Caribbean sealife by an aquatic astronaut

Recently I had a lifechanging trip to the Caribbean, where I was visiting a friend who is lucky enough to call her little island of Grand Cayman her home. Mostly our time was spent in the sea, particularly about 30m beneath the surface, scuba diving. While I have done it once before aged 14, getting my diving license as an adult, doing it on 4 days and seeing incredible wildlife made it feel more real, and it was as if a whole new world had opened up. To anyone who has the opportunity to do it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Being in water is the closest most people will get to feeling weightlessness like astronauts do in space. Having the ability to go fairly deep underwater without worrying about breathing felt like a superpower. I was almost giddy with joy as we descended to 60ft/18m, exploring the corals, interesting fish and other beautiful marine wildlife below the surface. I've always dreamt of flying and diving really does feel like it, something I discovered as we glid gently along the seabed which dropped off almost vertically to hundreds of metres deep. It was as if we were on the edge of a mountain staring down at the steep drop, but instead of staying back for safety, we just floated across it. I remember staring in disbelief at my flippers dangling off my feet, below which the sea seemed to continue into an abyss. The water was so deep we couldn't see the bottom, and so blue that it almost looked the same in all directions, except for when we turned around to the coral filled seabed to reorientate ourselves. While some people might find the sound of this terrifying and dread vertigo, in water it is a lot more calming simply because you won't fall and instead hang in suspense while the water holds you up.

Gliding along the sea cliff between the shallows and the depths, image courtesy of a nice American chap who was also diving and brought his GoPro.

One cannot move quickly with scuba kit on, which is like being an astronaut in space, weighed down with cumbersome but lifesaving equipment. Neither can you have a conversation underwater, and any communication is done with simple hand signs, for things like 'running out of air', 'boat' and 'turtle', all the important stuff. This reduces us to an almost childlike state, unable to speak and blissfully free from mundane chatter. The whole experience is a quiet one, and diving instructors will usually tap on their air cylinders to gain students' attention with a gentle metallic clink, and point to a particularly fascinating animal, such as a stingray, turtle or shark nearby. I should add none of these animals we saw were dangerous, merely beautiful and sometimes rare. The peace and tranquility of diving is particularly wonderful in a society where it seems everything and everyone is competing for our attention. Down there, staring at incredible creatures, you realise how truly meaningless things like social media or phone notifications are, and what a beautiful world we live in. Losing track of time and indeed depth is easily done, however thanks to a nifty watch-like device on each diver's wrist which keeps track of both these things, you don't need to worry, and can relax and enjoy the magnificent scenery. As such, here are some of the incredible animals we were lucky enough to see in our very own DIY David Attenborough documentary. None of these photos were taken by me, but they capture similar scenes to what we saw nevertheless.

Eagle Ray

Image: Crystal Charters

These extraordinary fish (I had to double check they weren't mammals because they look quite different from your traditional scale covered finned fish) appear to fly through the water like gentle, giant birds. They're not seen very often in Cayman and are one of the special "Big Five" animals which a diving instructor will tap on a tank for to alert students there is something cool nearby. The other animals on this list are turtles, sharks, stingrays and eels, and amazingly I saw them all. The eagle ray we saw was about 1m in diameter, and was cruising gently near the sandy floor. They swim by slowly flapping their 'wings' up and down. I found the leopeard like spots on the top particularly pretty, and although our eagle ray only glid by us for a few seconds before vanishing into the blue, its delicate movement is something that will stay in my memory.

Turtles

Image: Julian Berengar Sölter/Unsplash

We saw a handful of turtles on our dives, mostly swimming near the surface, and on one occasion while we were on the boat and one was catching some air. These little fellows have lungs, and can hold their breath for hours at a time. The diving hand signal for turtle is putting two fists on top of eachother, and then wiggling your outermost fingers on the bottom hand like a turtle's legs. My friend's house is on a beachfront, and excitingly a turtle nest was found in the week I was there. These baby turtles will hatch from their eggs in a few months and waddle towards the water. I was astonished to find they can live for several decades, sometimes 50 years, which is over twice my current age. Apparently, the hatchling turtles follow the light of the moon to navigate across the beach and towards the sea, and years later come back to lay their eggs in the same place they themselves were born. When a turtle nest is found, my friend's neighbours turn off their back garden lights in order not to disorientate the turtles so they can follow the moonlight and go the right way towards the sea.

Nurse Shark

Image: Mark McGill, YouTube

I deliberately didn't put this one first because when I told my friends back home I'd gone diving, a few said they wanted to have a go too, but when I said I'd seen a shark they got a bit scared and changed their minds! The one we saw was about 1.5-2m long (length of a person) and nestled between reefs like in this photo, peacefully minding its own business. Respect for marine life is an important rule of diving and generally if you follow it, you'll be fine, animals are most likely to attack if they feel threatened so if you observe from a respectful distance they'll probably leave you alone. The next day we saw another nurse shark and got to see it swim this time. After just a few sideways swishes of the tail, it was gone. These sharks mainly snaffle on invertebrates around the bottom of the sea, little fish, squid and crustaceans. Interestingly they go through puberty around the same age as humans, and can also live for decades. Perhaps we humans are not as unique as we like to think. After all, we are animals too.

