In January 2005 I returned to Grand Cayman with my Ashford Dive Club buddy, Chris Powell.

A few months earlier Chris and I had attended Visions 2004, an annual conference in London on digital underwater photography. One of the speakers was Dr Alexander Mustard, a marine biologist and underwater photographer. His speech was inspirational. So much so that when Chris & I learnt that Alex was to be one of the hosts of an inaugural Grand Cayman digital underwater photography week, we quickly signed up. My wife, Eve, tried to warn Chris that he might not enjoy sharing a condo with me!  Bravely Chris ignored this advice and the trip was booked.

Grand Cayman had been hit by Hurricane Ivan four months earlier, causing extensive damage and tourists were only just returning to the island. Our base for the "Dive Chronicles Digital Jam week" was the Compass Point Condominiums on the East End of the Island. Before Chris and I could even check into our condo, Alex met us and introduced us to the Ocean Frontiers dive centre team, our fellow divers and some Caymanian rum punch! He then began explaining the week's programme. The week had been intended as a series of photographer friendly dives with Alex, as host for Compass Point/Ocean Frontiers, offering advice and giving evening lectures. But naturally all the divers were keen to learn as much as possible from Alex and so he had devised a more intensive schedule. In addition the best of our photographs would be entered into a photography awards evening to be held on our last evening. The competition's prizes were very generous including dive trips to PNG, Wakatobi and the Bahamas. Despite the rum it dawned on me that if we failed to enter some good photographs for the competition, we would not only be letting ourselves down but Alex as well. The "Dive Chronicles Digital Jam week" was clearly going to be very busy. But somehow I felt that Eve, back home in the chilly UK, would not be sympathetic. She certainly would not have been if she had seen the condo! Chris could not believe his good fortune, we had been upgraded to a two bedroom condo so he would not have to share a bedroom with me! The condo was furnished to a very high standard, far exceeding my expectations. Not only did Chris and I both have a large bedroom (each with wide-screen television and ensuite bathroom) we also had a fully equipped kitchen, dinning area, living room and a balcony overlooking the sea. Naturally there was another wide-screen television in our living room although I doubted that Alex would allow us much time for television.

I was right! Typically we were to spend our days diving and taking photographs, then returning to Compass Point for a lecture by Alex after which we would have a group meal, review our days photographs and set up our cameras for the next day, ideally before midnight!

Our dive boat for the week was MV Nauticat, skippered by Captain Dan Schaar. I was quite pleased with one of my first photographs: "Great Barracuda5 D985" but it earned me a stern rebuke from Alex. "Grainy. Far too grainy. You've shot it in ISO400. Why?" Alex seemed to be everywhere giving advice to his team, he even found time to fix a problem with one of my camera lens. There was no doubt that Chris and I were learning a great deal from Alex but could we take an acceptable photograph?

A rare gap in Alex's busyschedule for us enabled Chris and I to sneak off for a dive in front of the Compass Point Pier. Maybe we could capture that elusive photograph? Instead we found out why no-one else was joining us. There was nothing to see and with a maximum dive depth of 2.4 metres, a speedboat passing narrowly overhead provided the only moment of interest!

However some of our fellow divers were taking some amazing photographs. I particularly liked a macro shot of a gold and black Chain Moray and a wide angle picture of a Caribbean Reef Shark, both taken by Ingvar Eliasson. Nearing the end of the week we did two afternoon dives at Stingray City followed by a dawn dive the next morning at The Sandbar. This was my 1000th dive and as luck would have it, a very memorable one. At dawn the stingrays collect into massive schools, circling the Sandbar in formation. There are so many that it is impossible not to get a photograph of a stingray. Captain Dan counted between eighty and one hundred rays in one school. My favourite photograph of this holiday was taken on this dive by Ted Janssen: "Dan D1000 Pic by Ted" It was only after I had been admiring Ted's photograph for some time that I realised that I can be seen in the background, about to do a stride entry to begin my 1000th dive.

With Alex kindly taking a photograph of me finishing the dive, "Completing D1000 by Alex" I had some nice pictorial souvenirs to remember this "diving milestone" by.

Later that day we all made our way to George Town where our photographs were to be judged. Alex had worked so hard all week, I hoped our photographs would not embarrass him.

Ted's photograph "Dan D1000 Pic by Ted" won first place in the Above Water category and Ted also won third place for a photograph of MV Nauticat. Chris won first place in a 'Stingray City' category with Ted taking third place. Ingvar won first place in the Creative category and to my surprise my photograph "Stingrays9 D1000" was judged to be in second place. Even more astonishingly, my "Green Moray8 D998" was given first place in "Compact camera - Macro" with Chris getting an Honourable Mention for his shot of the same moray. Joe Hoyt deservedly won first place in "Compact camera - Wide Angle" for a superb picture of Alex and a lobster and Chris took third place for his shot of a trumpetfish. I even got an Honourable Mention for my "grainy" Barracuda picture. Ingar took second place in "Digital SLR - Macro" and first place in "Digital SLR - Wide Angle" with his gold and black Chain Moray and Caribbean Reef Shark pictures and Ted (again) picked up another third place and Honourable Mention. Alex had not been embarrassed after all.

A highly enjoyable end to a very instructive but fun week in good company.

To raise the overall standard of my photographs of the week on this website, I have cheekily added several pictures taken by Chris and Ted and one by Alex, reluctantly crediting them!