Copyright: Jurgen Brauer,Augusta, Georgia, USA

2. The same view in the afternoon. For dramatic effect, I "darkened" the picture by pre-focusing on the patch of sunlight, tricking the camera to underexpose everything else.

3. And the same view once more, at sunset.

4. A flower blooms downstairs from my room.

5. Hurricane Ivan did cause massive damage. Even almost nine months later a good bit of the island's structures still lie about shattered. Many hotels and resorts were completely wiped out and remain closed. During the day, constant hammering from ongoing roof and other repairs could be heard. Damage was selective, some folks were ruined, some were left completely untouched.

6. Nonetheless, the cruise ships bring thousands of visitors a day. I counted a maximum of seven big boats at anchor. Returning from a dive trip, I took this picture: three massive cruise ships, a parasailer in the air and, if you look closely, a dive boat in front of the cruise ship on the left.

7. At Sunset House, a gaggle of Canadians trained to become divemasters and dive instructors. They jumped in the water each morning, sang the Canadian national anthem and passed the Canadian flag around. What patriotic spirit.

8. And underwater ...? Things were terrifically smashed up! While the famous coral rock formations still stand, there is much less coral (corals are animals) than I saw five years ago. The hurricane whipped up oceanfloor sand that settled on the coral and smothered it. The coral will regrow, no doubt, but that will take years, perhaps decades. Since coral provide food and housing to reef fish, fish life was comparatively sparse as well. Hereunder a closeup of a surviving purple sea fan. I love its "lace"-like appearance.

9. A close-up of a surving brain coral.

10. And a fire coral ... If you look closely, you can see the nematocysts all around the perimeter of the coral; these are hairlike structures that fire off painful, stinging "harpoons" when you touch the coral. Better keep your hands off. 

11. I enjoyed meeting Chris Ross, an underwater photographer from Atlanta (www.chrisrossphoto.com). Here he holds still for me, catching sunlight with his mask.

12. On most dives, our dive boat threw out a safety stop bar. Novice divers often have trouble controlling their ascent from the deep, and the bar helps them stay put until they have off-gased accumulated nitrogen and it's safe to ascent back to the boat. Here, an experienced diver (left) helps out a novice diver (right).

13. My dive buddy, David Trammel, proved to be a good sport, not minding my photographic passion. Here he hangs on the bar, enjoying a last, relaxed look down to the ocean floor. To his right is an extra air supply hose from the boat, in case a diver runs seriously short on air.

14. Well, as I said, the coral formations are still there. That's why divers love the Caymans. Hereunder a canyon flanked, left and right by coral formations.

15. Sometimes the canyons narrow drastically, resulting in narrow alleys or gulleys, even tunnels and swim-throughs. This can make for dramatic pictures, especially if the sunlight falls just right. In the picture below, the sunlight illuminates a bit of particulate matter in the water as well as sand stirred up by a preceeding diver.

16. Here I am underneath a ledge or coral overhang. You can make out a diver near the water surface and air bubbles as well.

17. A black & white view of one "bookend" of a coral ledge.

18. Grand Cayman is not particularly known for wrecks; in fact, only one wreck is still intact, the Doc Poulsen, named after the fellow who got a hyperbaric chamber installed on the island (it's used to treat those unfortunate divers who need recompression treatment after a dive accident). The wreck lies in about 50-60 feet of water. To the left, you can see part of the mooring line. It goes all the way to the surface where dive boats tie up to it. Increasingly,  islands all around the Caribbean mark their dive sites with permanent mooring buoys so that dive boats don't need to throw anchor each time and damage the coral below.

19. A health purple sea fan, swaying in the "breeze," or water current from which nutrients are extracted.

20. Surprise! A hermit crab on the walkway downstairs from my room, all huddled up inside its shell. I waited patiently for about half an hour, but the fellow wouldn't come out. So, I put him (or her?) in the flowerbed next to the walkway. Even HOURS later, he hadn't come out. Reclusive.

21. A school of, well, Schoolmasters. This particular dive site had a good bit of fish life. Naturally, I was glad to see that.

22. A britte star inside a yellow vase sponge. The sponge is a filter feeder. Current flows through the visible "pores" where nutrients are filtered out. The out-going water then exits through the big, round opening where the brittle star sits.

23. Barracudas I saw in large numbers, both small ones and big ones. If predators survive, so must have prey. And indeed, I noticed a fair number of juvenile fish so that gradual recovery of the reef is but a question of time (and, I suppose, tourism management).

24. Speaking of juveniles, hereunder a picture of a juvenile spotted drum. I saw a number of these juveniles on various dives, but didn't spot a single adult spotted drum (although elsewhere I usually see several adults).

25. A Coney, this one the "golden variation". Coneys are a type of seabass. Usually wary, a diver can approach with patience and observe these beautiful fish.

26. Schoolmasters I found to be common. Hereunder, a portrait version, slightly enhanced with Photoshop's "spotlight" feature. (I generally do not "enhance" my pictures, preferring the challenge to get them "right" the first time.)

27. Here is an example of "getting it right". This is a red-spotted hawkfish. The only Atlantic member of its family, it is usually wary of divers, flitting about to new perches upon approach. It takes a bit of patience to get close enough. I took my backup dive light to illuminate the fish's head (and red spots) and snapped the picture.

28. Grand Cayman also is famous for Stingray City, a place where divers can play with stingrays and hand-feed them (just don't get your fingers sucked into a ray's mouth). Completely harmless and unafraid, they mingle with the divers and you can touch them on their "wings" and bellies. 

29. Hereunder a whole squadron comes flying in.

30. But the main attraction at Stingray City was, oddly enough, Psycho, the Green Moray Eel. Smelling the cut-up squid used to feed the stingrays, he came out of a nearby coral head and headed right for the feeding through. At the very top and smack in the center of the picture are Yellowtail Snappers, and to the lower left is a Sergeant Major (notice the stripes). They are very agile and often snapped up food morsels before the rays or the eel could get to them.

31. This eel was about four feet long. Usually, a green moray (all morays, really) hides during the day in a coral crevice with only the head peeking out. Eels hunt at night-time, and its rare to see them fully out in the open, away from coral hideaways. But this fellow swam among and about the divers quite freely. The large, round opening on the back end of the head is the "exhaust" system. Eels open their mouth to create suction that forces water into the mouth and through the internal gills. Oxygen is extracted, and the oxygen-depleted water is then expelled through the "exhaust" when the mouth is closed.

32. Here, Psycho takes a bite of squid offered by the dive guide. Morays have very bad eye sight, but an excellent sense of smell. It's best to keep your hands clean of any fish food. That's how Psycho got his name; just the day before my visit, he shredded a diver's hands. That diver had the mere smell of squid on his hands and Psycho went after the smell ... and apparently came up with bony fingers.

33. Well, Psycho came to visit me as well. Fortunately, he came up empty, while I came up with a nice shot of him. I am miffed that my wife calls him a "cutie." Hey, what about me? Green morays, incidentally, are not green. They are blue, but the yellow, protective mucus around them makes them appear green.

34. Sunset House, our dive resort, is also the home base of famous underwater photographer Cathy Church who recently published a worthwhile book of her life's work. And just off the resort, in 50 feet of water is a 10-foot high statute of a mermaid, photographed a thousand times and featured on umpteen dive magazine pages and covers. On a night dive, I tried my photographic and artistic talent. Hereunder, the charcoal and pencil drawing versions ... surely, a (mer)maid to fall in love with.

The end.