Underwater Photography and Scuba Diving in the world of Cayman's Cathy Church

Detailed biography
March 25, 20A few personal notes from Cathy Church:

February 25, 2008

My induction (click here for all the photos) into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame was a wonderful Nudibranch face evening. I enjoyed getting to know the other inductees, some of whom I already knew well and others whom I have wanted to know better. My time spent with Daniel Mercier resulted in his inviting me to Jury, present and exhibit at the 2009 Underwater Film Festival in Antibes, France. Le problem soulement est je "must" parle en Francaise et je ne parle pas Francais, as you can see.

PNG was FUN! What can I tell you--lots of new nudibranchs that I have never seen before (like this Miamira magnifica) and I almost got run over by a wobegone! The boat needs some work, and they are doing that now. The problems were all small (but important) and should be easily dealt with.

We are adding some wonderful new staff and will tell you about them soon.

December 4, 2007

What a whirlwind of activities. Our trip to Guadalupe to see Great White sharks was fabulous. The weather was rough the first two days, and the sharks were reluctant to come close to the cages, but on the third day everyone had a chance to see some up close. The highlight of the trip was the guest list--Ernie Brooks III, Zale Parry, Leslie Leaney--all hall of famers, and a lot of their friends and ours. Those Great White sharks are HUGE. He is much bigger than the divers in the other cage. Note the rough water. My cage is visible in the bottom, and the Nekton Explorer is in the upper right. Bags of scented food are in the upper left. The shark has gotten momentarily entangled in the bait line.

DEMA was loaded with a lot of new advances in underwater housings, improved strobes and TTL systems,

All is well with me, Herb and Sparky the African Gray Parrot. I hope you are well, also.

Otherwise it's just the same old thing here--sun, fun, diving and no work. And you didn't think I had a sense of fantasy!!

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season,

--Cathy and Herb

Previous notes:

September 15, 2007

Our summer was wonderful. No problem hurricanes so far. Had some great dives from the new boat--enjoyed Stingrays at the sandbar at sunrise, dove Ghost mountain and Babylon and more.

The Solomon Islands trip was yet again a stunning journey with a few new dive sites that I had never seen before. WOW. We had no problems and had wonderful weather much of the time. While the camera area on the Spirit of Solomons was way too small for our photo group, we all made it work.

I am getting a firm grip on photoshop and almost enjoying it.

Last, but not least, I am being inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame this coming January. What a treat! This has been a marvelous organization and I am proud and happy to join their ranks.

We have two new employees settled in at the photo center--Dolo Wollbaum (from Canada) and Theunis (pronounced Tee-in-us) Neethling from South Africa. They are both very nice people to be around.

June 7, 2007

I have been busy interviewing new employees, and have been working virtually every day, so this page is long over-due for an update. We are well and happy, just struggling to keep up. In the meantime, we have turned the corner financially and are now fully recovered from the losses of the hurricane. Hurray.

I have been making prints like crazy on our big Epson 9800 printer. They look terrific. I have added lots of new photos to the gallery, and will hopefully get an employee who can fix up our web gallery!

My garden is incredible. My thatch palm is twice as high. New photos coming soon.

February 23, 2007

Today I arranged for the power to be restored--FINALLY--to our last condo that was still in need of repair after hurricane Ivan. Once it is rented, we will finally be back on the road to financial recovery.

Herb is now back to the photo center full time so we are returning to a one-store operation.

Our garden is now home to two green iguanas--one about 2.5 feet long, and a lovely red racer snake who tried to climb the pole to the bird feeder. Our banana quits (also called sugar birds) are soon to raise their third family of the season in our porch light fixture.

October 4, 2006

The garden is growing by leaps and bounds ... I had to get rough with an out-of-control cactus but I came out unscathed.

The thatch palm on the left was only a foot high when I planted it after hurricane Ivan.

And my photo file is growing even faster. It takes a lot of time, but I have enjoyed working with the hundreds of digital photos I have taken in the last two years. Here is a sample creation that I made from a scorpion fish fin. The beauty is in the details in the enlargement, but this web-site file gives you a hint of my direction.

Herb got a bright red Vespa scooter as it was difficult to ride a bike to the new store. But he is feeling fine and we are both very busy.

Sparky got a hold of a synch cord and it has become one of his favorite chew toys. That was an expensive toy!

Keep enjoying the journey.

Cathy and Herb

October 12, 2005

We had a great time, as always, at the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame induction and related events. I am not in the hall of fame, I work for the board of directors. I love meeting the new inductees. Here I am comparing legs with the great Capt. Don Stewart of Bonaire, who is recuperating from the recent loss of one of his favorite legs. He was a delight to be with, and has an ardent and sensitive love of the sea. Not shown were inductee Ernie Brooks, and board members Tom Ingram and Leslie Leaney, film festival participant Geri Murphy and sister Vicki, and of course Herb.

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I have accepted the fact that we shall never complete the house after the damage from hurricane Ivan. For example, we don't have towel racks up on the new walls, but we have found some creative ways to hang them on the door. Our new back French doors were finally unpacked for installation and they are the wrong size!

I had a wonderful celebration of my 60th birthday with my June Super Course. Jason, better known as the disco wonder of the 70s stopped by to sing Happy Birthday to me. Our friend Lee Aronfeld stopped in and he does not know that this photo is going onto the web site.

