Scuba Diving in the Cayman Islands

Early in 1996 I decided to try out my new scuba license in the Cayman Islands. It's a really beautiful place with high prices and modern fast-food joints and few recognizable tourists. I think most of the tourists stay under water, with good reason. For one thing, all of the radio stations sound like WPST ("alternative music," for those of you who live outside the Princeton area).

There's lot's to do underwater in the Caymans. The stingrays, for instance, are very friendly. Although they're members of the shark family, stingrays have no teeth. They have rectangular mouths beneath their heads and eat by sucking rather than biting. The worst they can do to you is give you a big rectangular hickey (I'm not making this up).

Well, okay, there is the small matter of the stinger. They can allegedly hurt you badly if they want to, but the rays in the Caymans would never do such a thing. Many of them live on the dole, as it were, depending on the generosity of divers for sustenance. They don't bite the hand that feeds, and they will eat right out of your hand. This is me in the scuba gear and spandex'd butt on the left, saying "slap me five" to a ray.

Sometimes they're a little too friendly. Here we see a closeup of a ray (left), affectionately known as "Packwood" to the local divers, attempting to deliver an unwelcome smooch to a diver in pink.

Here I am just chillin' with the fish. Above my head in the background looms a ray, flapping in the slow ominous way that rays flap, no doubt contemplating giving me a big hickey on my head (which actually happened to a fellow diver, who's now in hair club for men).

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Last modified: Tuesday, 30-Apr-1996 23:27:29 EDT