We left June 6 from St. David’s Hospital parking lot. We made a good effort to leave before Friday’s 5pm traffic, but we didn’t make it. Captain Kiran was the pilot of "Air Geno" our handicapped accessible van, which has a very sensitive steering device. Several whiplashes later, we were out of Austin and on our way to Houston. It was a hot day, and the air conditioning left something to be desired. It was a unique contraption, consisting of a hose, similar to that of a clothes dryer, hooked up to the vent, which enabled cool air to be funneled to the back seat. We decided to stop at Luby’s for a quick bite to eat. We arrived at the Wingate Inn, which is within a mile of the Houston George Bush International Airport, at approximately 9pm. We found Dana waiting outside (I won’t say what she was doing, in case her mother reads this!) We unloaded the massive amount of luggage and went up to our rooms. We found Margo sound asleep... but not for long! She got up and gave us all a welcome hug! After about an hour of chatter, we all went to sleep because we knew our 4:00am wake-up call would come early enough!

             

And it did. We had 3 alarms set to go off. One was the front desk, another was Kiran from the next room, and the 3rd was our alarm clock in our room. We all sleepily dressed and met downstairs and headed to the airport. We stopped at the curb to unload our baggage, and with the help of the skycap, we transferred Gene to his manual wheelchair. We started to load his electric chair back into the van, when something went haywire. We managed to get a wheel caught in the lift on the van, and it would NOT come loose. After about 20 minutes of prying, tugging, pulling, kicking and screaming, we finally got it loose and loaded into the van. Dana and Kiran went to park the van. (note to self: make sure you make notes of EXACTLY where the van is parked next time!)

                                      

We went into the airport to check in. Within a few minutes, we started seeing members of our group trickle in! We checked our luggage and made our way to the security check-in. I heard my name being called, so I went back to the front desk. They wanted me to unlock my underwater video housing so they could inspect it. I gave them the key and they left. They returned in about 10 minutes with my key. Once we were at the gate, we discovered Shannon & Colleen had been the first to arrive! Sleepily, we all boarded our flight to Houston. Onboard were: Drs. Chad & Sonja (who looked far too fresh and happy for this 6:30am flight),George, Kiran, Margo, Dr. Joe, Shannon, Colleen, Gene, Tammie, Sherrie, Kyle, Jodie & Dana (new additions to our group!) and me!

            

We landed in Miami and met John Jack!!! It was such a happy time for all of us, now more awake, to be reunited! Soon, we boarded our plane to Grand Cayman! Once we arrived there, we were split up to fly in the puddle jumper airplane to Little Cayman, then to Cayman Brac. No problem... or so we thought.... UNTIL Gene went through security. He had his special fork with him, in a pouch under his seat. But, the security Nazi decided it was a weapon! So, we had to argue over this. Finally, we got a supervisor who said he would "take care of it" for us. We started to board the plane, and the supervisor gave the fork to Margo. Made sense to us.... take away a fork from a disabled person, who can’t even REACH the fork, and give it to an able bodied person to be in charge of the fork throughout the flight. This was "forked up" for sure! When we landed in Little Cayman, we noticed we were landing in the middle of a dirt runway in the middle of a field. Very interesting. The airport at Cayman Brac was an improvement for sure! At least it had asphalt!

Once we landed in Cayman Brac, we started piling up the luggage. You cannot believe the mountain of luggage we had! So much, in fact, that we had to pay excess luggage charges! We were soon on our way to the resort, Divi Tiara. Once we arrived, we were welcomed by Max and the staff! To say they spoiled us is an understatement! This resort ROCKS! They waited on us from start to finish. They delivered our bags to our rooms before we even knew what was going on! We enjoyed a nice meal together, and everybody went to bed somewhat early.

     

The next morning, we all made our way to breakfast. This is when we met Cliff! Talk about a hoot! This guy is hilarious! I would guess him to be maybe 65? He’s young at heart and he always has a joke ready! He made omelets, scrambled eggs, pancakes, etc. He was a ray of sunshine! He was the highlight of the griddle!

