Oceanside Plantation. Check out the leftmost building, and that big whole between the two buildings on the right. That was the pool!

Chain Reef was named after a ship that lost it's load of anchor chain during a hurricane in 1980 or 1982. Big thick links are strewn across the reef, making for fairly easy navigation. It is just offshore of Oceanside Plantation (where my apartment is) and here's a good shot of the condo project itself, all damaged up, six weeks after the storm.

In the past 20-odd years coral has grown ON the links themselves, making them look big and puffy. Joanne was telling us that coral grows about an inch every 10 years, and sure enough, the links look to be about two inches bigger and fatter than they should be. The reef is fairly shallow, starting in about 25 feet and maxing out near 50 feet in the sandy bits. Typically, it's a spur-and-groove formation reef, but it has more character than some of the other straight-out-and-back reefs further down the island. This shot is of my buddy, who's name I still don't know (im such a dive slut.. I'll dive with any buddy, any where, any time) with the reef and some of the chain hanging across it in the foreground.

There was a lot of debris on this dive site. Mostly pieces of roofing zinc and water pipes (PVC) but there was the odd piece of un-identified junk here and there, and most surprisingly, an entire palm tree! the leafy top had all been eaten away/blown away, but the fact remains that this try was a good half-mile out from shore, and 40 feet down. There's a picture of it in the Underwater Photo Gallery.

Further south on the reef, I found a nurse shark sleeping under a coral ledge. I took a picture of him, and then I woke him up so everyone else could get a chance to see him, too. Just like me when someone wakes me up, he was rather irritable and swam off. Fortunately he swam in the direction of the boat so some other people got to see him, too. I tried to follow him, but he outswam me with a flick of his tail. I got a pretty cool picture of his head & shoulders (well where his shoulders would be if sharks HAD shoulders) with some shadowing from the coral ledge over in the Gallery as well.

Speaking of underwater debris, next three weekends (I think it's next three) are underwater cleanup projects being set up by the CITA. Operators are putting up the boats and tanks, and are looking for volunteers to go out and help clean up the reefs. If you're IN Cayman and reading this and would like to get involved, call 949-1181 and get “signed up”. The dive is free, in exchange for your help cleaning up the reefs and bringing all the crap to the surface to get disposed of properly. The CITA thanks you, the fish thank you and the reefs will thank you.