It has been six months since our last post, and as usual… a lot has happened since we last wrote.

After six weeks of helping to care for Ashlee, Hunter and my Mom it was time to fly to Grand Cayman for the two-week dive trip we had planned almost 6 months earlier. Ashlee was 38 weeks into her pregnancy and the doctors had finally said she could resume normal activity. That was a bit of joke since she is only 5'2 and was so very pregnant that getting around was not easy but it was clear to see she was very happy to get off the couch. Mom was settled back in her house of 35 years with home care arranged and she too was clearly much happier.

We left for Grand Cayman on the morning of November 28th. 10 hours after we took off Ashlee went into labor (obviously we were the only thing keeping that baby from coming). Nearly 30 hours of labor later, she gave birth to our second grandson, Maverick, who weighed in at nearly 10 pounds. We are very happy grandparents and so relieved that everyone came through all the complications during this pregnancy healthy and happy.

We flew business class (bought with points), which was a good thing since we had eight bags between us (including Carry On). One large bag was full of Christmas presents that Bill’s niece (who was joining us on this trip) would take back to Bill’s family in Canada. One and a ½ of the other bags was full of food and another held Bill’s new dive camera with all the lights required for underwater photography.

Cobalt Coast "Resort" was typical of most dive-focused resorts. It was not bad but it wasn’t what most people would consider a “Resort” either. Bill had been diving on GC a couple of times and we spent our honeymoon diving on Little Cayman, so we were both surprised to discover that there was quite a bit of shore diving available on the main island. We prefer shore diving for several reasons. It’s a lot cheaper but more importantly; it allows you to dive when you want, rather than on the boat’s schedule. You don’t have to dive with a large group of people or put up with any limits on bottom time not driven by the air in your tank (or in Dessa’s case the amount of air left in my tank). In the two weeks we were here, we did three boat dives that cost us ~ $400 and we must have done 20 shore dives that cost about the same.

One of our boat diving excursions was out to the sunken USS Kittiwake. She was originally launched in 1945 as a submarine and diving support ship. Decommissioned in 1984, she was purchased by the Cayman Islands in 2008 and sank in the marine park in 2011 to create an artificial reef. The ship is 251 feet long and carried a crew of 102, so it is big enough to allow divers to swim inside and through the quarters. It really offers no sea life yet. It takes many years for the coral to grow. Grand Cayman has lots of wrecks and we shore dove out to the Cali Shipwreck also. They also have erected statues out in the water. We found the “Guardian of the Reef” and “The Mermaid Amphitrite”. Both are made of bronze and have turned green. It is fun to find something like that underwater. What a great idea.

Our diving in Grand Cayman was the absolute best diving we have ever done, bar none! Bill has been diving for over twenty years and together we’ve been on at least two dozen dive trips, but this was really exceptional. The coral was in great shape, the visibility was good, and while it was bit windy at times it did not impede our diving. Dana had just gotten certified and Jared had never tried shore diving so Bill was our guide. We started off easy since Dana was new to the sport and they both had new equipment. They were both great to dive with and by the end of the trip we had done so many dives that Jared and I were opting to stay behind to drink beer and warm up while Dana and Bill went without us. Bill took so many photos and videos with his new camera equipment that it has taken him months to edit them. I hope you enjoy them. He worked hard to trim them from the hours of video he recorded to the few minutes he uploaded in each of the 2 videos – 1 of the Kittiwake and 1 of all the other diving.

We did several night dives and this was when we had the most amazing experiences. Bills new camera and four giant lights made him easy to see underwater which gave us all some comfort since we could see him even from a distance. Underwater it is so dark that even during the day and I often use my flashlight at depth. At night it is pure black down there and all you can see is what your flashlight beam is pointed at. It can be scary when a huge Tarpon swims right up beside you and all you see is something big and silver that looks like a shark. On the first night dive we found a free-swimming eel about five feet long. He seemed to be trying to find a hiding spot, swimming all around the edges of the coral, but we soon realized he was hunting when he pulled a fish out from under a rock and bit his head off right before our eyes. Wow!! It was so cool! In all our dives we had never seen anything like it. He thrashed around, twisted into a knot and finally swallowed the whole thing just like a snake. Bill’s camera lights lit the whole scene up for us. It was like watching something from National Geographic.

