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DiveSergeant 2014

Viewing 15 posts – 16 through 30 (of 61 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #62153
    Releck97
    releck97
    Member

    I’m really enjoying your “live” posts! Keep ’em coming…Thanks!

    #62154
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    releck97 wrote:

    I’m really enjoying your “live” posts! Keep ’em coming…Thanks!

    Thanks, and I will!

    I saw your post on the scuba place’s board. Great detail and it is obvious you’re done plenty of Cayman shore diving. We’re going to do some from shore over the next few days, too. Your dive details are great and, shamelessly, we might use your report to plan a few dives of our own!

    Cheers

    #62155
    SherryC
    SherryC
    Member

    Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing. Where are you staying on Seven Mile Beach? Enjoy your Island time!!

    #62156
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    Hi Sherry,

    We stay at Harbour View Apartments. Clean rooms with kitchen, great view, great location and great rates!

    #62157
    SherryC
    SherryC
    Member

    I think I’ve stayed there before…across from KFC?

    #62158
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    Yep!

    #62159
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    Another beautiful day of north wall diving.

    As of yesterday, plans were for diving the west, but there was some killer swells last evening near the north end of SMB and Casey tasked Stuart to run the boat around to the harbor that evening. A task which he accomplished with much enthusiasm, in the dark, with poor navigational aids, and killer seas! But he’s a game old chap and pulled through it fine. He did boast that the British people have many more swear words than we do in the USA. I suspect he exercised his vocabulary whilst driving the boat around!

    So, crewed by Stuart and Niall, off we went to the north, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day with nice seas. We started where we left off yesterday; Lemon Drop Off. This time we did it as a deep wall dive rather than a shallow reef dive. No eagle ray passes today, but as always there were lots of the small stuff that I like to spot.

    After the requisite surface interval we plunged into Durgon’s Domain where, oddly enough, we saw lots of Durgons. Also lots more of the critters in and around coral. Mrs DS and I tend to hang back, scoping out small stuff behind the group and then falling in back behind them again as they make their way past on us on the return.

    Upon return to the marina, we headed over to Tiki Beach for burgers (damn good, too) with a fellow diver and his wife. Refueled now, we zipped back to the boat for an afternoon at Stingray City. Neptune’s showed us the best trip there we’ve ever had; only five divers and a snorkeler and no other boats in the area. I left the camera on the boat; figuring it would be silty and hectic.

    Here are some pics from the first two dives.

    This is a shot of two small (less than an inch) crabs…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_P5014205_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    This is another anemone, look close and you can see at least four small squat anemone shrimp in it…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_P5014215_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    I know, they’re damn hard to see in a re-sized forum picture. Here I enlarged, cropped and then re-sized so they’re easier to spot…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_4215_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    Speaking of shrimp, here’s an example of the ubiquitous banded coral shrimp…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_P5014222_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    And another overall landscape scene…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_P5014226_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    Mrs DS loves sharp-nosed puffers, they’re so cute…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_P5014235_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    And finally another flamingo tongue. Notice the dark streak under it. They feed on sea fans and such and what you see is the skeletal portion of the sea fan with all of its outer layers eaten. By the flamingo tongue! What a brute! Who’d have thought the flamingo tongue capable of sea fan-icide, but there you have it, photographic evidence…

    http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/forums/userpix/19021_P5014250_1.jpg%5B/img%5D

    More, the flamingo tongue eats toxic parts of the sea fan and becomes toxic itself to fishes. Some fish can still eat them, but many know to keep away.

    Speaking of eating, dinner will again be in the condo so no restaurant reviews, sorry! If you care to know, I am preparing a replay of the earlier penne pasta with pesto sauce topped with baked fresh local snapper (for me) and baked chicken breast (for her). Don’t know how its gonna come out, but it smells damn good right now so hopes are high.

    Cheers!

    #62160
    Releck97
    releck97
    Member

    Dang, Sarge, you need to be posting these photos and reviews on SB as well! Terrific!

    #62161
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    releck97 wrote:

    Dang, Sarge, you need to be posting these photos and reviews on SB as well! Terrific!

    I know. But I’m too lazy. On CAG I can upload directly to the post and don’t have to use a host such as photobucket. I think I have to load to a host and then make a link to the picture for the other board. I’ll have to look into it, though. I might be wrong!

    As a side note, since we’re both boaters, I see the great lakes are down to just 25% or so ice cover. We might be ice-free by July.

    Cheers!

    #62162

    Mike
    Participant

    Great job DS!! The pictures are spectacular!

    #62163
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    Mike wrote:

    Great job DS!! The pictures are spectacular!

    Thanks Mike. I’m glad you’re enjoying them. I like posting some of the good ones and sharing them.

    Cheers!

    #62164
    Blaze
    blaze
    Member

    Love seeing and reading your trip report D.S. Did you see many Lionfish? Have they impacted the fish populations on the reef?

    #62165
    Divesergeant
    divesergeant
    Participant

    blaze wrote:

    Love seeing and reading your trip report D.S. Did you see many Lionfish? Have they impacted the fish populations on the reef?

    Happily, I’ve seen only three so far; two on dive sites and one in fish tacos! The eradication efforts on the dive sites seem to be having an impact, although I know other places they are thriving.

    #62166
    Releck97
    releck97
    Member

    divesergeant wrote:

    releck97 wrote:

    As a side note, since we’re both boaters, I see the great lakes are down to just 25% or so ice cover. We might be ice-free by July.

    Cheers!

    Luckily? for us, we live on a glacial lake which is 490 ft. deep. It does not freeze. This will allow me to start taking customers a week from now. The bad part of this is that it takes until about August to reach 70f at the surface :-/

    #62167
    Releck97
    releck97
    Member

    divesergeant wrote:

    blaze wrote:

    Love seeing and reading your trip report D.S. Did you see many Lionfish? Have they impacted the fish populations on the reef?

    Happily, I’ve seen only three so far; two on dive sites and one in fish tacos! The eradication efforts on the dive sites seem to be having an impact, although I know other places they are thriving.

    We do some diving off the beaten path and even there, we saw less lionfish. This was encouraging. In 14 dives, we saw less than a dozen. We will never eradicate them, but hopefully we can keep their population in check until the endemic fish take care of it for us.

    DS, have you noticed that there is always a snapper following you like a puppy dog now? They have learned to associate divers with free handouts when lionfish are speared. Opportunistic creatures, I’d say!

    Thanks for all of your posts and photos!

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