Stingray

Image: Department of Environment, Cayman Islands Government

One particular highlight of my trip was Stingray City, a shallow, sandy seabed towards the north of Grand Cayman where the stingrays are so friendly you can swim among them, and feed and touch them. My friend tells me that the stingrays congregate on this spot as in the past fishermen used to dump fish guts here, which the stingrays were only to happy to gobble up. Nowadays, tourists come in boats and swim among the rays, feeding them squid. I was amazed to find that if I held my arms out, the stingrays would swim right over them, as if they wanted a tummy tickle. Other times they brushed against my legs. Their upper sides are like sandpaper, while their white lower sides are smooth and slippery. While I do bang on about aquatic animals swimming a lot, the way these ones move really is a sight to behold. They also eat little fish and crustaceans, however unlike the eagle rays, these ones don't flap triangular wing-like features, but instead ripple their whole circular frames in a way that only aquatic animals can, similar to a sheet rippling in a breeze. This wacky design clearly works since these animals and similar have been found in fossils dating back from around a hundred million years ago.

Pufferfish

Image: J. T. Lewis/Shutterstock

While a funky looking fish, this is absolutely not one to touch (don't touch any of them but especially not this one). As one can probably guess, on closer inspection you'll find these spotty creatures are covered in little spikes. These can puff outwards and stab unwitting prey, or predators thinking they've found an easy snack. I found these ~30cm long chaps relatively easy to spot because they move in a different way to your average fish, combining all their fins to swim in a slightly clumsy, slow manner. This makes them easy targets, however anything hoping to eat it is in for a nasty shock. Pufferfish can inflate themselves into a ball when threatened, significantly increasing in size. When this occurs, its spikes come out and act as a secondary form of defence, since they are highly toxic. Again though, if you're respectful and careful underwater this isn't something to be too worried about, and the one we found was apparently very old and known to divers, and had a general attitude of calm about it.

Chain Moray Eel

Image: scubaboard

My friend spotted one of these while we were out snorkelling near some rocks, and pointed it out to me. She was very excited because they're quite rare, and we saw it hunting little shrimp and fish between some rocks. Eels are a bit like snakes, but less round and more ribbon-like, and this one was around 30cm long. If there's one thing my aquatic adventures taught me it's that there are many ways to move through the water, whether wriggling, flapping, rippling or kicking.

Tiny (Banded Coral) Shrimp

Image: fishlaboratoryaquatics

These tiny little creatures were very hard to spot owing to being very very small, less than an inch, maybe even a centimetre. My friend pointed them out with a delicate pinky finger so I managed to have a squint at them. They were fascinating to watch, moving their little legs and antennae very delicately and slowly. Apparently they shed their exoskeletons as they grow, and if they lose a part of their body, they can regrow it during their next molt. They wait in little groups in 'cleaning stations', hanging upside down, waiting for fish, their 'customers', to come along for a clean. In this way, these little fellows are an unsung hero of the shallow seafloor, helping keep other fish looking spick and span.

Parrotfish

Image: Crystal Charters

These fish were plentiful, just under a foot long and glistening in beauitful colours like a rainbow. Colours look different underwater, the deeper you go the more noticable the change. Colours such as red are among the first to disappear at depth, nevertheless they were still beautiful as they swam around the corals and shallows, and there is a definite resemblance to parrots, their feathery namesake. Another unsung hero of the corals, they chomp on the algae and dead coral, which if left to overgrow can suffocate the reefs. This can help reduce the impact of coral bleaching, as healthy coral is more resistant to bleaching. They are another example of the vital animals cleaning up the marine environment. It really is beautiful how nature has a way of making everything work out so neatly.

Flying Fish

Image: why.welovebirds.com

And finally, the fish that fly! While I'd heard of these before, I was still stunned to see gleams of silver seemingly leap out of the water alongside our little boat. First one, then another and another. The dive instructor who was driving the boat told me their wings are a way of escaping predators chasing them underwater. The flying fish break the surface and can fly several metres at a time, confusing their predators in the water below. At a glance, they really do look like silver birds and are pretty spectacular to watch, and for that reason were added to my article on cool marine wildlife.

Overall the diving was a lifechanging experience, where I was lucky enough to see in real life beautiful creatures I'd only seen before on nature documentaries (big thanks to the BBC and David Attenborough there) or in the occasional aquarium. There's nothing quite like the real thing though, be that the serene sight of a turtle paddling gently by, or a ray flapping past in silence. Honestly, there's a whole new world out there below the water surface.