Local Dive Operators in Grand Cayman

[scubadada]

Just booked a week in June with Cobalt Coast and Dive Tech. Counting the days!!

Hey Eric,

Let us know how it went when you return. Best of luck

Good diving, Craig

 

[scsejthey]

Been to Cayman 2 times in the past year and used Neptune divers. Great boats and Casey is GREAT!!! She even managed to get my land lover wife to dive!!

Highly recommend!

 

[collsmitty]

Thank you for all of your advice/tips! We booked with Neptune Divers and are very excited to get out of the cold and into the ocean! We leave in 4 weeks and are staying on the north end of SMB. Does anyone know if Deckers still offers all you can eat Caribbean lobster?

 

[Chikmkr]

Great choice! Was in Cayman last week and this is my 3rd year in a row diving with Neptunes (originally based on what I read here). Last year my 12 year old daughter did a resort course with Casey and loved it so much she wanted to get her Open Water. She did her book work on-line, and we scheduled her confined and open water dives with Casey for last week. My daughter ended up getting sick and having sinus/ear problems which really screwed things up. Casey bent over backwards and worked with her and our schedule to get her to Scuba Diver status. I also convinced a friend to do a resort course - he was so scared I thought he was going to get out of the water after putting his face in the water. Casey was extremely patient with him and he had a couple of nice dives over the week. Have a great time! Also, highly recommend the shore dive at Cracked Conch - did it last year - great place to see alot of tarpon.

 

[CmdrThor]

I see you've already booked, but for others interested I would also recommend Ocean Frontiers on the East End. It would be a pretty long drive from Seven Mile Beach, but we stayed at Turtle Nest Inn in Bodden Town. It was probably about a 20 minute drive for us. Our original plan was to do several boat dives and a few shore dives, but we ended up just doing one shore dive at Sunset House to see the mermaid. If we go again (which I hope to) I would book a few more boat dives with Ocean Frontiers and leave our gear with them the entire stay. The "dive valet" service is awesome when you are on vacation. At the end of the dive you just put your stuff in the crate they have for you on the boat. They lug it up to the dive locker, rinse and hang it to dry, and it is locked up and monitored by video surveillance. When you arrive for your next dive your BC and regs are already on your tanks and the rest of your stuff is in your crate. If you prefer to set up your own I'm sure you just have to tell them and they'd just leave your gear in the crate. We opted to let them setup and double check everything.

The dive masters were great, especially Elliott (they call him Hobbit) on our first dive. They basically lead you around for a set period of time (around 30 minutes for deep dives and 40 for shallow) then as long as you have a computer you are encouraged to extend your bottom time. At the end of the guided dive they make sure everyone sees the boat or mooring pin then they head up. You also have the option to do the dives unguided in buddy pairs. The entire staff on the boat was also extremely helpful as I easily get seasick. They were quick to ask if I needed water, ginger biscuit, etc several times. Luckily I only got sick on 1 day of diving.

There was one dive later in the week where the dive master was also doing a fish ID course with 2 students and he spent more time trying to get them to identify specific fish than trying to find bigger more exciting things for the group, so we were a little bit more on our own. We still had a good dive though despite this.

You can also book a package and stay at their hotel (Compass Point). It still seems more affordable to me to stay at Turtle Nest Inn, but it just depends on how close you want to be to the dive boat vs Georgetown and the West End of the island. The prices are pretty close.

 

[Byte Me]

We're all set now as well. Doing 3 days of two tank AM dives with Neptune's and then one day 4 tank AM/PM dive w/ Ocean Frontiers. I'm sure we'll sneak some shore and hopefully a night dive in there as well!! Can't wait - will post full trip report after we get back. Going 4/17-24.

 

[tarponchik]

I need to comment that Divetech is the only operator who offers decent shore diving on GC. If you are interested in shore diving, of course.

 

[Alex777]

I need to comment that Divetech is the only operator who offers decent shore diving on GC. If you are interested in shore diving, of course.

Not really. SunDivers offer the best shore diving, IMHO, at Turtle Reef near the Turtle Farm. There is also a decent shore dive at Sunset House (Sunset Divers). Eden Rock& Devils Grotto (Eden Rock Divers) are both interesting.

 

[ianr33]

I need to comment that Divetech is the only operator who offers decent shore diving on GC. If you are interested in shore diving, of course.

The best shore diving in Cayman is nowhere near a Dive Operator

 

[tarponchik]

Not really. SunDivers offer the best shore diving, IMHO, at Turtle Reef near the Turtle Farm. There is also a decent shore dive at Sunset House (Sunset Divers). Eden Rock& Devils Grotto (Eden Rock Divers) are both interesting.

Turtle Farm is one of the two Divetech locations, isn't it?

We tried Sunset and didn't like it cause their reef was in poor shape. This was 2002 but I doubt it could get any better since they are pretty close to where cruise ships stay.

Was there Eden Rock in 2002? I checked their website and could not find the map Cayman's Best Boat & Shore Diving Are they new? But they mention west wall so this should be quite similar to Turtle Farm/Cobalt Resort. I remember there was some good shore diving from a small sandy beach in between the two Divetechs; also, our sons asked the owner of a private house just N of TF for permission to dive from his property and told us the diving was excellent. So west wall has a lot of potential for diving.

However, here is the Grand Cayman dilemma as I see it. The island is huge, but diveshops naturally tend to run boat trips to close proximity sites. And good shore diving is only in the West. So if you sign up with one dive shop, you will miss a lot. We decided to stay in a cabin at the W end of 7-MB and signed a shore-diving-only package w Divetech. Then we did several boat trips with different dive shops in the East and central, and also a couple with Divetech. This was probably a bit costly, but in the end we dived almost everywhere except NE (the sea was rough there during our stay) and when we had no boat dives we could drive just 10 min to TF and dive from the shore. If you suggest a better plan, please let me know ;-))