Posted at 12:01:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Holding this hot laptop makes me sleepy. It seems like it's much later than 8:17. Maybe turtle contains turkinogens. We had such a nice snorkel at Cemetery Reef... very slow, relaxed, almost scuba style (but not boring). Breathing. I am so good at free diving now! I don't know how I improved so drastically. I kept diving and diving and swimming all around underwater looking at things, then not coming up out of breath at all. I didn't even have my weight belt or a rock or anything, either. I don't know how long we swam around for (I forgot to look at my watch), but it was probably about two hours. I think we were trying to prolong our final swim. Just swimming and playing, even after there wasn't really anything left to see.

Cemetery Reef seemed a bit cemetery-ish; I can't remember what it was like before the hurricane, but there were hardly any soft corals or sponges, just bonewhite bottom and some coral heads with not much on them, but still teeming with interesting fish, which stood out fantastically against the white bottom, especially in the insanely clear water plus sunny bright sun. So detailed, like the two little yellow horns that stuck out on either side of the whitespotted filefish's tail, and his cute bitey teeth. He kept changing from solid to white spotted and back again. Bristle worms crawling, puffed up fuzzy white. On top, the water was so BLUE. So many different kinds of fish. We were mobbed coming back in, by fish that thought we'd have treats. We didn't, but Dean tricked them by offering some seaweed that he picked up off the bottom, and it worked! They got all excited, thinking it was a treat, and were nearly eating out of our hands. They wised up after a few times, though.

We breakfasted at Icoa this morning, and it was even better than I'd imagined. It may have been the best breakfast I have ever had. I got to try the "smoked eel with poached egg surrounded by medallions of potato fondant with hollandaise sauce and" (sea) "cucumber jelly" that I read about in Horizons mag Saturday night and have been longing for ever since. Dean got eggs benedict minus the benedict, and it was incredible, too. (I tried it.) It had leeks and shiitake mushrooms. Mine was really small, so we also ordered the baker's sweetbread basket (not that kind of sweetbreads), which was unbelievable. It had some sort of insanely delicous Italian grape bread (I can't remember what it was called, but it had actual fresh grapes in it and was somewhat coffeecake like, but way better), an almondine (?) bread (also Italian, flaky and stiff with almond paste in the center... but it was really, really good, not too sweet and not amaretto-y at all), a croissant (with quava and payapa jelly in tiny jars to sample), and this bread that looked like sliced homemade loaf-ish bread but had chocolate parts it (it was very moist and perfect, not overly chocolately, not overly sweet and not at all fake-y). Everything was five stars. (Except my cappuccino.) It was a NYC-worthy meal.

Posted at 8:17:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Turtle stew! I finally got my turtle stew, at Eddy's Hot Pot on the corner of Shedden Road and Mary Street. It was hard, but we persevered. The local lady that ran the place was really nice, and when she asked me how I like the island I said, "I love it!" Then I told her I really like the food, especially trying local dishes, and that I had fish tea somewhere else and liked it a lot, and that I tried to go to Eddy's the other day but it was closed. She seemed surprised that we don't have food like this where I come from (she asked me about it) and said I should bring someone who could learn how to cook all the local Caymanian dishes then make them for me back home. I told her I wouldn't be able to have turtle, though. She said I could bring some back with me. I didn't mention that turtle is illegal in the US. Then she wanted to know when I'm coming back to Grand Cayman (I told her I'm leaving tomorrow) and even after I said I don't know, she gave me a special phone number so I can call ahead for turtle. She wrote it on the back of a Kirk's receipt that has pickapeppa sauce, Dole premium carrots 2 lb, and Riceland 50# rice on it. She and the two other local customers who were eating some weird stuff wished me well very effulgently as I left.

