Make Equipment Purchases in Grand Cayman?

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Location
United States
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I just don't log dives
Wife and I planning trip to Grand Cayman soon. We live in Michigan and we find it impossible to find dive shops that carry all the brands and models of equipment we want (Michigan not a dive mecca).

Wondering if Grand Cayman has shops with big selection with decent pricing?
 
Hi, there are two shops in Cayman with a very good selection, Diver's Supply and Diver's World.

You'll however find that prices tend to be less competitive due to the high import duties on the islands (this goes for most goods on the island).
 
Unless you are married to the idea of buying brand new, the internet has pretty much anything you want. E-bay can be a good source for used. Plus most equipment is available new from various sources for much less than your LDS. I will buy used and then check it out at the LDS pool to make sure it was what I wanted and in the condition stated online. Pool fee of $10 is worth it.
 
Divers Supply on SMB has a pretty good selection of equipment, but I find the prices to be about 50% higher than the prices you can get in the US, especially if you order online with one of the popular dive equipment supply companies.
 
The exchange rate is terrible but even then Diver's Supply was high

@diversteve, I must apologize profusely for my pedantry (especially as you've posted so much great info on SB about Cayman), but as a part-time Cayman resident (and retired economist, who apparently has way too much time on his hands) I feel compelled to defend my beloved Cayman Islands from the often-posted misconception that things here are expensive because of the exchange rate (the same excuse my wife keeps making:wink: ). Things in Cayman (and for that matter, anywhere in the world) cost what they do because of the local cost of living, not because of the exchange rate. The exchange rate is merely the rate at which you could substitute one currency for the other, so as to pay exactly the same amount for something in either currency. The exchange rate in Cayman is fixed at US$1.00 = CI 0.80 (or CI 1.00 = US$1.25). If you bought, say, a beer here you could pay either US$5.00 or CI 4.00 – but you are not paying more because of the exchange rate. You are, in fact, paying exactly the same amount because of the exchange rate.

Now, the reason a beer cost $US10.00 (or CI 8.00) here instead of US$5.00 is because the cost of living is high here, not because of the exchange rate. So, when you buy dive equipment here, you are paying more than in the US because the cost to have those items shipped here, plus import duty, plus the general cost of running a business (labor, rent, energy, etc.) is very high here (but well worth it, I may add :))

Now, an exchange rate is only “good” or “bad” when it fluctuates based on the relative strengths of two currencies. So, if you “bought”, say, euros at one rate and the rate changed such that the value of the euro went down, the new rate would be “bad” – but only relative to the rate at which you originally bought the euros. Given that the rate between US and Cayman currencies is fixed, the rate is never bad or good – it just is what it is. It could have been set at 1 to 1 (which would have made life a lot easier here for US visitors) but nothing would have changed in terms of how much things actually cost.

Again, I apologize for this silliness, but I will sleep better tonight having defended the honor of the Cayman currency. Or maybe it's just the beer....

And now back to our regularly scheduled program….
 
Hang on.... as a fellow pedant...can you clarify the above argument to explain why my 10 GBP bought less caybrew in sharkeez bar after Brexit shagged the pound than it did before?

....whilst still buying the same amount of caybrew in the ‘lamb and flag’ in Covent garden London?
 
Oh... I see...we are just referencing USD...so I’m fine saying the cayman exchange rate is shaggery...:)..or any exchange rate vs GBP at the moment :rofl3:
 
@diversteve, I must apologize profusely for my pedantry (especially as you've posted so much great info on SB about Cayman), but as a part-time Cayman resident (and retired economist, who apparently has way too much time on his hands) I feel compelled to defend my beloved Cayman Islands from the often-posted misconception that things here are expensive because of the exchange rate (the same excuse my wife keeps making:wink: ). Things in Cayman (and for that matter, anywhere in the world) cost what they do because of the local cost of living, not because of the exchange rate.….

THANK YOU! As a numbers driven engineer, the 'bad exchange rate' argument could drive me nuts when I worked on the island. It is just a different currency, like the Euro, Yen, Peso, etc etc.

Hang on.... as a fellow pedant...can you clarify the above argument to explain why my 10 GBP bought less caybrew in sharkeez bar after Brexit shagged the pound than it did before?

....whilst still buying the same amount of caybrew in the ‘lamb and flag’ in Covent garden London?

Because the GBP is not on a fixed exchange rate to the KYD, whereas the USD is.
 

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