Day One: May 8th 2009
I’m sitting in my hotel room at Sunset House after an amazing day of diving off the shores of Grand Cayman trying to relax before heading out to see the sunset. I’m here co-hosting PADI Diving Society’s Tenth Annual Total Submersion Dive Festival. Each year Society members come to
Sunset House for seven nights and eight days of diving, specialty clinics, trips to Stingray City, special guest, meeting up with old friends and more. Not only is this my first Total Submersion event, but it’s also my first warm-water dive.
The guest of Total Sub don’t arrive until tomorrow so I used the opportunity to get acclimated with the diving and meet the staff of Sunset Divers who would be in charge of all diving activities throughout the week. My dive buddies this morning were Traci from PADI Travel Network and her husband, Larry. We excitedly boarded the Eagle Ray Boat with Captain Ivan and Lauren of Sunset Divers and in no time we were off diving!
The first dive site was Eagle Ray Rock which is on the west side of the southwest point of the Island. We dropped above a wall that began at 55 feet and continued on a vertical drop. From the moment I descended I couldn’t believe how clear the water was. I turned up to look back at the boat and at 60 feet I could see it glimmering in the sunlight. This particular dive site was filled with colorful sponges, coral and sea fans. As we toured around the coral I found myself letting my arms extend out to the side as if I was flying. I wiggled my gloveless hands and felt the freedom of this underwater world. Not only was I appreciating the beauty of this dive site, but I really started to appreciate the cold-water diving back at home in California. There’s a big difference between the reefs and warm water of Cayman compared to the Kelp Forest at Catalina Island off of California’s coast, but that’s the beauty of diving – no mater when and where you dive you can always find something spectacular about that site that you can’t always find somewhere else.
We left Eagle Ray Rock and headed to our next dive site at Armchair Reef. The reef begins at around 20 feet and is a great spot for those that want to do shallow water diving, the deepest area of the reef is at about 65 feet. I was fortunate enough to see my first French Angelfish and followed it for a bit as I was mesmerized by its big yellow eyes. I believe that my dive buddy took a photo of me next to the fish which I’ll have to find and post later! I also saw a tiny Spotted Drum, Trumpet fish and Juvenile Fish and spotting them made me realize how important it is to have an underwater camera. How else would I be able to capture these images and show them to my friends and family back at home? Fortunately on my next dive I will, as
Olympus USA has generously supplied cameras for Total Sub staff and guests to try!
I’m looking forward to the guest arriving tomorrow and diving (and photographing) the other many dive spots of Cayman. Stay tuned for more…
And don’t forget to check out
Ty Sawyer’s blog who is our special guest at Total Sub.
Click
here for my next blog on Total Sub!
Ajá Reneé Smith
Marketing Consultant, PADI Diving Society