The turtle stew was not at all what I expected. It wasn't a soupy type stew, it was just a big pile of dark chunks of meat that looked sort of like dog food. I was skeptical about whether it really was turtle and started to theorize about how they figured I wouldn't know the difference anyway. But then, to my delight, I found some internal organs (they reminded me of chicken livers and hearts but were even better) and a few bones. Much to my disappointment, there was no green jelly-like fat (although Dean claims he saw some) (I think he must be colorblind/delusional, or else doesn't know what green jelly-like fat looks like, since he's a vegetarian), but it was still good anyway. Intense and salty (to a good degree). I liked it! (But not as much as fish tea.) It came in a divided styrofoam container exactly like Dean's thing from Veggie Delight, with salad and rice and/or rice and black-eyed peas on the side.

Posted at 7:19:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

I got all [nightowlishly] wide-awake just in time for the night dive, and it was great! I really like the Sunset Reef night dive. I bet I'd like it in the day, too. It's a very snorkel-ish spot. I put my weights (8 lbs instead of 6, since it's really shallow) in my BC pocket since my waist was aching on the second dive earlier. I'm really skinny there, and on the second dive my weight belt really started hurting me. Saw loads of brittles!! (And two sea cukes, finally.) I'd swim above the coral heads while Dean looked around the edges (I checked under the edges too, but just did lots of top-cruising also; and it was easier to see when not right beside each other) and I kept looking in all the sponges (RED and pale green) for brittles. Lots had them! And there were brittles, crawling, inside the coral heads, retreating from my light but leggy and BIG. Some are candycane striped. There are also TONS of anemones. I petted a bunch. Some are plain and some have pink or purple tips. So many! I also found a cool really huge tall stalked anemone inside a hole, and showed Dean (he thought it was shaka) and a fantastic very delicate needle-spined uni. I tried to show Dean but he found an eel at the same time and showed me, and then I couldn't find it again. It's really cool watching an eel swim. I also found a gigantic lobster and then some other dudes saw us looking at it and thought it was ubercool. I like the muffins.

Oh, also found some parrotfish snoozing under the coral (but didn't see their sleeping bags). And, the thing where you're supposed to wave your light stream back and forth across your buddy's to get his attention doesn't work at all. I did it zillions of times and not once did Dean notice. He says he did it to me too, with the same results.

Posted at 8:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

So sleepy. Drugged. Bonine x 2 is too much. [Edit: I actually fell asleep after our morning dives, in the middle of the afternoon!!!] Grapefruit w/Caymanian sea salt is really good. There's salt all built up on the balcony where our gear drips off, and I want to lick it up, but I refrained. I did try a little. But I used salt stand salt on my grapefruit. I really liked 6 lbs. [Edit, 3/21: I used only 6 lbs of lead on our first dive (Jack McKenny's Canyons), and it felt great. Used 8 again on the second (Iron Shore Gardens), since it was shallow, but next time we dive I'm going back to six. Dean was the divemaster on our second dive! We went around by ourselves, and he even led me through some swim-throughs. I didn't want to go in one of them so I swam on top and could tell where he was inside it by watching his bubbles. We brought the camera on both dives since we were done with our class.]

Last dive, in half an hour. I'm so hoopleheaded and I don't want to go. But I will try to pull myself together. Night dive red. Maybe I can just hover around pretending I'm an anemone.

[Photos: 1) Here's the view from my balcony; the farther-away boat at the dock is our dive boat, the Nauticat. B) Dean took this cool very dark picture of me about to enter a swim-through. I like the fish silhouette. 3) This even darker one is Dean's fav. The lighting is natural, but it looks like stage lighting or something! 4) And here's one I took of Dean because I thought he looked cool with the nitrox (enriched air) tank on. All the scuba photos are from Iron Shore Gardens.]

