WaterWorld

I returned from IMAZ on April 17th. On April 18th I collected a guest from the airport; he departs today (returning to Toronto; I just had him on loan from his wife, four kids, job, and Toronto weather). Our big deal was scuba diving this past weekend.

Being Type-A sorts, we decided to do the PADI Advanced Open Water course through Divers Down. We were quite happy with them, although they did make one slip up - we made special side arrangements for a night dive off the shore (no divemaster), but the staff forgot to leave lights for us (they did leave us the tanks and weightbelts). We'll go night diving another time! Anyhow, overall they were professional and friendly. Their boats go out early in the morning, and their party sizes are small. Thus, they get to pick good sites before other boats claim them, and the divers don't have to wait around through big loading and unloading procedures.

Here's my visiting friend, Doug from high school days:

Note the Spare Air canister on his front. The Instapundit also uses one - he refers to it as a "wife comforting device". BTW, that last link has a good video of the Instapundit diving off the East End of Grand Cayman (no, I don't know Insty personally).

Here's me (this and all remaining photos snapped by Doug):

Yes, upside down diving is best, but we did stage a mock trampoline shot too:


I began with a refresher dive on Saturday morning with Doug in tow. It was a shore dive at George Town harbour. We beat the cruise ships, so the fish had not yet been disturbed; the staff hadn't seen so many at that site this year:

We saw a fair number of other critters on that dive, including a barracuda (no pic).

A few other shots from other dives, just to give a sense that the reefs are out there and colourful (bring your own light to bring out the colour):








(Click on any photo to enlarge)