It was during breakfast that we discovered interesting things about each other’s roommates! Tammie informed us of Margo’s nighttime conversations in her sleep! This was old news to Sherrie and I, as we had roomed with Margo last trip! Dr. Joe also let us in on a little secret that Kiran snores! We all had fun teasing each other endlessly!

After breakfast, we went down for a dive briefing. We were told the rules of the week. We then proceeded to get our weight belts and weights. We boarded the boat and headed off for a week of fantastic diving! The ladies found it hard to concentrate on the briefing, because Christphe and Richard were HOT! Dana & Sherrie commented how Rich looked like Brad Pitt from the side! Our first dive was a checkout dive to do weight adjustments and get an overall assessment of our equipment, buddies, etc. Richard would describe every site as having "heaps" of this and "heaps" of that. Hilarious! We were worried when we found out our first site was named "Cemetery Wall." (We hoped it didn’t have "heaps" of bodies.) We found out that we had no worries at all, other than poor Shannon’s BC, which continued to self-inflate. George tried to help her, but it was a lost cause. This minor problem would soon be corrected, and we would be virtually problem-free throughout the week!

      

After we finished the second morning dive, "Radar Reef," we came in for lunch. The food was great, and there was plenty of it! I don’t think anybody had any complaints about a thing! Even Kiran, our Vegetarian, was pleased! There was a variety of everything from soup to salad to veggies to beef and fish.

I went back to my room to prepare my video camera for the next dive. I opened the housing and to my horror, I discovered that when they inspected the housing, they neglected to put the inside parts back in the original bubblewrap, therefore everything was jostled all around. Since there are 4 wires that connect the inside plate to the video camera to the housing, there is no telling what one wire went awry. At that point, it didn’t matter. All I knew was that it wasn’t working. I was NOT a happy camper. But, there was nothing I could do about it, and I wasn’t going to let it ruin my day. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I went and talked to the video pro and she didn’t have any advice for me, other than to call Light & Motion. Well, at $3 a minute, and with prior experience with them in the past, I knew that the only result of me calling them would be a pricy phone call and no results. So, I blew it off... after all, why worry? We had Video George with us on the trip! We’re all depending on him to get good video. Sigh.... The afternoon dive was "Grunt Reef."

Monday’s diving was nothing less than beautiful as well! We did 3 dives again. "Green Eel Reef," "Green House Reef" and "Snapper Reef." I buddied with Shannon on the morning dives, then Sherrie and I helped Chad dive with Gene on the third dive. This was my first dive with Gene, and I was excited about it! We were happy to welcome Davin to the day’s diving as well. Due to SeaSpace, he was unable to join the group until Sunday afternoon. We all had 3 dives up on Davin, but little did we know he would make most of it up by doing the night dives.

I guess we wore poor Gene out, because he missed Tuesday’s diving, due to illness. I think he was sick of Sherrie and me! Of course, as luck would have it, this was the day the videographer, Barbie, went with us. Another year without Gene in the video. Could it be planned??

                                 

Tuesday’s sites were: "Mixing Bowl", " Bus Stop", & "Charlie’s Place." Dr. Chad, always wanting to create a new challenge for us, decided that Sherrie and I should be finless during that dive, just to see how it feels to do an entire dive with no fins. I thought I’d die! After the first 5 minutes, we finally settled into the dive, but it was anything but easy. Toward the end of the dive, we begged Kyle to give us a tow, but instead, Tammie gave us the bird! After the dive, Chad, in his quest to make things harder, decided that we should have our legs bound so that we couldn’t kick. So, that was going to be the plan for the next group of volunteers!