Posted at 5:30:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

I loved snorkeling at Smith's Cove. (Wasn't affected by the blood at all while we were snorkeling; just when I tried to administer to it afterwards.) The second I jumped in, I felt good and happy. Snorkeling feels just right, free and unencumbered, floating, moving with the ocean, breathing and breath-holding and diving down and twisting around. I dove down constantly--tons more than I ever have. Suddenly I am good at it. I was like Dean usually is, always under, down, looking at something, or just swimming at the bottom for the joy of it. We didn't have weight belts, and Dean stayed on top to be nice to his ear, but I went under, under, under, with the help of my rock and without. I stayed down so effortlessly, and didn't come up gasping. I don't get it. It is from practicing in the pool? Or have I just figured something out, some technique, some mindset? I teased a long-spined uni on the bottom (almost flipped it over), and swam with schools of fishes and looked at a crawling fuzzy white bristle-worm up close. And I also petted a big family of rug anemones, in the guzzy inlet. They were very sticky/grabby. I love rug anemones. I think I breathed really slow today, scuba style. Out really slow to conserve air, like I do. We have three more dives tomorrow. Non-class. I hope I don't get seasick.

Posted at 7:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Azzurro is a nice place to hang around. Cobalt blue & silver. And they even call dry cappuccinos dry. I'd make the worst nurse (or mother) ever. Dean bashed his head on a protrusion in the rock wall while snorkeling (he heroically went back into the guzzy area to get my rock after I put it down to pet some rug anemones) and I had all the best intentions about fixing it up when we got out, but I got really lightheaded and couldn't do it. At least I had all the right supplies in my backpack and told him what to do. I kept attempting to do things and then having to go fling myself across the back seat like a fainting couch instead. It wasn't even bleeding that much.

Posted at 3:55:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

No boat feeling tonight, but I've got Kaz's Aussie accent stuck in my head. "All right, then, mate."

Monday night lying in bed with my eyes closed after my two seasick dives, I felt the boat feeling in spades, but instead of being nice like it was in Hawaii, it felt all tilty and rocky and sick-making. Awful.

Posted at 1:22:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

I'm officially an Advanced Open Water Diver now! AND an Enriched Air (aka Nitrox) Diver, since we did our two nitrox dives to complete the course we took in January (in CT) with the madman maniac instructor. Yesterday morning we had our classroom session (a little over three hours) and then met back at 1 o'clock for our Deep and Underwater Navigation dives (the two required dives). We practiced with our compasses in the "car park" first. We had to swim in a square (20 fincycles for each side) and I did a nice straight and pointy one. I messed up my reciprocal course at first (easier than the square; just straight out and back), but then I immediately realized what I did wrong and did it over. I wasn't thinking straight when we first got in since I was seasick on the boat, so I temporarily forgot I was supposed to follow the good old lubber line. It was really choppy out and I got seasick every time the boat was moored. I've never been seasick before!! I felt okay as soon as I got in the water, but every time I got back on the surface I'd get sick. Anyway, I still did fine on my dives. My mask was also completely fogged up on our first dive, the Deep one. (Completely = true, not an exaggeration. It was entirely fogged over. I could clear it temporarily by flooding it and clearing it, but it would fog up again two seconds later.) But I just sort of ignored it and pretended it was like wonky eyes. I think it might have added to my seasickness, though. We saw a Caribbean Reef Shark on the Deep dive, although I couldn't see it that clearly. We also swam through The Maze (on the Deep) and these cool narrow canyons (on the Navi), following the instructor as she led us through them. They were really narrow with overhead sections, like skinny rock tunnels that wound all around and went up and down and around corners, so you had to concentrate and have good buoyancy control to get through them without hitting into the sides or getting hung up on your tank (or crash into the person in front of you, especially since the instructor would stop and hover sometimes, or go really really slow). That was fun! One part was a little dark and claustrophobic, so I was glad it didn't last too long, but mostly I liked it. I liked the orange slices on the boat, too. I wasn't sick when I was holding my orange slice.

