if you happen to live in my neighbourhood that is. Last night we had a WICKED thunderstorm. Lightning striking so close you could hear it, thunder so loud it made the metal in the windows and the A/C unit out back rattle and vibrate. There was one lightning arc that was REALLY close. I actually said “holy crap, that hit somewhere in West Bay. Turns out it hit mere meters from my old house, The Ranch. My old roomies were actually just leaving to go to the bar, and the lightning hit so close they saw sparks flying from a tree or telephone pole about 50m away. The wind and rain were CRAZY! I don't remember it being that bad during any of the hurricanes Iv'e been through in the past 6 years.

This morning dawned nice and sunny though and was a perfect day to go for a little dive. Todd wussed out cause he had a sunburn, and he missed out on some good dives. Went out with my old roomie John who works at Rivers Sport Divers, one of the smaller operators here on Grand Cayman. There were four other people on the boat so there was lots of room to just be. There was nothing worse than being on one of the 46' Newtons (which are huge boats) with 25 cruise shippers, 2 other staff and a videographer. Those boats with 20 people, captain and crew are nice and comfy, but with 25 and the extra staff required for that, it was pretty crowded. We took off from Public Beach around 830 or so, so I still got to sleep in on a Sunday, too! We were going to head to Orange Canyon, but there was someone on it already, so we went to Northwest Point Drop Off. There were some choppy swells coming out of the Southwest, and wind was coming somewhat southerly, and the current was running OPPOSITE to that, heading south. I think the ocean was still confused because of the weather last night. The first dive was a wall dive, down to 100 feet. Kept my eyes peeled for Mr No Shoulders, but no luck. Saw a pair of Hawksbill turtles on the way back in. Took a shot, but hadn't adjusted my White Balance yet, so it didnt turn out very well.

During the surface interval, we were heading south back towards the shallower sites and I saw some “commotion” on the surface off our starboard bows. We turned and drove out there to see what was going on, but when we got close, they stopped, and then while we sat there looking, they re-appeared behind us. Looked like some fish feeding, but it also could have been some big fish that had herded/coralled abunch of smaller fish into a bait ball. We couldn't tell, so we kept on keepin on and headed to our second site of the morning, Eagle's Nest. Jules was my dive buddy today, and it looks like the “How to be an underwater model in 30 seconds” Specialty Course she took from me this morning paid off. At first glance on the back of the camera the second picture looked better, had a better composed frame of Jules and the turtle, but when I saw the larger ones on screen, this one is almost perfect. Her form is good, there are no bubbles obscuring her face, AND she's looking directly at the turtle, which draws the viewers attention to it. Couldnt have asked for a better shot/pose if we had underwater comms. This little turtle was pretty laid back. We swam around together for a good five minutes, close enough to touch each other (but of course we didn't come into any contact) and I got some other good close-up shots of him, too. Once Richy gets the photo album application installed on the web server, I'll get my old (and some new) photos up.

Big thanks to Joanne at Rivers Sport Divers for the opportunity to go diving today, to John and Sean onboard and of course the lovely and talented Jules for being my underwater guinea pig underwater model this morning.

On and here's your pic, John. Just right-click on it and SAVE AS then you can use it for your MSN picture. It's even sized for JUST THAT APPLICATION. I have the full high-res version of it too, suitable for printing and framing. Like I said, it's how I'll always remember you, and WILL go on your headstone when we get old and die.