The first week of January in very sunny Grand Cayman, the "diving Buckwalters" truly got to dive as a family! Emily (11), who has been a frequent flyer at Smokey's Discover classes, joined us on some excellent shallow resort course dives. Her expectations will be high now; on those couple dives she saw several southern stingrays, an eagle ray, turtles, a large dog snapper, and some huge green morays swimming out in the open, and of course the usual array of beautiful angelfish, parrot fish, tangs, big schools of jacks, etc. 

A highlight for me came at the end of one of our wall dives. We were enjoying a little computer time yet at 50 feet or so, when the dive guide got my attention and pointed out an eagle ray slowly cruising the top of the reef. Knowing I was finishing a deep dive I glanced at my air (plenty) and took off in hot pursuit of a picture, and just to get closer to this graceful creature. It allowed me to follow fairly closely for a bit; when I turned around to share the joy of this close encounter with others, I discovered I was quite alone with my joy, and in spite of the 100 ft. vis, could not see anyone else's bubbles or the boat. Also found that in the chase I had sucked my tank under 500 psi. But the drama pretty much ends there; I backtracked and it wasn't long before I saw bubbles (and managed a safety stop without draining the tank). So that my dive buddy doesn't look bad here, I need to say that he never saw the ray, or me go after it! (And I did get my pictures!) Saw one nurse shark on our very last dive; that made Andy's week. Between the 5 of us, we made 45 dives (14 each Doug and I)...it doesn't get much better than that! 

Keri Buckwalter