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From Kelly Groff . . .
Rich and I just got back from a week in the Cayman Island's on Thursday! We had a fantastic trip. We spent our first four days on the island at The Seaview Hotel, a true diver's paradise. The accommodations were nothing fancy but the service was great and Treasure Island Divers was exceptional. Petra is the onsite manager for the dive shop at the hotel. She was incredible and was full of great information about diving and the local attractions. We did a total of 3 boat dives and 3 shore dives while staying on the West End. Our best dive was definitely the Wreck of the Balboa, which isn't often dived because of the cruise ships. Other notable dives included Sara's Garden, Oro Verde, and the In Between Reef.
After our four days at the West End, we picked up and moved to a more secluded hotel on the East End, The Reef Resort. It is truly paradise on this side of the island, with very little traffic and lots of beautiful beaches. The hotel was amazing.with ocean views, a Jacuzzi tub, and huge balcony. Our dive operator on this side of the island was Ocean Frontiers. They were very different than Treasure, but in a good way. They actual set up and carried all of our gear for us.now that's a vacation! East End diving is also very different than West End. The reefs are relatively untouched and in excellent condition. I was also amazed at the abundance of marine life on this side of the islands. We dove many sites that were not moored. Here is the list of dives that we did: Blow Hole Reef, Jack McKenny's, Lighthouse Wall, and Old Wreck Head. All the dives were great!!
Recommended Restaurants: Cassanova's was the best place that we ate. Located a short drive away from Seaview, it is an Italian restaurant that is as authentic as they get. The service was amazing and everyone there truly seemed to enjoy what they were doing. The Lighthouse at the Breakers was romantic but quite expensive. The Crow's Nest is also located nearby Seaview and has some great local dishes.
Recommended Attractions: Turtle Farm and the Butterfly Farm are my two recommendations. Stingray City was also an unreal experience. Also, if you can drive up to the East End, it really is quite beautiful.
From Uptown Jim Brown . . .
The inaugural BSC Wednesday eve diving kicked off with a splash of eight nitrogen-free divers on May 5th. Nate, Rock, Palm, Sharon, Huckster, Caveman, Topher and yours truly enjoyed a mid-week dip. We endured a bit of noise pollution as Steve cut back the steep path to the Bowl as well as a few other blooming and burgeoning bushes. The water was awesome with vis out on the bottom as good as ever. Palm, Huck and Sharon headed for the Hole while Mike and I stayed eastbound to the stepvan. Nate, Rock and Topher missed the dozer then headed north into the flats, then up over the road and into the lagoon for some fish watching.
Caveman and I cruised the stepvan, a sorry site giving in to the depths. Be careful around this site; the van is collapsing into a parallelogram to the south, with its heavy metal frame overhead, and would create nasty entrapment for the unlucky diver. We turned north here and conducted an open-water swim at 85' across the Hole. This is great practice for buoyancy control and trusting your compass. In fact I stopped Mike at one point and turned 90 so I could get back on course. I'm a circle swimmer I guess! We hit the north wall and began a slow swimming ascent returning to the Bowl. Upon reaching the exit after a nice safety hang, we encountered the angry momma bass trying to make a bed for breeding. She actually rammed our legs and feet as we were doffing gear. I got a couple of nice pics of her, one just in front of Mike's finger for perspective.
Join us for BSC hump day diving, every Wednesday eve this summer. Gates open 5:30-6:30pm for entrance
From Bryan Palmer . . .
Wed- Night diving at BSC
I'm keeping this one rather short and sweet, First night BSC was open quite a few people, Caveman Nast sporting his Giraffe "small's", JB, Chris Thompson, Scott the Rock, Nate Brommer, Huckster, Sharon and myself. It was great weather for an evening dive. Great laughs had by all as well. Look for wed to be a good group; also don’t forget about the Thursday irregular's I'm trying to split my hours between the 2 with the days being long. Either way you look at it both groups are a bucket of laughs.
Saturday
This weekend came and it was as beautiful as anyone could ask!! I did 2 dives Saturday; the first was with "old dive buddy" - Scott the rock, and Ron Lobb. Scott was trying to dive wet. Ron and I were treated to a few laughs and chuckles from that the eigh's and ahhhh's of wetsuit diving from a "hardened Drysuit diver". We were treated to some good visibility and lots of fish through out the dive.