My best friend, Christine Smith, came for a visit and stayed about six weeks. We had a great time. Here we are after some hard gardening. Its looking pretty good, though I miss my trees.

Herb and I are still living at Sunset House, but our roof at home is finished, and so are the walls. I painted the inside myself with a few helpers. We have all of our appliances and furniture but still await our cabinets (and therefore the sinks). The garden is still a mess, but a few birds are back and the butterflies are out in full.

After the 6.7 earthquake a few days ago, we are now awaiting the plague of locusts. The quake was a long one--Sparky flew off of Herb's hand just a few seconds before the rest of us noticed the lamp swaying and the clothes rocking back and forth on the hangers. Kat and Eddy came flying out of the photo centre in the basement as Herb and I headed downstairs from our room on the second floor. The residents of the hotel all met in the middle and said "That was a big earthquake!" It registered 6/7 and lasted over twelve seconds. What next? Fortunately there was little damage (a few things fell off of the TV) and got our minds off of the hurricane for 12 seconds.

Every minute is spent trying to get things back together. This poor little island is so overwhelmed--they ordered 100 more trucks just to try to get caught up delivery containers. At the rate of construction before the storm, it would take five years to complete the repairs after the storm. Damage is estimated to be almost US$100,000 per person on the island.

I am sorry to say that we are not sending out Christmas cards this year--but we do wish you all a wonderful holiday.

I put some photos on the Breaking News page which you should look at. The tree here that was behind Herb is on its side but we are hoping to stand it back up. Herb and I are in Florida getting cabinets, furniture, appliances, etc. It is amazing how much damage a few feet of salt water can do when it sits in your house for a day.

But we are both well, a bit stressed over-all but Herb is riding his great new bike and I have been sitting and eating. I had a great time in PNG and saw a new pygmy seahorse. This one is about 3/16ths of an inch.

We are both doing great--Herb is at the weight he wants, and is getting a great new custom made bicycle.

The Digital Super course went so well that I am setting up four more for next year.

I have been feeling fabulous and we are still staying on our eating program. I had the most wonderful family reunion ever. The entire gang was there (all 27 of us) and I even got up on the water skis.

Sparky the parrot has learned to ring the phone to get Herb to come, and when he calls my name I can't tell if it is Herb or Sparky, so that gets my attention.

I am getting ready to choose which close-circuit rebreather to get. I want to spend a few hours at a time out on the wall or at Orange Canyon. Now I guess I will have to go digital so I can take more photos.

Wow, a lot has happened since September! First, Herb and I both were granted Cayman Status--that is what they call almost citizenship. It means we can stay without yearly permit applications, but we can't vote. We are still US citizens as well.

We went to the underwater film festival in Antibes, France. Quite interesting--we both noticed, for example, that most of France is very old.

A highlight of our year was our time spent at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Florida. (If you want to go, tell them we sent you.) Herb had wanted to go there for a long time and it finally happened in late November. After our two-week stay, Herb was having such a successful time that he stayed for a third week. Wow! Pritikin is to health as our SuperCourse is to underwater photography—all day immersion with sunrise stretch at 7am, 45 minutes each of strength, cardio, yoga, a variable specialty workout, five lectures and an optional cooking class. There were three main meals, two soup-and-more snacks and lots of fruit and vegetables available wherever you were! It was a utopia—time just for ourselves to exercise, healthy food everywhere, learning reasons behind the methods, getting lots of great tips, losing weight, sleeping well, blood pressure way down, and much, much more. We just couldn't do it like this at home, but we have the momentum and we are trying to keep it up. Thanks Stu Bakst for encouraging us to go! We are still at it in mid January.

We will be here for the next few months except for Herb's trip to the Photo Trade show in Las Vegas, Feb. 12 - 15, his sons Dan's wedding in D.C. area March 24 - 28.

Herb is a grandpa--his lovely daughter, Amy, had her first child, a girl, this past August, in New York. He is doing all of the grandpa things like visiting for hours just to hold her and constantly buying little stuffed animals.

The SuperCourse and the Solomon Islands weeks were great! I stayed over on the Bilikiki for another week of diving because there were only two other guests; I had the whole place to myself. It was pure heaven. My family visits in Michigan and Kentucky were the best ever and had another book brainstorming session with each of my family and with an artist friend, Christine Smith, in Athens, Ohio. Our staff at the photo centre is coming along nicely, my mortgages are officially PAID off and I was just granted Caymanian Status. How can life get any better? (Status is one step short of voting rights, but it allows me to live here permanently without having to apply each year for a permit. That eliminates a load of worry.)

For those of you who know me personally, you would be pleased to know how much better I am feeling this year, thanks to the wonderful effects of an anti-depressant. Clinical depression was finally diagnosed about two years ago, and I started feeling much, much better by this spring. I hope that it was rarely visible on the outside. I advise any of you who are feeling pessimistic without reason, hopeless without cause, irritable without provocation or any of several saddened states without situational causes to check it out with a professional.

Otherwise, the weather here is balmy, Herb and I and Sparky are just fine and we hope that you all can come and visit sometime soon.

Detailed biography March 25, 20A few personal notes from Cathy Church:

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Detailed biography
March 25, 20A few personal notes from Cathy Church: