Trip Report DiveSergeant Trip Report- Living The Dream Divers and their Ocean Cabanas

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divesergeant

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GCM April-May Trip Report



We made it to Grand Cayman Sunday afternoon, April 24th. Uneventful flights, with four quality hours spent in layover at MIA. Woo-hooo! But I have to say, the tacos we had there for lunch were arguably amongst the best we can remember having.


Andy’s Jeep Rental- part un
The first Jeep from Andy’s had issues. The back would not close enough to keep stuff dry, and the tire light was on. The tire solution offered by the first lady was for us to take it up to a station and pay to fill the tires. Ummm, nope WTF? Then another one of their ladies decided she would put air in and pumped the tires to 50psi. The Jeep placard says 35psi, just like I had told her before she started. We ended up taking the Jeep anyway but made arrangements to swap it the next day when they had another one ready.


Food
Of course, there were absolutely no groceries stores open at all being a Sunday. We ended up eating at Rackams, then buying a carryout pizza at Pizza Hut which we put in the fridge to be warmed up for breakfast.


Lodging / Diving
I’ll attach a picture or two of the view off our balcony. Our dive operator (Living The Dream Divers) just opened their own resort (Ocean Cabanas) on the northwest corner of the island with just 7 cabanas in it. We’re one of their first guests and they seem as excited to have us here as we are to be here, and they are justifiably proud of what they have created.

We are in their Stingray Cabana.

The condos are nicely furnished with Moen, Whirlpool, Cuisinart and KitchenAid appliances. High, vaulted 12 foot + ceilings with 8’ high door wall opening up to the sea makes the condo feel very light and airy.

And of course, we’re diving with them as well for our first time. Living the Dream Divers has some of the best dive boats we’ve been on for years. They’re large, pretty new, very well maintained. They are made to accommodate probably 16 or more divers, but they limit the boats to about half that. Dives are guided, but once they became comfortable with our skills they were OK if we wanted to lag a bit behind the group and explore at our own pace.

1- Looking North- that is the dock from DiveTech’s Lighthouse Point on the far right, with Macabuca restaurant a half mile or so farther north

2-Looking south- Bonnie’s Arch dive site would be just out of view to the left of the picture


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Day one of diving found us at Notre Dame and Hammerhead Hole. Descending on the second dive I had a large male loggerhead turtle come up and get in my face. Literally, in my face. Like, nose to nose. Like, eye to eye. Like, I just load my drawers close. Like, Holy crap is this thing going to munch my nose close. He and I froze, nose to nose for a few moments. Then he ended up putting its right flipper on my shoulder and pushing off, brushing my forehead with its shell and rear flipper. I could have stopped the dive right then and been happy! Apparently this fellow has been cruising off SMB and interacting with divers fairly regularly. It is breeding season and he is looking for some turtle move. Sorry fella, not judging, but that’s not the lifestyle for me!

Day two we dived Big Tunnels and La Mesa,

Day three saw us at Trinity Caves and The Aquarium.

On both the second and third days the first dives were beautiful with swim throughs and dramatic underwater formations. These dives are often more about cruising past the scenery than checking out little stuff. The second dive each day found us surrounded by an endless number and species of fishes. At Aquarium we spotted a huge Cubera Snapper lounging under an overhang. It did not stick around to visit with us, which is probably why it has grown to the size and age it has.

After several days of diving, we have to give Living The Dream Divers high marks. We’ve dived with Casey at Neptune’s Divers for years but she has closed Neptune’s. We ended up trying LTD because they seemed to have the same philosophy as Casey did as far as small groups and good service. And their boats are great!

Dining so far has been the aforementioned Rackams the first night and Macabuca the third night. The other nights we’ve eaten at the condo.

We’re taking today, Thursday, off from diving to drive around the island.


Thursday Island Trip
We drove to Rum Point, which is closed. until further notice. No big lose as far as I am concerned. We visited there in the 1980s when it was pretty much a shack on the beach and was fun. The last few visits I cringe when I think of going there. From there we headed east and had a wonderful lunch at Eagle Ray’s at Ocean Frontiers. We had a chance to visit with Mo. Sadly, we learned that their original boat, the NautiCat, has been hauled out and is on the hard waiting to be cut up. It sounds like they may sell pieces of her hull stamped with the name and made into keychains.

Another sad item of news. The Lighthouse at Breakers is closed. It is up for sale so who knows if it will reopen.

We finished the island tour with a stop at Pure Art, an island must-do stop that invariably increases our return flight luggage weight.

Andy’s Jeep Rental- part deux
We swapped Jeeps as planned. This one seemed okay. Until the second day that we had it. I locked the tail gate and it would not unlock. Something was loose in the mechanism. Back to Andy’s we went. They arranged to swap with us the next day, and to do it at the SMB location which was very convenient for us. We swapped the next day, and so far so good!

Dear God, how I miss Cayman Auto Rental. Robbie’s Jeeps were always well maintained, clean and just plain worked right!


Friday/Saturday Diving
More wonderful west side diving, with Saturday being to the south at Eagle Ray Rock where we were treated to a large barracuda at a cleaning station.


Dining Update
After a late lunch at Eagle Rays on Thursday, we ended up making a batch of popcorn and having that and wine for dinner. Hey, there has got to be good fibre in popped corn, right?????

On Saturday we headed to Alfresco where we, as always, had a wonderful meal with great ambiance. It is highly recommended!

’Nuff for now. Gotta head to the sack and rest up for another grueling day of valet diving!


Cheers,
Dive Sergeant
 
Sounds like a good time! Is shore diving an option where you're staying? Does the dive op. you're using support it (e.g.: provide tanks and weights, etc...)?

Richard.
 
