Some time back went to Grand Cayman for a week-long scuba diving trip. It's a great place with wonderful reefs, marine life and weather and was a very nice trip overall. For some reason I got to thinking about it earlier today as I was marshaling stacks of glow sticks into separate bags in preparation for our "electric run" 5K event tomorrow night in the dark.
The run (or walk most likely as we'll be with friends and some children) should be fun. There will be good music and great sights to see. As an added bonus, it's very close to our house. As an added negative, there's a Taylor Swift concert that will have competing traffic to and from the same area that the 6,500 participants of the race will be sharing road-space with.
So back to Grand Cayman and the dives. We decided to do a night dive one of the evenings. There was a location at the top of the island where there's an nice outcropping. In this relatively rural area away from the city, there was one restaurant bar that was also a dive shop. We went earlier and explored the reef just offshore that you could wade into. Wade carefully into because there were sea urchins all around.
After the late afternoon dive we ate conch fritters, fries and drank beer while we waited for it to get dark. We were going to go back in and see the same areas at night. I had brought glow sticks--I'm not sure why I decided to bring glow sticks on an international trip, but I did and I took them for the night dive specifically.
We got into the water and yes, it was exciting looking and wholly different than the same location had looked hours before during the day. It was then that I realized the visual distance of glow sticks wasn't so hot under water. It was then that I decided what I'd really like was a nice strong regular flash light (the one I carried on my suit was quite small and low in power.) It was then that I thought about sharks.
Right after that, around a large coral outcropping just before a drop-off, there was a bright light and a flash. We had other diving guests and they had brought something that nearly lit up the whole ocean from a candlepower perspective. We swam over and followed them around for a while. That was fun.
After a bit we decided to head in--head in with our now-fading glow sticks. We also hoped we knew which was was in. After some navigating by surfacing and honing in on the lights from the restaurant bar we had come from we made it back safety.
I'm not sure I would have done my first night dive the same way if I had to do it all over again, but it was certainly an exciting experience at the time.
The Big Boy Update: Nightmares! Twice now he's woken up in the middle of the night yelling for help and saying he's scared. Unexpectedly, he asked to come and "take a nap" in mommy and daddy's bed because the fear of alligators in his bedroom was a bit too much. Neither child has ever slept with us so for him to come up with this idea and specifically ask for it made me realize how scared he was. He came down and did sleep with us for the next two hours until morning. Two nights later it happened again but we had talked to him about how his room was a safe place and daddy was able to calm his fears so that he could go back to sleep in his own bed.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: "I want to lie down." She loves to do this with a towel after a bath or at the pool or just any time there's a towel around. She wants to lie on the floor, fold in half and put her head between her feet and be covered up by the towel. Then, you can ask where she is and she will come out and giggle, but she's not in any hurry to do so. She loves being covered up.
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