First trip to Grand Cayman

[Pacman23]

Hello all:

I'll be making my first trip to Grand Cayman in April. We're staying at Morritt's Tortuga Club on the East End. I'd like to get in at least 4 days of diving and have a few questions:

1. What's the best way to split up my diving? (i.e., should I dive 2 days on the east end and 2 days on the west end? Do the East End dive shops dive only sites on the east end, and vice versa?)

2. Who should I dive with on the East End? I've heard good things about Ocean Frontier but haven't heard anything about Tortuga Divers. Is it worth driving down the road to Ocean Frontier rather than the on-site Tortuga Divers? (I will be renting a car)

3. What are the "you can't leave Grand Cayman without diving this site" sites?

4. I'd like to do 1 day of shore diving. Considering that, where should I go for the one day of shore diving?

Thank you!!!!

-Pac

 

[Drew Sailbum]

For the one day of shore diving you will be going to the west side of the island. Try the wall and Lighthouse Point (DiveTech) or the mini wall at Turtle Reef (SunDivers) - or both for a two tank. They are so close together.

You can dive East End for a couple weeks without repeating a site. The diving is great but the surface conditions may very well be rougher than the other side of the island.

There are now two signature dives - Stingray City or the wreck of the Kittiwake. Both Ocean Frontiers and Tortuga Divers offer Stingray dives with departures from Kaibo or Rum Point. Not sure how they are handling Kittiwake dives but I assume Tortuga would book you with Red Sail (all the same company) with a departure from the west side.

The East End shops do only dive the east end of the island, but as mentioned above Tortuga is part of a larger operation with shops on the west side. Still, there is no need to wake up in the morning and fight rush hour traffic to drive to the west side for a morning two tank. You aren't missing anything by doing your morning two tank dives on East End.

 

[Damselfish]

1. What's the best way to split up my diving? (i.e., should I dive 2 days on the east end and 2 days on the west end? Do the East End dive shops dive only sites on the east end, and vice versa?)

The best diving is mostly on the East end, so no reason to bother going to the West End for probably lesser diving. (If you were staying on the West end it might be worth going to the East end.)

The East end shops dive the East End, though that includes the North and South sides towards the east end of the island. Similarly West End shops dive west, but some will hit the western end of the south side. Many west ops do trips to the North wall which is highly recommended if staying on the western part of the island, but staying East and diving only few days diving I wouldn't bother, you may be diving North anyway depending on winds.

2. Who should I dive with on the East End? I've heard good things about Ocean Frontier but haven't heard anything about Tortuga Divers. Is it worth driving down the road to Ocean Frontier rather than the on-site Tortuga Divers? (I will be renting a car)

OF is widely considered to be a better op and worth going to. It seems newer divers are more likely to be content with Tortuga than experienced divers. OF would also pick you up.

3. What are the "you can't leave Grand Cayman without diving this site" sites?

I'm partial to Babylon. But aside from dives like Stingray City and the Kittiwake I wouldn't get real hung up on which dive sites you hit from the East End - it's almost all good and they're going to pick where they go based on a combination of requests, where others on the boat have already been, and most importantly where the conditions are best that day. (There are 2 dives I know of that I would try to pass on. One was a very shallow and scattered wreck on the East End that we did an afternoon dive on that I thought was a lousy site, sand covered with lots of surge. Don't have the name handy. There's another shallow site they were using for some night dives or shallow afternoon dives when we were there - thought it was marginal as a night dive and not worth doing as a day dive especially given all the other great sites - don't recall name of that either but I'm thinking there was a little yellow submarine type thing there.)

4. I'd like to do 1 day of shore diving. Considering that, where should I go for the one day of shore diving?

Most of the easy to do shore diving is at developed sites on the west end of the island. (It's possible to shore dive on the East End but can involve longish swims, access issues, and figuring out where to rent tanks - as whether any given op will allow their tanks off site seems to change with the phase of the moon.) I would suggest diving at Turtle Reef, the onsite shop is Sundivers. Nice shore dive both directions, eat at the Cracked Conch upstairs, visit the turtle farm nearby, make a day of it. Or Lighthouse Point. Cobalt Coast I don't think is worth a special trip to dive in close, but if you want to go for a long swim and conditions are ok you could swim out to the wall from there. You might even consider renting a scooter at Cobalt Coast or Lighthouse Point (Divetech at both places) to head out to the wall.

 

[billinwilliamston]

Hi,

I've dove with both Tortuga and OF several times and they each have their pluses and minuses.

If you're staying at Morritt's, Tortuga's biggest advantage may be that you can wake up, grab a cup of coffee and walk down to the dive boat. If you "own" your unit at Morritt's and you bought from the developer you get a 20% discount from Tortuga, if you're trading in or renting you don't.

Last I knew, if you're going to do repeat dives with OF, they will take care of your gear after each dive and have it all hooked up and ready to go on the boat for your next dive. Tortuga is traditionally more anal about depths and times than OF. Since Tortuga is part of Red Sail, they use aluminum 72's. I think OF uses 80's, but please don't quote me on that.

I would add Sunset house to the shore dives. Easy entry (use the "sea pool"), easy access to the wall and a good bar. It's also quite a bit closer than the other two.

One other tip. If you own a Garmin and your maps are up-to-date, bring it. They work quite well down here.

 

[billinwilliamston]

BTW, since you're staying at Morritt's, you might want to check out the Morritt's forum. Morritts Tortuga and Grand Resorts Forum :: Index

 

[War Eagle Diver]

Hello all:

I'll be making my first trip to Grand Cayman in April. We're staying at Morritt's Tortuga Club on the East End. I'd like to get in at least 4 days of diving and have a few questions:

1. What's the best way to split up my diving? (i.e., should I dive 2 days on the east end and 2 days on the west end? Do the East End dive shops dive only sites on the east end, and vice versa?)

2. Who should I dive with on the East End? I've heard good things about Ocean Frontier but haven't heard anything about Tortuga Divers. Is it worth driving down the road to Ocean Frontier rather than the on-site Tortuga Divers? (I will be renting a car)

3. What are the "you can't leave Grand Cayman without diving this site" sites?

4. I'd like to do 1 day of shore diving. Considering that, where should I go for the one day of shore diving?

Thank you!!!!

-Pac

When are you heading in April? We're heading down the 9th - 16th and diving with OF. We are also doing SRC and the Kittiwake with them as well.

 

[Pacman23]

Thanks for all the helpful advice!

WarEagle, I'm also going down April 9-16th. I'm leaning towards OF but haven't made up my mind yet.

-Pacman

 

[reedpi]

We did a two tank beach dive with Sundivers at the Cracked Conch restaurant - great people, Darlene M. took great care of us. Also the owner Ollen Miller was helpful when I called and booked the dive. We booked the dive ourselves - not with the cruise ship. We will go back when we stay on the island.
We had a group of 8 and had a great time. They have good gear to rent.
The visibility was great, lots of fish, and saw two turtles. Nice mini wall for a beach dive
The Turtle farm was across teh street so two nondivers had fun there.

 

[EastEndDiver]

Sundivers are a good operation.I have been shore diving with them at least 2-3 times every trip since Olin took over a few years ago. It is a fun dive plenty of marine life.