Cayman Islands

Before I spent three days turkey hunting, Chris and I were in the Cayman Islands attending her sister Lisa's wedding. Lisa had managed to talk a fairly large chunk of the extended family into making the trip down there. Despite the expense, it seemed that everyone really enjoyed themselves and had fun catching up. Not having the history with these people that Chris did I felt a little bit like an outsider, but that's to be expected, I just went to bed early on the big night (and got teased the morning after for "passing out" from drinking too much, which I preferred to rudely confessing I was just bored out of my mind).

Anyway, the Caymans are supposed to be the third best SCUBA-diving site in the world (second to the Galapagos Islands and Morehead City, NC). Since I've been to the Galapagos and a number of others exotic sites, I felt it my duty to verify the claim. Not having been to Morehead City (yet) I would generally have to agree. The Galapagos is still by far the best diving I've ever done. The Caymans will be a close second with the Florida keys (specifically the wreck of the USCG Duane) and Maui following close behind.

The coolest thing about the Caymans was the diversity of wildlife to be seen. This was the same thing that made the Galapagos attractive actually, but the wildlife there is just plain cooler. For every school of barracuda you might see in the Caymans, there's a school of hammerheads in the Galapagos. For every giant grouper in the Caymans, there's a giant whaleshark in the Galapagos. Anyway, the Caymans is still great. I saw a bunch of trumpetfish, angelfish, parrotfish, pufferfish (which simply refused to bloat no matter how much I chased them), a medium-sized squid, many colorful corals (which at one site were large enough to form caves, thus the site was called "Trinity Caves"). Lastly, I saw this odd fellow who was normally camouflaged with the ocean floor until approached, after which he would pulsate with these awesome cobalt-blue rings you can see in the photo. Amazing stuff.