditions were perfect today for exploring
the reef from the deep wall all the way up into the shallows. We started the
week off with a couple of nice hawksbill turtles, lots of lobster, an eagle ray
and a sleeping nurse shark. After lunch we moved up into the Jackson’s Bight
area for an afternoon and evening at the Meadows. The sand strip that separates
the main reef wall from the shallower mini wall in
Jackson’s
Bight was alive today! Southern stingrays, turtles, schools of snapper and
peacock flounder were all spotted along with a cruising reef shark. The night
divers discovered a couple of nice octopus, lots and lots of lobster, channel
clinging crabs, nudibranch, sleeping turtles and a nice feeding stingray.
Monday, May 25, 2009 Calm
We woke a little early
this morning and headed east along the north shore of Little Cayman for the
short crossing over to Cayman Brac and a look at the Russian Destroyer #356.
This 330’ cold war era destroyer was purchased by the Cayman government 11 years
ago from Cuba
and laid to rest off the northwest coast of
Cayman Brac as a recreational dive wreck. Now home to several
different types of marine creatures and encrusted in coral and sea fans, this is
one of the best wreck dives the
Caribbean
has to offer. We all had a good look around and explored some of the
companionways and the big guns still in tact. After lunch we headed back to
Little Cayman
for an afternoon of diving at Sarah’s Set. Here we saw another eagle ray,
southern stingrays, a few more turtles and a nice school of schoolmasters right
under the boat. After dinner nearly everyone hopped in for a look around and
came back with tales of dueling lobster, sleeping turtles, octopus, and huge
crabs and come colorful nudibranch, thus ending another awesome day of diving
and adventure on the Cayman Aggressor IV!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 ESE 10-15
This morning we
started our day out back up in the Bloody Bay area with a couple of dives at Lea
Lea’s Lookout. This amazing stretch of wall has two big points of interest.
First, right under the bow of the boat, there are two pinnacles attached to the
reef wall that are loaded with snapper, barrel sponges, lobster and a great
place to find turtles feeding. A short swim down the wall brings you to a huge
crevice that runs into the reef and leads to the shallow plateau near the
mooring line. This morning we saw more turtles than normal along with a green
moray eel, reef squid and lettuce sea slugs. After lunch we moved up into
Jackson’s Bight again for a dive at Bus Stop. This section of “shark alley” is
usually a good place to spot a reef shark and we got one today. One dive there
to get our shark fix and off we moved to Three Fathom Wall for the rest of the
day. Before dinner we got some nice photo ops with a friendly turtle, spotted a
juvenile spotted drum, saw some yellow-headed jaw fish and cruised the shallows
checking out juvenile angelfish and nudibranch. After dinner the night divers
hopped in for a great evening show including octopus, lobster, crabs and a
sleeping turtle.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 ESE
10-15
We sounded the wake up
call a little early this morning for a “pre-breakfast” dive at 3 Fathom Wall.
What an awesome way to start the day, chasing around sharks, turtles, eagle rays
and lobster! Next we moved up to Joy’s Joy for a look at this unique stretch of
Bloody
Bay.
Here we saw a nice green sea turtle, checked out the series of swim thrus and
explored the shallows by the mooring line finding a few flamingo tongues and
lots of red lipped blennies. After lunch we moved back down Bloody Bay wall to
the Great Wall for our last dive site of the day. We all hopped in and explored
this amazing section of wall, starting at a flat plateau in 25’ dropping off
with a shear wall going straight down to the abyss. On the plateau we found
Freddy the Nassau grouper and his buddies waiting for a little attention along
with a couple of nice brown spotted moray eels, bearded fire worms and lots of
juveniles up in the shallows. With another great day of diving behind us it was
time now to secure the Cayman Aggressor IV for the crossing back to Grand
Cayman.
Thursday, May 28, 2009 ESE
10-15
We slipped inside the
reef and into the North Sound on
Grand Cayman’s north side early this morning for a visit to
Stingray City. The
stingrays were out in force today too! Everyone got a good look at these amazing
creatures in their natural habitat. Next we moved back outside the reef for a
dive on Grand Cayman’s north wall at Hammerhead Hill. No hammerheads that we saw
today, but we did get a good look at a cruising eagle ray, lots of lobster and a
huge school of Horse Eye Jacks. During lunch we cruised on around to the
northwest point for a couple of dives at Bonnie’s Arch. With just enough current
to bring out the big fish, we played around the huge arch cut into the reef and
swam with a giant dog snapper, big jacks and explored the shallows finding
trumpet fish and reef squid. After dinner we moved back up into
West Bay for a night dive at the wreck of the Oro Verde. Huge
sleeping parrotfish, octopus, slipper lobster, neck crabs, the resident green
moray eel and a brown spotted eel were the highlights of the last night dive of
the week.
Friday, May 29, 2009 ESE 10-15
For our last two dives
of the week we had a request for tarpon so off to Devil’s Grotto we flew.
Luckily the tarpon were out along with silversides, anemones, a nice nurse
shark, lobster, turtles, reef squid and a cruising stingray! What a great way to
end yet another week of diving and adventure on the Cayman Aggressor IV!!
Congratulations this
week to Noah and Gina on their first ever night dives!! Cathy also did her 100th
dive this week!
Again,
we had a blast! This is an AWESOME dive experience! Up to FIVE BOAT dives a
day! Come and join the fun with us!
http://www.sdiscuba.com/cayman_aggressor.htm
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Southeastern
Divers, Inc.