Got back from Grand Cayman . . .

[francousteau]

and put a few pictures on my photo gallery. I'll add more as I get them edited. Diving was good (although not every place welcomed me with the rebreather) with the water temps at 81° and air at 83°. Did a combination of shore dives & boat dives. Only one boat let me on with the rebreather and although they cut me a bit of slack, they reigned in my dives with regards to depth & time. Oh well, at least they let me on.

Back to normal diving, I was at Clear Springs last Saturday and although the air was warm with a nice breeze, water temps were at 46° so again my dives were shorter. Also, with only 5 divers there and only 1 person at the table I set up at, I felt completely welcomed

Franco

 

[Aquatrax]

Welcome back Franco, hope your trip to Grand Cayman was as good as mine to Little Cayman, my pics are posted in my gallery as well.

 

[rakpix]

kind of surprised to here about the re-breather hostility. especially since inner-space is held there every summer.

 

[fire_diver]

Hopefully your surface intervals were better than your boat experiences. I love GC, but I've never tried using a RB there. Sorry you had a less than ideal dive trip.

 

[francousteau]

kind of surprised to here about the re-breather hostility. especially since inner-space is held there every summer.

Innerspace is hosted in the West Bay area by DiveTech, a RB friendly dive op (although you cannot shore dive there unless you've rented some gear from them). There's actually 3 RB friendly ops in West Bay; DiveTech, In Depth Watersports and Stingray Watersports, the last is where I rented cylinders & consumables from. There is no other RB shop anywhere else on the island, afaik. Our condo was on the east side, which is the complete opposite side of the island and about a 1hr drive each way, so going there everyday was not a good option. Plus I never said there was "hostility" there, although one person at Red Sail / Tortuga Divers was pretty odd. Most boats just wouldn't let RB's on their boats, no matter what side of the island you were on. Again Ocean Frontiers let me use their boat and were very pleasant, even letting me push their depth/time limits. So, although GC is a really nice island, seems relatively safe and diving for OC divers would be great, for me . . . I won't be in a hurry to go back.

YMMV

Franco

 

[BlueFrog]

There is actually some really great rebreather diving to be had if you go with one of the operations you mentioned geared to Tec divers. Also, I'd ask if you were there by yourself or with other rebreather divers? I frequently tag along with other CCR divers but I occasionally will travel solo, and have paid for a CCR divemaster from Divetec as a buddy. Its expensive but it was the only way to do the tec/long dives. Thankfully, I'm blessed with a wife who dives a CCR so we usually just shore dive to follow our own schedule and depth. Some fantastic sites once you get away from the usual sites that get all the activity.

If you have never done Innerspace or Tec Week, I'd recommend it as they are designed for rebreathers and Tec divers. The boats dives are several hours long since they are specifically planned for long and/or deep dives.

 

[Cave Diver]

Most boats just wouldn't let RB's on their boats, no matter what side of the island you were on.

I've had similar issues shore diving with several ops. The explanation I was given was that most of the ops only carry recreational dive insurance and the CIWSA won't allow them to let divers conduct "technical" dives without carrying technical insurance.

 

[ianr33]

I've had similar issues shore diving with several ops. The explanation I was given was that most of the ops only carry recreational dive insurance and the CIWSA won't allow them to let divers conduct "technical" dives without carrying technical insurance.

A possible alternative explanation is they make more money out of recreational divers and Cruise Ship passengers to bother with serious divers.

I don't dive a rebreather but have done a fair bit of 'technical" shore diving there. If you want to dive something other than the Divetech sites you really have to work around the system.

I remember Ocean Frontiers telling me many years ago I could do some technical dives with them, but would be restricted to 100 feet as I did not have a trimix certification at the time.

With Cayman selling its soul to developers, and the general pain of flying these days, I probably won't be going back to the place anytime soon. Much easier to drive the 13 hours to Cave Country.

 

[francousteau]

There is actually some really great rebreather diving to be had if you go with one of the operations you mentioned geared to Tec divers. Also, I'd ask if you were there by yourself or with other rebreather divers? I frequently tag along with other CCR divers but I occasionally will travel solo, and have paid for a CCR divemaster from Divetec as a buddy. Its expensive but it was the only way to do the tec/long dives. Thankfully, I'm blessed with a wife who dives a CCR so we usually just shore dive to follow our own schedule and depth. Some fantastic sites once you get away from the usual sites that get all the activity.
~snip~

You can actually do some shore diving there and have some nice dives w/o the need to pay a CCR divemaster. It's a bit of a swim out and because I have an orifice that bleeds a small amout of O2 into the CL, I shut down the O2 valve for the swim out on my back (was with my father in law who was on OC & needed to stay with him on the surface, stayed under on the way back in though). Always remembered to turn the O2 on before descending though Lucky for you that your wife dives CCR too!

A possible alternative explanation is they make more money out of recreational divers and Cruise Ship passengers to bother with serious divers.

I don't dive a rebreather but have done a fair bit of 'technical" shore diving there. If you want to dive something other than the Divetech sites you really have to work around the system.

I remember Ocean Frontiers telling me many years ago I could do some technical dives with them, but would be restricted to 100 feet as I did not have a trimix certification at the time.

With Cayman selling its soul to developers, and the general pain of flying these days, I probably won't be going back to the place anytime soon. Much easier to drive the 13 hours to Cave Country.

I'm betting you're right about the OPs wanting to make more $ off the Cruises.
I worked around the system, but there were some dives that were only accessible by boat. Ocean Frontiers now have a 105fsw limit for 15 mins before heading to 60fsw for as long as one was within NDL's. After a tad longer than the 15 mins, I headed to 60fsw and my Shearwater showed 99 mins of dive time remaining . I was well below that 105fsw for a time and they didn't hassle me at all. Nice crew & I tipped them well for their kinda "hands off" with me.

Franco

 

[BlueFrog]

Unfortunately, I would have to agree with inar33 that most of the dive ops on the island are dependant on the money making cruise ship and recreational divers just to stay in business these days. It is encouraging however that one or two dive ops at least accomodate the tec divers because it used to be Divetec or nothing. I doubt they can make enough money to survive doing this as a focus but at least some are realizing that there are a whole lot of us looking for more from our dive destinations.

I've heard good things about Ocean Frontiers but havent been diving on that side of the island since the Cayman Diving Lodge was destroyed. I think I'll schedule a trip with them next time I'm down there..