This morning we had our Underwater Naturalist and Peak Performance Buoyancy dives, and then our Night dive tonight. (Those were our three electives.) We combined our Nitrox certification with the first two dives, since Nitrox is especially beneficial if you have a lot of dives in one day. My favourite dive of the whole trip, by far, was Night! It was like being a detective, shining our "torch" (aka flashlight) around, finding cool things in the dark. Much, much, MUCH better than that lousy night dive in St. John. There were lots of anemones, with beautiful waving tentacles and pink bulbs on top. I petted one, and it was a little sticky and made my finger feel slimy. We saw a nice eel swimming around, and I found some brittles hiding under coral (not out crawling all around, though). And I got to see the coral in "fuzzy" mode (with the little coral polyps out, to feed at night). I also found two urchins (there don't seem to be very many urchins around here!), hiding in hidden spots. They had very fine needle-like spines. And there were cool shrimp guys out on the prowl, with their eyes glowing in the dark. And, if you turned off your flashlight, bioluminescent things lit up in the eel grass and in the water if you waved your hand in front of you. [Edit: The divemaster didn't tell us what they were, but I think they might be tiny jellyfish]. I think I liked that dive so much because it was a lot like snorkeling (although easier to look at things up close, since I didn't have to dive down). One section was actually extremely shallow, and it was difficult to avoid floating to the surface. And I really liked being on my own, able to search around slowly ("uber slow," in the words our Kaz, our Aussie instructor) for creatures instead of swimming all around following a divemaster. I went around on my own a lot more than usual (normally Dean and I stay pretty close together). I even used my hovering upside down skill (from the Buoyancy class this morning) to look at an uni!

Dean was having trouble with his ears, so he surfaced, and when I realised he wasn't around, I followed the proper procedure and looked for about a minute, then surfaced. (That's what you're supposed to do if you can't find your buddy.) He was on the surface watching me down below, so I found him immediately. The night dive had blueberry muffins and hot chocolate! (The other dives didn't have any food, other than orange slices. Not like Big Island Divers.) I didn't drink any hot chocolate, but I had TWO muffins (well, Dean stole part of one of them).

On our Underwater Naturalist dive, we had to draw pictures/write notes on our dive slates to identify 2 marine plants, 4 marine invertebrates, and 6 marine vertebrates (we looked them up in guidebooks afterwards). That was fun too, since it was like a hunt! We each had our own slate and did it separately. Mine was way better than Dean's (for once!!!), since I am hugely fond of that kind of thing, natch. I drew pictures and took good notes about colors, sizes, etc. Dean just wrote hideously sketchy descriptions like "fuzzy coral" (I saw his slate during the dive and thought it said "fuzzy owl," then was insanely curious about what the heck that was for the whole time we were down). I helped him look his up in the books afterward. They have fins-both-ways (durgon, aka black triggerfish / humuhumu 'ele'ele) around here, just like in Hawaii! A lot of the fish are different, though.

On the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive, we had to hover upside down (like standing on our heads), and also spin in a circle (on our sides, not upside down) by only moving one fin. Dean and I also both dropped our weights a lot: I went from 12 to 10 to 8 and Dean went from 14 to 12 to 10 to 8. I want to try 6, but I haven't yet.

In between the morning and night dives, we went into town for lunch, and I got some Cayman sea salt from the salt stand! AND I got to go to the Philatelic Bureau!!! The parking lot was really full, so I ran in while Dean stayed in the car. I picked out three kinds: butterflies (for MUD), trees (they are kind of boring, but they're trees), and this set that has different Cayman things including a stamp with an anemone (the exact kind I see) and grouper on it. I didn't let on that I was planning to use them all on actual mail, so the Philly Telic lady wouldn't have a cow and not want to sell them to me. I already used a bunch of them on my homemade postcards!

On the way back to our place, we stopped at Hurley's Marketplace for a contest with Foster's Freeze. (Kirk's will be part of the competition too, but we haven't gone there yet.) It was bigger and nice, more American. But it didn't have Ubley/Müller or Waitrose.