The second dive saw Ron, Sharon and me grouped together for a dive, to cold for Scott!! Oh Scott did I mention that Sharon did 3 dives in a wetsuit- she swears her Drysuit is getting packed away till September or October!!!! Once again some good visibility in areas but stay out of the training area, limited viz there!!!! The crowds have started to come out do dive, well at least the fish are out now!! We are still working on getting the divers out. There are 2 small mouth bass out and lots of sunfish, there are getting their courage and can be seen all over the shallows.
Sunday
Sunday came as Quick as Saturday went, it was Mothers day so the crowds were kind of light. Dennie, Sharon and my self teamed together for the first dive with doing a dive with doubles and a wetsuit, and Sharon diving wet as well, I was the odd ball out(as always) diving dry. We headed down to the bulldozer kept our max at about 70' and then north along the road and over to the weeds to see all the fish, good dive 40 minutes. (Side note: ALL HID LIGHTS WORK BETTER WHEN THEY ARE PLUGGED IN TO THE BATTERIES)
Second dive was me and Sharon doing a down to the deep boat and around the bowl then out the road, great dive even saw a catfish on this dive Sharon found a whole with several bass hiding it in that I missed. I finished with about 50+ minutes of dive time. Jess Zeller and Greg Kulp were out as well doing some Drysuit snorkeling as well wonder how that one went? I ended with 4+ hours underwater blowing bubbles for the week.
Last thing, with weather becoming warm no reason not to get out and dive families are welcome, snorkeling for the kinds, laughs provided my almost every diver on the spot some being victims more then others, i.e. me :). So get out and dive!!!
From Kent "Dr Deco" Hirsh . . .
Hola Divers and Cyberdivers.
Senor Deco is back from Dive Heaven- 7 days cave diving in the Riviera Maya, Quintana Roo, Mexico. We did 11 dives with a total bottom time of 1132 minutes. Our longest dive was 4.5 hours doing a 10,000 ft traverse (and back) in Dos Ojos cave system. Our normal routine was to use scooters in morning and swim in the afternoon,allowing the "ponies" to recharge for the next day.
Let me tell you a little about the region. There are about 80 distinct caves, measuring over 500,000 ft of explored tunnel in the area.The Riviera Maya is 60-100 miles south of Cancun. The local inhabitants are descendants of the great Mayan civilization. The weather is tropical, 85-90 degrees daily. We had several days with showers, but they don't last long.
Driving down there is crazy. Highway 307 links Cancun to Tulum. It is paved two lane with wide breakdown lanes. Slower vehicles drive in the breakdown lane, while speedsters use the main lane. Now the crazy part. If you want to let someone pass, you put on your left blinker. If you want to turn left, you move right into the breakdown lane, signal left turn, then veer across the entire roadway to your turn. Needless to say, there are numerous memorial crosses marking the location of deadly accidents.
If you are stopped for a traffic violation, the police make it easy. They will accept "payment" of the fine, right on the spot. It reduces the paperwork.
Anyway, back to the dive report. Steve Gerrard promised to make every dive better than the last. He did not break his promise. I saw some incredible cave decorations, columns, stalactites,stalagmites, helictites, draperies, flowstone, air domes, and bottomless pits. We saw fossilized sloth bones in one cave and a human skeleton in another. We saw blind cave fish, black catfish, tetras, crayfish and isopods. We dove some of the more popular caves and we dove a cave that was only discovered two months ago. We did a photo shoot of yours truly, where I just posed for the camera and we did "power" caves where we swam for hours covering 3 to 4 miles of tunnel. We dove in freshwater and deeper into saltwater. We dove huge rooms and tight restrictions. We dove shallow tunnels that were less than 5 ft deep and we dove the Blue Abyss to 215 ft. We used scooters and we swam. We had a fin strap break, we had a propeller fall off the scooter, we had a light flood, we forgot to bring a light, and we forgot to bring a hood. We did safety drills,and bubble checks on every dive. We tied in a primary reel in the daylight zone on every dive. We never penetrated beyond initial thirds, we always had at least a third left upon exiting. We used the word "excellent!" way too many times, but never out of context.
All in all an incredible vacation. I already have a spot booked to return the first week of December. There is no better place to hone your dive skills and to witness some of the most amazing geological wonders of the world, than in the caves of the Riviera Maya.
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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