Thanks for the real time trip report. I'm glad to hear Living the Dream made it through the pandemic. My last trip to Grand Cayman was 2016 and I spent a very nice week diving with them. Really enjoyed the boat, the sites, and the staff.
 
The other day I mentioned to Liz, one of the owners, that I like diving to the south. Well guess what? We loaded on the boat and headed that way to accommodate my request. We did Eagle Ray Rock and Armchair. Both were wonderful and enjoyable. There was a bit of a current washing past and the swaying sea fans are hypnotizing.

Today, we started at Little Tunnels, a turtle made an appearance and we noted that we seem to be seeing more hogfish than in the past. On the other hand, we’ve seen just one eel (not counting the ubiquitous garden eels!).

Today’s second dive was at Killer Puffer. wow, I could do this dive everyday and be happy. It is a fairly shallow dive with sandy patches with clumps of coral all about.

Speaking of coral, there was an abundance of pilar coral here with their polyps extended during the daytime. It was cool to see.

And, speaking again of coral, from what we hear maybe 30% or so of the coral is infected with the stony coral disease right now. Hopefully the reef can adapt and overcome this threat.

On Killer Puffer dive we saw tons of small stuff like jawfish, cleaner shrimp, arrow crabs as well as larger stuff like puffers and grouper and snapper.

A note on lionfish. We’ve been seeing one to three per day. We understand that at greater depth they are much more numerous. While we don’t see to many at rec depths, it sure would be nice to be able to kill them. I imagine the DoE has their reasons to disallow spears (except for the ones they issue and maintain) but dang! I understand if they are worried about someone damaging the reef trying to ‘get a shot’, but really? In my limited experience, lionfish shooters are more conscious of the reef than many photographers.

Enough for now, might be an early dinner and bedtime night.
 
I imagine the DoE has their reasons to disallow spears (except for the ones they issue and maintain) but dang!
Are the dive pro. staff allowed to kill them? Such as guides?

Richard.
 
I think so. But it sounds like their spear guns are out of service or something like that, and the ELFs have to be repaired by DoE.

Just had a home-cooked sauteed tuna salad for dinner. Accompanied the grilled tuna with some malbec. Not the most intuitive pairing, but damn it was good. I sprinkled the tuna wit salt and pepper, then dusted it with Italian seasoned bread crumbs. About 1 to 1.5 minutes per side on a hot, olive oil coated pant and damn!

Now, moving on the the mudslides…

Cheers,
DS
 
Correction, yesterday’s second dive was actually Killer Pilar.

Today we did Dragon’s Breath up by the northwest point where we saw a couple turtles and lots of snapper and grouper. Kind of made me wish for some garlic butter.

The second dive today was Killer Puffer. I promise!

It started with a swim by from a young nurse shark, probably 2 to 3 feet long. The usual cast of reef fish were about, with a large Nassau grouper staring us down from a hole in a coral clump, and a bounty of snapper. A smallish yellow ray graced us by posing as it rested half covered by sand at the end of the dive.

It seems this trip there are more mutton snappers than I remember from years past.

We remain very pleased with Living The Dream. Tank fills are not skimpy. We regularly see 3100- 3200 psi, and our nitrox tanks analyze out at 32 to 33.5. We’ve dived were tanks were 2850-2900psi and 29% or so on the nitrox mix.

The motto on the back of LTD’s vehicles reads, “Compromise Elsewhere”. Thus far they are living up to that.

Our usual boat captain has been Warren (the nomadic South African). Crew members have been Ty (short for, well, Ty), Rumy (pronounced roomy, and probably weighing in at less than the typical dive kit that she lifts) and Matt (whose hair is as red underwater as above). They take care of everything, making this the easiest, laziest diving we’ve experienced.

Dinner tonight was at Tukka West. Damn! It was good and now Mrs DS and I are about to slip into a food coma…..

Finally, a morning jpeg from our condo. I’m thinking of Barry Manilow. Who gets why????

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Wed May 4

Yesterday was a dry day, but today we got right back to it.

Orange Canyon was, as always, spectacular. We ended the dive doing a safety stop with two young barracuda. Does that make them collectively a pairacuda? We also saw a trio of absolutely huge French angelfish. Christian lead the dive and we liked his nice, relaxed, slow pace.

The shallow dive was the ever-popular Spanish Anchor, lead by Rumy. This dive is also a consistent favorite, this time yielding a balloon fish, a quintet of squidage and the ever-present assembly of mutton snapper along with a few Nassau grouper. And let us not forget Rumy’s ‘nursing shark’. Hey, cut her some slack, English is not her native language; might be her third, fourth, who knows! In any event, she’s a wonderful dive guide.

Random thoughts;
-not too many lionfish at recreational depths
-have yet to see a green moray, hell, other than garden eels, the only eel we’ve seen has been a goldentail
-decent showing of turtles
-way more mutton snapper than we can recall in the past, and they follow the divers around. Waiting for a lionfish snack, maybe?
-also more Nassau grouper than we remember from 6 years ago
-more hogfish than we remember

Sadly, from my previous post, it seems nobody got my Barry Manilow reference on the photograph. Deep sigh. I feel so old….


Andy’s Jeep, part trois,

Got in this morning, started it up, and on popped the check engine light. Yup, the engine is still there! Gonna have to get that looked at.

Then, so the check engine light wouldn’t be on all alone, the tire light came on. We stopped at their SMB locatiom and I topped the left rear up. It was at 30psi. All the others were close to 50psi, with the tire’s max inflation listed at 44. I fixed them all!

Good grief, I know things are hard right now, but maintain your rental stuff. At the very least, don’t give me a rental with tires inflated 10% over max!

Cheers,
DS
 
See if you can get out to Northwest Point if the current allows. There always seem to be a few Green Morays there.
By the way, we always rent a small cheap car from Andy's. Never had a problem yet.
 

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