 

Wednesday’s day of diving started with "MV356 Russian Destroyer." I remembered this dive from the last time I was here. I love this dive! We had the resort’s photographer, Cindy, with us. She took pictures of all of us around this sunken vessel, and we all had a great dive. "Plymouth Rock" was next. The afternoon dive was "End of Island" and that is where George, Tammie, Dana & John Jack went without fins. They all had their legs bound with weight belt straps. I think they all got the same effect that Sherrie and I felt. Fins make a HUGE difference! Sonja joined in the fun when Chad took her fins as well! This was a great lesson for all of us to do together. Davin took over the video duty while George was finless.

Wednesday evening, we all went to the Cayman Brac Resort, which was only a short distance away. Somebody told us Karaoke was the highlight of Wednesday nights on the Brac! It just so happens, that we have a few singers in the group! Sonja led the way! She started us off with "Like A Virgin." This girl can sing! We hated her before, but now we really hate her! She’s cute, she’s petite, she’s fun, she’s a doctor, and then, to top it off, SHE SINGS! Jodie sang "Fancy" and did a great job as well! Our group, as a whole, got up to sing to the growing crowd, and they announced us as "Eels on Wheels from Austin, Texas." After the song, someone came up to talk to Chad. He said he was a former instructor at The Great Outdoors, which is our main dive shop, since it is accessible, etc. I received my certification there as well. Chad called me over to this guy, and the guy asked me if I knew somebody by the name of Nick. I sorta remembered someone by that name, but it wasn’t ringing a loud bell. Then, the guy went on to say that he and Nick were the only PADI instructors at The Great Outdoors, as everyone else is NAUI. I started thinking, "Hummm, I’m PADI certified as well from The Great Outdoors." So, I asked him when he taught there. He said, "Around ‘97 or ‘98. Humm, that was when I was certified. Maybe he knew my instructor? I asked him, "Do you remember a guy named Mortimer, but he went by Murty?" His jaw dropped and he said, "I AM MURTY!" He looked totally different! His long hair was now neatly cut! I didn’t recognize him, obviously! We spent the next 30 minutes or so reminiscing. He told me he was leaving the next day to go into training to be the Captain for the Tahiti Aggressor! Is it a small world or what????

   

Thursday’s diving was great as well! We started the diving at "Schoolhouse Reef." This was where we saw the gurnards. Beautiful! Kyle sat this dive out. We figured he’d probably had enough of Tammie & Dana! We missed him on this dive. I dived with Davin & Gene. The following dive was "Burt Bros." I think this was the dive that featured the infamous "race." I was making my way up from the dive, and I saw that Chad had removed his fins and put them on Kyle. I also noticed some hand gestures going on between Chad and Joe. I saw them point to a reef, off in the distance, and then make a "1 - 2 - 3" countdown before they both blasted into the blue toward the reef. Chad won the race, but Joe was demanding a rematch. When we boarded the boat, somehow, Joe had on a pair of fins as well. The look on the faces of the divemasters was pure confusion! After lunch, we dived "Patch Reef." (everyone, except Sonja, who was scheduled to leave a day early because she was making a speech in Houston). I think it was on this dive that Sherrie and I dived with Gene! Of course, Davin was nearby, but this was the first dive that we were in charge of the dive. This was a huge excitement for us!!!

      

Friday came too soon. We were all sad to think about the fact that we only had 2 more dives left, which were "Piper Reef" and "Tarpon Reef." Both were great dives, but on the final dive, Kyle was sure we’d see a shark. After all, he had dived this site in the past, and he’d seen a shark on that dive... so since he had a 100% shark sighting record on this site, he knew the shark gods wouldn’t let us down. To our disbelief, there WAS a shark there! I’m convinced it was there because of Kyle! On our way up, we saw two Tammie Faye Baker fish having a little spat. It was just too cool! What a way to end a week of diving! It was also on this day that Tammie’s tank suddenly came loose. When I turned around and saw what was going on, I was relieved to see that George was already at Tammie’s side, fumbling around trying to get the wayward tank secured! But, that’s what dive buddies are for! And where was Dana? Tammie’s buddy? She swears didn’t notice the tank either, however, later that evening at dinner, Kyle was looking at the pictures Dana had taken, and to our surprise, she DID manage to get a picture of Tammie’s flying tank!!!!! She said she was taking a picture of Kyle, and didn’t even notice the vertical tank with a horizontal Tammie! Definitely Mastercard’s definition of priceless!!!!