Icoa (lunch) was fantastic! I knew I'd love it, based on the description. (It's the place with the smoked eel thing, but that's for breakfast.) It reminded me of The Modern, but more casual and less expensive. But still sophisticated and elegant and Modern, with gorgeous modernist chairs, shapely white dishes, Mod art on the walls, and a beautiful fish-curving wall of tiny glass tiles, glinting like scales. And 1920s music. The waiters spread out your napkin for you when you sit down, like at a much more formal place. The whole thing was rebuilt since it was gutted in the hurricane [Hurricane Ivan, in 2004]. It's in the site of the former Coffee Grindery (home of the great quiche, but no credit cards); they didn't have insurance, so they packed up and left the island after the place was ruined. The really nice owner (Shruty) talked to us a lot and told us all about it. I got chicken liver pate with fig spread and pistachios and local honey, with fig walnut bread, and a scottish salmon salad wrap with cukes and dill. They were both magnificent.

Posted at 11:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

I still don't know if I like scuba, but I like Grand. Grand is foodie heaven! We ate ALL local foods today--Veggie Delights (hole in wall local joint) for Dean's lunch (vegetarian "peppersteak" with blackeyed peas, brown rice, and salad, and two fritter things which Dean didn't eat) (he liked it!) and Harry's Caribbean Bar & Grill for me. (Tried Eddy's Hot Pot first, but it was closed even though the hours claimed it would be open.) They weren't serving turtle stew today (Dean theorized that even though all these places advertise having it, they only really make it about once a month, and I suggested that they do have it, but just don't serve it to non-locals; he agreed and said only locals have the stomach for it and they didn't want to make people sick) so I got fish tea and an oxtail instead. Dean acknowledged that I had to order "the yuckiest things on the menu" (his words). They were both good! And both were full of bones. The tail was like a big long turkey neck (but all the bones were pre-separated) that you could pick up and gnaw on. And the fish tea had this great fishy smell, with tons of weird stuff floating in it (it's soup, not tea) (the fish = snapper). Fish parts (they looked green and rotten with skin hanging off) (mine didn't have a head, but I bet it's just random who gets it), bony cartilage-y things with some fishmeat hanging off them, big chunky vegetables, and doughy chewy things. I really liked it!

[Photos: fish tea (holding bony cartilage-y thing), oxtail (before I ate it), oxtail (bones left after I finished).]

After our second dive (on our way home), we stopped at On the Run (gas station convenience store) and they had local beef patties! I got one, and it was so delicious that immediately after devouring it, I got a second one and devoured it on down too. Five stars!!! It's a hundred times better than those grocery store patties from St. John. Really tender and flaky and soft (sort of a meat paste, not gnawy pieces) and perfectly delicious. Dean had a Tortuga Rum Cake and said it was good. Four stars. We stopped there to see if they had hot chocolate because I was craving a Chantico (discontinued) after the dive. I didn't think they'd have any, but they did! Dean was right.

I like the rinse tank. My regulator tasted yucky. It was number 13. I saw a cute little flounder when we first got in at Sunset Reef. It was hanging around right near the entry, but didn't think anyone could see it since it was so blendy-iny. We also found the mermaid and I fondled her. And I found a fantastic anemone--BIG with long wavy tentacles with pink bulbs on the ends. As soon as we saw her, Dean put out his hand to pull my glove off for me! Ha! But when I stroked her, she closed up so we didn't get to take a picture. She wasn't grabby/sticky feeling, but the individual tentacles responded to my fingers, which was really cool.

I felt very comfortable with my buoyancy and breathing. I liked getting in first so I had time to get used to it before swimming around. Dean made me play tic tac toe. That was nice! Our slate is great. I liked shore diving better than boat diving--it's lots better when you can do your own thing and look at what you want instead of following some kicking dudes around and getting bumped into. I'm glad I like shore diving! I was a little scared of it. But Dean is a great Jim. [Edit: This was the first time we rented gear and went diving completely on our own, not from a diveboat with a divemaster to follow / boat dudes to help with the gear.]

