Long time readers of my blog know that I have a lot of love for the East End of Grand Cayman. The only thing I like more is diving in the East End. There are only two dive operators and the dive sites are all in fabulous shape. And … at a few of the dive sites, an area they call “the corner”, there is a family of sharks that usually hang around.
On my dive this week-end with some friends, two of them joined us for our dive. Luckily, one my my dive buddies had a GoPro camera (I know .. .I should get one …) and filmed the event. At one point, one of them got to within 30 or so feet of us. Such a majestic animal. I want to stress … at NO point were they aggressive or did they shown any interest in us. It seems like they may have been curious and just swam by to sort of say “hello”. 🙂
Here is the video. Thanks to my friend Andrew.
On the second dive (when going out with Ocean Frontiers, the dive operator we were with its always a boat dive and we go for 2-dives), we did a Lionfish hunt. At the end of the video you just saw, there is a beautiful Lionfish. They are awesome looking, but an invasive species in the Caribbean. We are encouraged to hunt them down! Too boot, they are great to eat. A lovely white meat not unlike codfish. They are hunted with a spear. So between the 6 of us who were diving we got 10 Lionfish. Plenty for a dockside ceviche after the dive.
Here Cory is fillet-ing them. Note the spines are quite dangerous. If they puncture your skin it (apparently) hurts a LOT. Glad he was doing this and not me!
Our haul of Lionfish
The final product. Not that I did much a part from supplying a bag of tortilla chips! 🙂 It was very good. Lionfish, avocado, mango, lime & some other stuff (I’m a terrible cook, in case you had not yet noticed)
So diving in the East was great and the water was calm. In George Town : Not calm. In fact the water us extremely rough. This was taken right in front of Eden Rock.
Another picture taken from the same location, but looking at town. The waves crashing were so high, that some of the water was going onto the street.
Its somewhat chilly right now in Cayman. This morning on my way to the office I noted 22 degrees. I will not say its cold, but for Cayman it sure is not very warm.