 

Also, worthy of note, was that our "emergency tank," which was located under the boat, to be used in case you are low on air during your safety stop, became less and less full as the week progressed. We all noticed that Air Hog George seemed to be breathing off it a lot, but surely he alone couldn’t drain a full tank at 15 feet by himself? Or could he? Obviously he did! He’s the only person we know who uses a tank and a half on a one tank dive! Could it be because he is such an air hog that he was unanimously voted OUT of the gene pool by the end of the week?

              

Shortly after he was voted out of the gene pool, George decided to try to redeem himself by conducting interviews with various Eel members for his video project. Keep in mind, in the background of this serious interviewing proceedure, a full fledged party was underway! I can’t imagine what madness was captured, but you can bet, it’ll be entertaining for sure!

           

Saturday morning, we woke up and for some reason, Sherrie, Dana and I fully packed our suitcases, even though we had plenty of time before we were scheduled to leave. We went to have breakfast, and I stopped to pay for a phone call I had made after our bill was settled. As I waited, I overheard a crisis going on. Apparently, although we had been told we were all scheduled to depart on the same plane as a group, a mixup had occurred, and 4 of us needed to go to the airport IMMEDIATELY. Since the 3 of us were packed, we grabbed Kiran, who was also packed, and we left for the airport. Once we arrived, we were told by the baggage people to leave our bags in the baggage area, and we could pick them up when we checked in for our next flight. Of course, there was a silver lining to having to leave on the first plane... we had time to SHOP! And shop we did! We covered Georgetown from one shopping strip to another.

         

We decided we’d better head back to the airport, and once we came in the door, we saw our group with the entire pile of luggage. Ours included! Apparently security went through ALL our bags! When they opened mine, Chad acted like it was his (since we were not there when they were inspecting the bags!). They pulled out my bra and Chad told the security guy, "Well, it was a great week!" Hilarious! We then grabbed a bite at the restaurant in the airport and waited to board the plane.

We arrived in Houston at around 9:15pm, and we were all beat! It is always hard to say good-bye to each other (at least it is for me! For all I know the rest of the group is glad to be leaving!) We gathered our luggage and headed for the airport exit. We all said good-byes again.... Margo and Dana headed off for their hotel, because they were catching a flight the following morning to go home. Sonja picked up Chad, Dr. Joe went to his car and buzzed off, Trace picked up Tammie, Kyle and Jodie headed for College Station, Shannon and Colleen were picked up by Coleen’s husband. John Jack had already left us to fly to Atlanta. Davin, Gene, Sherrie, George, Kiran and I were going to board "Air Geno" and drop Davin off to pick up his truck. Sherrie and Kiran headed off to the parking garage to find the car. After about 30 minutes of searching, Sherrie called to tell us they finally found it. Then after about another 10 minutes, Sherrie called to tell us, "This piece of %*@ won’t start." They tried to jump it off, but Gene had flimsy, old battery cables, and they fried the cables trying to get the van to start!!! So, George called the airport Courtesy Service and they were on their way to jump the van, but in the meantime, about an hour went by, and a good Samaritan helped out. They finally got the van started. We rode home with no air conditioning, and we stopped to get gas, but we didn’t shut off the engine because we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to start the van again! We drove to Davin’s friend’s house (in Houston) so Davin could pick up his truck. We followed Davin to Austin. I arrived home at 3:30am..... started laundry, and went to bed at 5am.... OK.... when’s our next trip???? I’m ready now!