I think me not liking our second dive that much is a trend. I wished the dive would END while we were at Turtle Reef (after lunch). It wasn't horrible or anything, but I was just sort of bored and tired and cold and bugged by my gear. I loved Turtle when we snorkeled there in 2003, so I was a little disappointed that I didn't like the scuba that much. Not enough little things and creatures. Dean likes walls, but I wrote on my hand that it was Z. There were two pieces of cool wire coral.

We did see one really great thing, in the sandy section--a pair of GIANT bugs!!! Bugs = lobsters. They were HUGE. The larger one was about three feet long! No exaggeration, because we were very close to them, so there was no distortion. [Edit, 3/19: Maybe this is a slight distortion... I think it was more like 2 to 2 ½'. But it seemed like three feet.] They actually seemed as curious about us as we were about them, and were walking toward us and checking us out. It was really cool and weird because they seemed so intelligent, not like fish. We saw the larger one again on the way in, and he and Dean had a showdown in a trench.

We passed the former location of Bed on the way to Turtle and it's now "a big pile of rubble" (DWP quote).

Eustace doesn't have heat mode (just cold, cold, cold, and off) or windshield wiper fluid, but he does have cupholders. (And about 10 other storage compartments of every shape and size.)

Posted at 9:25:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Give me that Ubley back! Dean keeps stealing my Ubley! He hid it!

I got it back, but his hand keeps inching closer and closer to the Ubley, like an evil spider. I'm putting my Ubley in mortal danger by writing this!

It says "chop" all over our cutting board. Dean and I both cracked up when we saw it. I have to add a whole bunch of gory details to that food entry from last night. Turtle stew sounds great!

[Edit, gory details:

Perhaps an unusual choice for visitors, but another staple that has been on the menu for as long as anyone can remember, is turtle stew, Cayman's national dish. Caymanians love a good turtle stew, which is made from a mix of cheaper cuts of meat, including the bone, green jelly-like fat and menabolins (organ meats, flippers, callopy and other parts). This combination is then stewed down (no water is added) to a delicious meaty and strong tasting stew.

Posted at 9:00:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Our place is nice. I like the brushed nickel drain-engager in my bathtub. And the matching starfish-shaped handles on all the cabinets and drawers. Dean wants to know why the British don't believe in paper towels. There are scuba-gear wearing rubber ducks by the tubs. And best of all, my bathroom's nice and bright! I snagged the room near the ocean (I can see it right out my sliders, in daylight) because its bathroom is brighter, but the Wi-Fi works in Dean's (only with the window open). That rhubarb Müller dessert and Waitrose green Thai chicken curry = best first day of vac meal ever! (Well, maybe not counting Pahu I`a. Maybe.) I ate the rhubarb dessert part first. I forgot to to buy salt, but then I read that there's a Cayman sea salt stand. I want to go there. I also want a steak & kidney pie, turtle stew (made from leftovers like organs & fins), and to go to Icoa. They have a PADI TV channel here.

Posted at 10:24:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Feels like someone poured HCl into both my eyes. I had a giant airplane headache but I ate an Excedrin and it helped. I told Dean to keep an eye out for Swearengen's Jamaican Blue Coffee store. Things look good here! Not much devastation. Lots of trees, no escaped turtles on the run. We scored an ecstasy of Ubleys (new plural form I just invented) at Foster's Freeze. (Really called Foster's Food Fair, but I call it Foster's Freeze for obvious reasons.) (Nothing to do with temperature.) I got three different rhubarb products! They also have Ting in plastic bottles (so you don't have to cut your hand off opening them, like Dean did a few years ago in St. John). Dean bought a million Waitrose products. Including a spotted dick. (Foster's must be owned by Waitrose, which is a grocery store in England, I think.) [Yep! I was right.] Wow, the coconut stand's still there!! But there's no guy at it.

Posted at 4:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.