December 14th 2006

About 20 miles east of Georgetown Grand Cayman Islands, aboard the carnival cruise ship conquest. I'm sitting on the veranda of our deck six cabin. It was my intention to watch the dawn come up and view our arrival in Georgetown. I spotted almost due south what looked like the southern cross (Crux) which I had never seen before. It was 6:05am. I drew it on a scrap of paper as well as it distance above the horizon (10 degrees). When I got home I confirmed the sighting with Starry Night. I also saw about 1 shooting star a minute. The air at sea is very steady, I got a lot of impressive visuals using the 8x32 Celestron binoculars. Even when it was partly cloudy the air remained steady. I spent several evenings at the ship's bow because they turned off all the lights there at night.