back entry number one
This has been the only time I could take off to write and yes, I’m a dork - I’m writing on my ljay during vacay. Oo it rhymes!! So Monday morning I got up at 2:30 AM and took a shower. We were supposed to leave at 3:30 but we were delayed by having to shovel the driveway. 6 inches of snow!! And btw, my dad couldn’t shovel because of his back so it was me, Oliver, Mom and Ena killing OUR backs to shovel this snow plus it was freezing and it was 3:30 in the morning and we get back in the car to see if it works and to make a long story short we ended up pushing the car from behind so it could make the last hill and my father says nothing. No thank you. No, “Wow you guys are fantastic. That was great! Thanks for pitching in.” Nothing. So I got upset with him and at the airport I talked back to him and he threatened to send me home if I ever did “something like that in public again.” It was the stupidest thing ever too because Oliver and I had just dragged our seven 50 lb each bags to the counter, had locked them all, and proceeded to weight them for the lady at the counter. But no… we weren’t doing anything right. Oh well. No biggie. What was a “biggie” however was that our flight was delayed around 2 hours for de-icing and we missed our connection in Miami. This is where Cayman Air proceeded to tell us that we would not get to Cayman Brac tonight and that because we were late, it was not their job to find us another flight. Basically no one was being helpful. So after doing basically nothing for us for about half an hour the lady goes oh btw there’s a flight to Grand Cayman in about an hour with American Airlines, which of course she had known about all along, she just wanted to keep us as customers. Screw Cayman Air. So to make another long story short we ended up catching that plane, losing Oliver’s bag - which we just got back tonight, and getting, what they call, a puddle jumper (seats 16) to “the Brac.” We ate, we slept, and we went diving the next morning at 9 am with Barb and Ken (Cute huh? Unfortunately they’re not together) and ended up going to Little Cayman where -- and here’s my dive log - we saw:
Dive 1 (site: Outer meadows)- a southern stingray, a banded coral shrimp, a fire worm (Can you tell I like the little stuff?), tons of huge grouper being cleaned, a swim through this hole in “the wall” ( a wall of coral) where there were all sorts of spooky fish, and I can’t really think of anything else ‘cause my mask was hopelessly fogged the entire time.
Dive 2 (site: Mixing Bowl) - a baby turtle that had been tagged, a trumpet fish, an orange spotted filefish, a barracuda being cleaned (meaning little fish and cleaner shrimp were eating things off of it - for all you A.P. bio-ers that’s mutualism), schools of grunt and one particular one that had a growth on its back, a pretty little spotted feather duster worm, schools of blue chroma’s, some beautiful brittle stars in these lace-like lavender tube (called a pink vase sponge) sponges, a huge green (which was actually orangey brown) barrel sponge, a cowry, a lot of orange encrusting sponges, what the book calls a rough lima but what I know to be a flaming clam, a hermit crab living in a cute little conch shell, two sea cucumbers which I nicely picked up and placed next to each other, a walnut jellyfish as we were coming up, and loads and loads of sea fans on which you can usually spot a flamingo tongue or a lettuce slug (two of my most favorite creatures) but I was angry at myself for not finding any today.
Unfortunately, Mom and I haven’t seen any sharks yet. And I’m upset because Oliver has already seen a huge Nurse Shark and three turtles but Mom and I go at our own pace. BTW my dad decided to dive even thought the doctor said he shouldn’t and I’m a little nervous because we did two dives today and then he and Oliver went off on a night dive tonight (which I signed up for but was too tired to go on). I slept the afternoon away but just didn’t feel like waking up enough to go check my gear and put a wetsuit on. Plus… night dives sort of frighten me. I’ll go on one this Thursday and I’ll log then and you’ll see what I mean. Basically the only light you get is from the underwater flashlight that I have dropped before and let me tell you when the lights go out underwater and your buddy’s light has already burnt out - you freak.
Well that’s all for now. I’ll log later. I’m off to the bar for a VIRGIN banana daiquiri.
Love always,
Emma
Dive 1 (site: Outer meadows)- a southern stingray, a banded coral shrimp, a fire worm (Can you tell I like the little stuff?), tons of huge grouper being cleaned, a swim through this hole in “the wall” ( a wall of coral) where there were all sorts of spooky fish, and I can’t really think of anything else ‘cause my mask was hopelessly fogged the entire time.
Dive 2 (site: Mixing Bowl) - a baby turtle that had been tagged, a trumpet fish, an orange spotted filefish, a barracuda being cleaned (meaning little fish and cleaner shrimp were eating things off of it - for all you A.P. bio-ers that’s mutualism), schools of grunt and one particular one that had a growth on its back, a pretty little spotted feather duster worm, schools of blue chroma’s, some beautiful brittle stars in these lace-like lavender tube (called a pink vase sponge) sponges, a huge green (which was actually orangey brown) barrel sponge, a cowry, a lot of orange encrusting sponges, what the book calls a rough lima but what I know to be a flaming clam, a hermit crab living in a cute little conch shell, two sea cucumbers which I nicely picked up and placed next to each other, a walnut jellyfish as we were coming up, and loads and loads of sea fans on which you can usually spot a flamingo tongue or a lettuce slug (two of my most favorite creatures) but I was angry at myself for not finding any today.
Unfortunately, Mom and I haven’t seen any sharks yet. And I’m upset because Oliver has already seen a huge Nurse Shark and three turtles but Mom and I go at our own pace. BTW my dad decided to dive even thought the doctor said he shouldn’t and I’m a little nervous because we did two dives today and then he and Oliver went off on a night dive tonight (which I signed up for but was too tired to go on). I slept the afternoon away but just didn’t feel like waking up enough to go check my gear and put a wetsuit on. Plus… night dives sort of frighten me. I’ll go on one this Thursday and I’ll log then and you’ll see what I mean. Basically the only light you get is from the underwater flashlight that I have dropped before and let me tell you when the lights go out underwater and your buddy’s light has already burnt out - you freak.
Well that’s all for now. I’ll log later. I’m off to the bar for a VIRGIN banana daiquiri.
Love always,
Emma