The Buddy Line Fall 2017

Escape winter’s Brr for a Clearly Cayman Dive Resort’s Aah and Wow at Special New Year Travel Savings

If your travel dates are flexible, you can leave winter’s cold and ice for a warm, sunny Clearly Cayman Dive Resort getaway. Trade your snow boots for dive booties and start off 2018 the right way doing some fabulous, world-class diving.

Availability is very limited at Cobalt Coast Resort on Grand Cayman and Little Cayman Beach Resort.

New Year 7-Night Dive Package Rates*

• Little Cayman Beach Resort $1,695
• Cayman Brac Beach Resort $1,395
• Cobalt Coast Grand Cayman Resort $1,395

Travel Dates: 12/30/17 – 4/14/18
Book by: 11/17/17

* Rates include standard accommodations (per person based on double occupancy), breakfast and dinner daily (dinner arrival day through breakfast departure day), 6 days x 2-tank morning boat dives, airport ground transfers, resort fees, taxes, and more.Rates for other dates, length of stays, room types or occupancy, and/or different dive and meal package options will differ. Subject to availability.

Call us or consult your dive travel professional to learn more.

Learn More & Book Today

Meet Professor Sponge

It’s hard not to get excited about sponges when viewed through the eyes of Joseph R. Pawlik, Ph.D., esteemed professor of marine biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). He’s been studying them and conducting research on Caribbean sponges for the past 25+ years because, according to Pawlik, “…they are an excellent model system for studying biological phenomena. And in general, sponges are doing very well there—probably in detriment to corals.”

“Professor Sponge” (our nickname for him and not necessarily one his students would use!) recently made his second research trip to Cayman Brac, doing multiple dives on the MV Captain Keith Tibbetts to measure growth of the sponges on the wreck.

“Cayman Brac is a great place to study sponges, because we know when the Tibbetts wreck was sunk and therefore the exact moment when earliest growth began,” said Pawlik. “The island’s waters have also largely remained untainted by humans as compared to other areas of the Caribbean. Sponges don’t do well in places with poor water quality.”

In non-scientific terms, sponges and seaweed have teamed up against corals. Sponges create fertilizer that supports the growth of seaweed, which is a form of algae. Seaweed produces sugars that fuel sponge growth. And proliferation of algae can choke off oxygen to corals, causing them to become diseased and potentially die.

But the solution isn’t to eliminate sponges, because they provide habitats for many marine animals as a safe refuge from predators. They also serve as food for turtles, some species of angelfish, sea slugs, starfish, and some larvae. And important to divers—sponges increase water visibility, removing particulates as they turn over their entire water column in as little as two days.

Pawlik feels that researching and understanding more about this process may help answer many questions we have about preserving, protecting, and the future of the marine environment.

Professor Pawlik is originally from Minnesota – more than 1,000 miles away from seawater and about 1,600 miles from the warm Caribbean. He developed a love for the marine world as a young boy in the early 1960s, watching “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” on a small black and white TV in his family’s living room. In high school Pawlik spent his disposable income on a marine aquarium, finally learning to dive in Minneapolis with open water checkout dives in the Bahamas. He studied biology at the University of Minnesota and earned his Ph.D. in Marine Biology in1988 from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC-San Diego. Pawlik has been with UNCW since 1991.

To learn more about Dr. Pawlik’s research, visit his page – http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pawlik.html or check out “Dr. Sponge’s” YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011

Calendar of Events

Find Us at These Dive Shows

If you live in one of these areas or plan to visit, stop by our booth at these dive shows to talk about Cayman Islands’ diving and pick up our show specials:

• January 19–20, 2018 at the Baltimore/DC Dive Show at Radisson Inner Harbor Hotel
• January 27–28, 2018 at the Our World Underwater Lone Star State Dive Show at Embassy Suites Dallas-Frisco
• February 17–18, 2018 at the Our World Underwater Chicago Dive Show at Marriott Chicago O’Hare

You’ve Got a Friend (or Two)

Look for these friendly faces to help you feel at home on your next visit to one of our resorts.

Helpful Hints to Make Dive Travel Easier

How often do you return from a dive vacation with clothing and other items you felt were important to take with you, but never were used? The secret to smart, efficient packing is advance planning.

1. Evaluate how many clothes you really need at resorts at which you spend at least half your time in bathing suits, T-shirts, and flip-flops. Take multi-purpose clothing you can mix and match and wear multiple days. No one will call you out on wearing the same outfit to dinner two nights in a row!
2. If the resorts provide towels and toiletries like ours do, you can save space and weight by leaving yours at home.
3. We provide mesh bags for your boat gear, so you may not need to bring yours.
4. Using rechargeable batteries reduces the number you need to carry and are friendlier to the environment.
5. As you upgrade or replace your dive equipment, most manufacturers now offer options for lightweight, travel-friendly BCDs, regulators, and other gear.

These items are nice to have when traveling to warm dive destinations and take up little space in your luggage: zipper re-closable storage bags, insect repellant and sunscreen wipes, and an empty water bottle. As you’re packing, do a final evaluation, and use your wetsuit to pad the most fragile items in your dive bag.

And one final tip—always pack a swimsuit in your carry-on luggage. If your bags don’t arrive with you—worst-case scenario—dive gear can be rented, but not all destinations carry swim apparel.

If you have a great tip to share, please submit it to editor@clearlycayman.com.

Clearly Cayman Dive Log

Craig, Cobalt Coast’s new general manager, moved from Wales, UK to work with Reef Divers when he realized he could make a living doing what he loved. Recently promoted from dive operations manager, he brings seven years’ experience with our company to his new position.

Orange Canyon is among Craig’s favorite dives on Grand Cayman, because it has something for everyone. Divers take in the beautiful panorama of the reef as they descend. Many nooks and crannies in the canyon walls provide places to find and photograph lobsters, crabs, and stations where Pederson shrimp stay busy cleaning grouper of parasites, dead skin cells, and bacteria. Craig alerts divers to be on the lookout for gigantic elephant ear sponges along the wall at 70’–80′, with swimming green morays, triggerfish, and turtles normally at 45’–60′ deep. With garden eels, stingrays, and eagle rays in the sandy flats, Craig’s assertion rings true—that this dive is truly a “diver’s buffet.”

I’ve Seen That

Photo Credit: Patrick Walther

The tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) is a big, beautiful, and very curious fish that divers see at many dive sites around the Cayman Islands. The next time you spot one, remember these cool facts about tarpon:

• One of the largest fish in the Caribbean—up to 8 feet long.
• Distinctive upturned mouth helps them feed on smaller fishes above them or on the surface.
• Oldest on record lived to 63 years in Chicago’s Shed Aquarium.
• Only fish that comes to the surface to “breathe” by taking in gulps of air to adjust their swim bladder for buoyancy. Although they don’t have lungs, this is thought to be an adaptation of how primitive lungs may have functioned.
• One of the most popular sport fish for catch and release fishing because of its instinctive fighting nature.
• One of the only fish in the Atlantic and Caribbean able to survive in sea water, brackish water, and fresh water

Learn more about our marine environment and creatures from Katie Correia, Science Programme Coordinator at Central Caribbean Marine Institute, Little Cayman Research Center. For more info on the CCMI, visit www.reefresearch.org.