We saw almost every sea creature we have ever seen on all our trips. The only ones we missed were dolphins and whales. After a week, we had not seen any octopus, so I was hunting for one. I had seen a really small one that hid before I could get anyone else to see it, but that was all. They are really hard to find because they are able to match the coral exactly. On a night dive near the end of our trip I finally spotted one and he was big. Bill swam over with his giant lights and we watch as he flowed from coral head to coral head. He would spread himself over the coral and then swell up like a balloon, then move to the next one. He was changing colors and putting on a great show. We did not realize he was hunting, we thought he was trying to escape or hide himself from our lights, but then we watched as he sucked a fish out of it’s hiding place and devoured it. I can’t describe how amazing it was to watch live but its still pretty cool in the video that Bill uploaded.

We saw turtles and squid and I spotted the biggest puffer fish I’d ever seen by five times over. I found a baby crab under a rock that was so young he had no shell yet. I spotted a sand cloud with a long black seaweed sticking up from it, only to discover when I swam over to it that it was the tail of a big gray stingray. He freaked me out when he lifted up out of the hole like a flying saucer and took off. We also saw lots of giant crabs. They are the ugliest things you will ever see (next to octopus). Lots of alien monsters that Hollywood comes up with are based on sea creatures. It is easy to recognize when you get up close to them and see their grotesque faces with all the grasping tendrils wiggling around. We spotted one out in a flat shallow area and chased him for a while. It was funny to watch him run. We also spotted a giant parrot fish wrapped in a bubble he made of his own saliva. They do this every night to hide their smell from sharks. In the morning, they eat it . It was a bit alarming to discover him since it meant there must be sharks out there in the dark somewhere.

One of the great things about shore diving in Grand Cayman was that much of it was fairly shallow so it allowed us to stay down for well over an hour. I think our longest dive was about 85 minutes. I tend to describe the scary and ugly things we see, but mostly the deep blue sea is a wonderland, full of amazing and beautiful sights. As great as the pictures and video are, they just can’t convey the magic of being there. We had such a great time we have already planned our return trip (we leave in 3 weeks).

On the day before we left we made a brief stop in Hell. This is a tiny spot in the West Bay area of the island where a pool of black jagged peaks rise from murky green water. Apparently someone remarked that “this must be what hell looks like” and it stuck. There is a gift shop and post office where you can send postcards from hell or buy hell themed t-shirts.

When we returned home on December 12th it was time to meet our new grandson and prep for Christmas. Bill’s leave from Cisco was scheduled to end February 1st, so he made a few calls and set a time to go in to the office. Naturally his old job was no longer available, so we knew that returning to work would involve finding a new position. We did not expect that he would walk out of the building minutes after walking into that first meeting with a new opportunity that sounded like a great fit. He accepted the offer and was expected back at work by January 26th. We immediately started apartment shopping. With no time to waste, we picked Lot A which is in the new State Farm development in Ric******* where Bush and Central meet, only one mile from the Cisco office. Since we had given all our furniture to the kids 18 months previously, our next task was furnishing the new place. This was a lot of fun. I guess the only time you would ever really get a chance to do this is if your house burnt down or some other catastrophe occurred. Fortunately for us our need was not related to a disaster so we enjoyed shopping and coming up with our new style. You should have seen Bill in action at the furniture store, moving all the displays around to mix and match the pieces we liked. I have never met anyone so completely comfortable doing whatever he wants to do in public. In the meantime, I got a text from a friend asking if I had any interest in returning to work. Deciding that was probably a good idea, since Bill would be working up to 12 hours a day, I interviewed and started my new job Feb 12th. This required a lot of clothes (and shoes) shopping, a task I really enjoyed and that never ends apparently J.

As you can see…we have been busy. This by no means catches us up, but it is progress. While we won’t be traveling as much, we will do some, and we will keep you updated.

We decided to only update the bulk of our pictures and the dive videos to FLIKR as its easier to scan them quickly and if you want to see the full quality or download them you can. You can find them at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_and_ dessa/albums/72157665996041433

...Bill & Dessa