Day 2

Today Sawyer teams up with Andy the divemaster. Together they handle the dive briefings and help the divers suit up for the first dive site of the day. We are at Lea Lea's Lookout. A good site for observing Spotted Eagle Rays and turtles cruising along the wall. Franklin prepares the digital video as he plans to explore the site with his scooter looking for the large pelagics.

One of the great things about the Little Cayman Diver II is that you can make as many dives as you choose in a day. There is no set schedule or required motoring. All the dive sites are close together and changing moorings takes mere minutes, not hours. So you can dive, snorkel, swim, eat and sleep whenever you like. This is handy for Sawyer since it means there is always an adult hanging around that can be persuaded to tow his boat. He spends the morning shouting commands from the bow of his "ship" and the afternoon snoozing in the shade of the upper deck.

The next site is one of our favorites, Mixing Bowl (also known as Three Fathom Wall), where the gentle sloping reef of Jackson's Reef merges with the vertical wall of Bloody Bay. Sponges ranging from encrusting to branching, barrel to tube, finger to rope and red to yellow thrive on these reefs. There is little doubt why the Caribbean is known as the "Sponge Capital of World". I, however, am relegated to diving vicariously by watching Franklin's digital video of the day.

After a scrumptious dinner served family style, most of the guests decide to get wet and prepare for a night dive. The seas are calm and the skies are clear. A crescent moon illuminates the underwater world. Octopus are out hunting tonight, providing quite a show as they inflate their colorful circus tent-like bodies. When the octopus pounces on a coral head the creatures hiding within try to scatter into the night, though most do not escape the net the octopus spreads. The night dance is beautiful and tragic and enthralls all divers who experience it.