Cayman Dive Adventure 2011

Another night of vivid dreams, up for breakfast at 6:15. First dive, which we skipped, was at 7:30 on the wreck of the M.V. Captain Tibbetts, a Russian destroyer sunk 15 years earlier as an artificial reef. 

We did the second dive on the wreck, swimming from bow to stern. Had a friendly grouper following along that Rick was petting as we went. 

During lunch the boat moved back to Little Cayman where we did a nice wall dive at Great Wall. It was a really healthy reef with lots of little fish and several turtles munching away on some sponges.

We skipped the second dive and then at 5pm we had a cocktail party on the top deck as we began the 8 hour trip back to Grand Cayman. There was lots of laughing and talking about what a great week it had been. We all went to the lounge for dinner then ran back out on deck as a pod of dolphins swam up along side. Everyone was very excited!

After dinner we showed a couple of movie trailers, then watched the video that Dave from the boat had made. We finished the night up on the top deck under the stars listening to music, very nice!

Woke up to an early breakfast, decided we were done with diving, opted for a relaxed morning on the boat while some of the others did another dive at the Kittiwake, then a final one at Devil's Grotto. Then we packed up our gear, had lunch, then said our goodbyes and took a taxi to the Westin Casuarina a few miles away.

After unpacking we all regrouped at the pool where there was a bar at the water's edge. We met a divorcé from Indiana with her fireman boy-toy in tow. She immediately took a liking to our group and several drinks were consumed throughout the afternoon. After a couple of hours nap (and an operation by Matt and Chris to rescue Randy from oversleeping) we headed to the Ritz next door for dinner at Blue restaurant in honor of Tim's birthday.

The food was good, though it went on a bit long. Around 11:30 we made it back to the hotel and went right to sleep.

We slept in until 8, then had breakfast with Fred. Afterwards we sat with several other members of the group for second breakfast. Around noon we had lunch, then reviewed pictures for a bit. At 2pm we boarded taxis and headed to the airport. We had about 2 hours before our flight to Houston, then a run through the airport to make our flight to San Francisco, but we all made it (barely). Fortunately we had noise canceling headphones and several shows to watch on the iPad as a woman behind us decided to let her 2 year old have free run of the first class cabin for the entire flight. Ugh!

We arrived in SF around 11, said goodbye to everyone, then had to file a claim for one of our four bags that didn't show up(!). We finally made it home and to bed around 1am.