Dive Trip

I had a great time except for the going and coming.

Here are the cast of characters:

Crips:

Me.

Nancy - Spina bifida.

Jerry - Injured in car accident.

Pernell (aka the Big Guy) - Not sure of what caused his paralysis. He is a para olympic gold medal weight lifter and he is a big man.

Ray - skydiving accident left him with brain damage.

Able bodied folks:

Bert - Diver extraordinaire. Owner of Divers@Sea in Atlanta. He is HSA (Handicapped Scuba Association) Dive Buddy cerified.

Graham - Diver extraordinaire. Also HSA Dive Buddy certified.

Jeffrey - Diver extraordinaire. HSA Dive Buddy certified. He made his 100th dive on this trip.

Charlie - Diver extraordinaire. He's not HSA cerified yet but does have a rescue diver certification. He's my favorite dive buddy.

Laura - A Shepherd Center therapeutic recreation specialist. She is almost a diver extraordinaire and is working toward an HSA Dive Buddy certification.

Richard - Ray's father.

Debbie - Jerry's wife. She was the only non-diver on the trip.

Going:

I got to the airport at 10:00. As I was rolling toward the Delta counter I was intercepted by a Delta person who asked if I was in a group. I said yes and he informed me that we were to receive special treatment. Laura had called ahead and set this up. On all my Shepherd trips this was the first time this had happened. This was Laura's first trip and so far she had done good.

When almost all of us were there (Pernell was late, as usual), they checked us in and rolled us down to the gate. I didn't even have to push my own chair. Someone else did it for me. We breezed right through security and we made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. Boarding went off without a hitch.

We had a layover in Miami and that is when things started going south. The Cayman Air flight to Grand Cayman and on to Cayman Brac was delayed. On the way to Grand Cayman the plane developed engine problems. We landed at Grand Cayman but since we had a bad engine the pilot had to use the brakes rather than reverse thrust to slow and stop the plane. It made for an interesting landing when the brakes are slammed on on a plane going in excess of 160 knots.

We had to change planes at Grand Cayman. That meant getting all the crips off the plane which entailed putting them in aisle chairs and carrying them down steps, then reversing the process to get on the new plane. Ray and I were able to walk up and down the steps.

The pilot blew the landing on Cayman Brac. He went into his flare too soon and he stalled about three feet above the runway. Bam! We dropped from the sky and hit Cayman Brac.

We didn't get to Cayman Brac until 11:00 PM. Fortunately, the resort kept the dining room open for us so we could eat supper.

I was still coughing the night we arrived. I awoke the next morning and my coughing had stopped. Hooray!

The dive operation at Divi Tiara is first rate. The night we arrived they gave us a divebag and told us to put all of our dive gear in it and place it outside of our room. They took the divebag down to the boat and set everything up. At the end of the day, they rinsed all of our stuff off and set up for the next day's diving. All we had to take care of were our masks, snorkels, fins, and exposure suits. At the end of the trip, they rinsed everything off, put the stuff in our divebags, and returned them to our rooms.

Outside of the first day, the diving was awesome. The first day, there was a strong wind blowing straight down the island and there was not really a calm place to dive. I was OK in the water, but after I got on the boat after the first dive, I got sick. We went back to the dock between dives and Ray and his father got off. Ray and his father had been in the Navy as had I and we were the ones who got sick.

We went back out to do a second dive, and, once again, I was OK in the water, but immediately got sick as soon as I got on the boat.

I dove with either Charlie, Jeffrey, or Laura. Bert usually doesn't require me to dive with someone HSA Dive Buddy certified. This was Nancy's first time so she always dove with someone HSA certified.

Let me say sumpin' about the people I dive with and divers in general. When I was a diver before my injury I was often alone, so I buddied up with someone on the dive boat. I never had a bad dive buddy. Bert and Laura as the people in charge are responsible for us. For Graham, Jeffrey, and Charlie this is a vacation, but they pitch in and help and they work just as hard as Bert and Laura. This is my fourth time diving with Graham, my third time with Charlie and my second time with Jeffrey. These guys are just awesome!

Cayman Brac has a wide variety of dive sites. There are walls, which I love to dive. Some of the walls are right at the edge of the Cayman Trench, which is 6000 feet down. When you look down over that wall you look down into nothingness.

They have wrecks. The best one is a Russian frigate which was sunk a few years ago. Ray used to be a cave diver before his accident. That means, when he sees an opening in a wreck, he wants to go through it. Jeffrey told him before we dove the wreck not to go inside but once he was at the wreck, he made a beeline for the opening and got inside. Jeffrey freaked. Ray did come out the other side, but not before scaring the crap out of Jeffrey.

We spent one day at Little Cayman diving Bloody Bay Wall. They have tame groupers that allow you to pet them.

On a dive at the Brac, I was diving with Charlie and we got about three feet away from an eagle ray. On the same dive we got about two feet away from a nurse shark. We saw lots of turtles.

Going:

We had to get up at 4:00 AM on Saturday to get to the airport on time to catch our flight home. The previous morning the 6:40 flight left right on time as I heard it. This morning, we left late. We got to Grand Cayman OK, but the plane had developed a problem so we had to change planes again, only this time it was worse. This time, we had to get off the plane, pick up our luggage at baggage claim, take it to the ticket counter and recheck it, go through security, and then get on the new plane.

We finally made it to Miami and got through customs OK. I remember when I used to travel outside the country, you could claim your luggage, take it through customs, and then drop it on a conveyer belt to be sent to the right airline. Now, because of the fucking terrorists, you have to take it all the way to the ticket counter and recheck it there. Delta is at the other end of the terminal from customs.

Y'know, I'm thinking that we should give the Muslims an incentive to stop terrorism. Here's the deal. You guys fix your religion, or the next time there is any kind of terrorism against Americans anywhere in the world we destroy Mecca. When that happens, you can thank Osama bin Laden or any of the other terrorist nutjobs. You want a holy war? We'll give you sheetheads the mother of all holy wars.

But, I digress. As luck would have it, there was a problem on the plane that we were supposed to take to Atlanta. Fortunately, we had a very good Delta rep who got us booked on the next flight out and we got to Atlanta only two hours later than we were supposed to.

I started coughing again on Friday night and was hacking pretty bad last night before I went to bed. I seem to be much better today, but then I slept most of the day.

Maybe the doctor was right. I do have an allergy. I'm allergic to Atlanta.

Posted by denny at February 27, 2005 08:25 PM