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From
Keri Buckwalter
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
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