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Grand Cayman at Night
The last words I heard were, “There will be a light hanging
from the boat so you can find your way back.”
This was a night dive in the Georgetown Harbor, which is maybe
40 ft. deep, and it was a dive as a group with no specific buddy
for each person. We all had flashlights and some had glow tubes
of fluorescent material which had a green glow when you snapped
the tube to activate it.
Having always wanted to do this, but still having doubts, I worked
up the courage to jump into the water. The night was black, the
water was black, I had absolutely no clue as to which way was up
or down. Being weightless, the feeling of down, provided by gravity
was not there. I turned on the flashlight and the beam shined on
nothing! Where was everybody? Where was the bottom? What was out
there swimming around, sharks?
Suddenly I remembered the instructor saying that bubbles always
rise up. Shining my light on my bubble stream proved I was going
downward.
My fins struck bottom and I crouched there trying to see something.
In the distance I could make out the beams of flashlights and the
green glow of light tubes. My eyes slowly got used to the darkness
and I started to see creatures that I had never seen in the daylight.
Swimming over to a wreck of a boat that remained on the sea floor
I explored the pieces with my light. There on an iron plate was
the biggest lobster I had ever seen, then more of them, dozens of
them! They come out to feed at night. Here and there in nooks and
crannies were fish that sleep at night and are active during the
day.
The soft corals were brilliant with colors never seen during the
daytime. The bottom was alive with creatures never seen during the
day.
The world did not exist outside of the rays of the flashlight,
and there was an uneasy feeling that there were unseen things watching
me. As strange and as beautiful as it was, I was ready to go back
on board when I was low on air!
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