Need a gentle, patient dive operator/intro class for timid newbie!

[photobetty]

Go to Ocean Frontiers - they're at Compass Point on the East End.

Besides being local, they do their Resort Course (discover dive) in protected water that's about 20' deep. Try Scuba

Ask for Becca (Mary) on your trip - IDK if she does DSD dives but she's also a certified lifeguard so has everything covered...

Wonderful! Thank you so much for the recommendation! I did start to look into OF, and found lots of great reviews from more experienced divers, but I wondered if the water is typically more rough on the East End, enough to make a difference to a new diver? Protected water 20' deep sounds absolutely perfect.

 

[diversteve]

No one is going to put a new diver - on a Resort Course dive - into rough water. That applies to anyone you choose. The boat-based operators have a little more flexibility in location choices than someone who only/specializes in shore diving. Often when one side of Cayman is rough, around the point isn't. OF has the option to dive north, south or stay east depending on the conditions.

Up at Turtle Reef, sometimes when it's blown out, Lighthouse Point nearby isn't since it's at a slightly different orientation. Yet driving they're 5mins. apart. So if you like Happy Fish, they should be able to find calm water also. If I was doing a RC shore dive - that area would be my first choice. The mini-wall there bottoms out at 45' and a lot of it is a lot shallower. Kind of a deeper snorkel IMO although they do that there as well.

 

[photobetty]

No one is going to put a new diver - on a Resort Course dive - into rough water. That applies to anyone you choose.

Oh, okay! Whew. I wasn't sure. Maybe that sounds dumb - I realize the point of the DSD/resort course is to introduce new divers safely, but I wasn't sure if it's possible to find calm spots on the East End. Thank you again for the helpful info!

Up at Turtle Reef, sometimes when it's blown out, Lighthouse Point nearby isn't since it's at a slightly different orientation.

What does "blown out" mean?

 

[AggieDiver]

If it gets too windy in an area, especially at an angle near parallel to the shore, the combination of wave action and currents can make an area undiveable. Meaning that the visibility will be poor, the currents faster, and the waves make entry and exit from the water more difficult. It can happen anywhere on the island if the wind and swells are from the wrong direction. Operators will generally know which areas will be blown out based on where the wind and swells are coming from and will avoid going there.

 

[photobetty]

If it gets too windy in an area, especially at an angle near parallel to the shore, the combination of wave action and currents can make an area undiveable. Meaning that the visibility will be poor, the currents faster, and the waves make entry and exit from the water more difficult. It can happen anywhere on the island if the wind and swells are from the wrong direction. Operators will generally know which areas will be blown out based on where the wind and swells are coming from and will avoid going there.

Gotcha! That makes sense. Thank you!

As someone new to all of this from the outside looking in, there sure is a lot involved in diving. It's really, really impressive what you all know and do! Hoping to experience even the tiniest sliver of that. I'm signed up for a local DSD class in a few weeks, so I'll post again and let everyone know how it goes!

 

[AggieDiver]

Good luck!

 

[releck97]

The shallow reef that Ocean Frontiers uses is ideal for a Resort Course and initial OW dives. Check out the reef cam to get a sense of what it's like. They go out with three boats daily and really try to match divers up. Are the conditions rougher on the east end of the island? Yes, maybe, not necessarily. The prevailing winds come out of the east. Sometimes there is a NE component, sometimes there is a SE component. Sometimes it blows hard and sometimes the winds are lighter. April is often times a gentle wind month. Nevetheless, it may be bumpy going through the cut, but once the boat starts on the selected route, it usually calms down. Here's the link for the reef cam: Webcam

 

[Lopez116]

If driving is not an issue (I don't mind it either), you may want to consider an op that uses Sunset House as its training location. I did my Rescue Course with Jaxx of Epic Divers. They use Sunset House's facilities.

The nice thing about Sunset House is they have the sea pool (in addition to their regular freshwater pool) which is essentially a man-made cove that is protected from the open ocean. I think it's like 10-15 feet in there. It would me a nice place to get really comfortable with breathing off a reg and being underwater without going out into the open ocean. The entry is a ladder, so it really doesn't get any easier. It's sort of like an intermediate step between the pool and the ocean.

Jaxx' email is jaxx@epicdivers.com Freddy is the owner (also teaches). His email address is freddy@epicdivers.com

Here's the Sunset House sea pool:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Both dive operations in East End (Ocean Frontiers and Tortuga Divers) typically use the same sites inside the fringing reef for the open water portion. It's a maximum depth of 23ft unless you take a shovel.

Even so, the surface conditions are typically rougher in East End than typical conditions on the Seven Mile Beach side of the island. That usually just means a very light chop with no detectable up-and-down motion from waves at the sites in question.

If the sea conditions are remarkably calm then you might do the open water dive in deeper water in East End, to a maximum depth of 40ft on sites that do go deeper. Standard practice for the west side operators is to do the open water dive on sites such as this. But either way you will NOT be out to the Cayman Wall and over the abyss.

Finally, thanks for the recommendation upthread but I am no longer teaching diving in Cayman. There are plenty of great and patient instructors who can take care of you.

 

[photobetty]

Partial update: Thank you again to everyone for the wonderful advice and recommendations! I took a local DSD class in the pool, and despite having to skip learning first in the shallow end (the pool was double-booked so we had to start right in the bottom of the deep end), I took to it like a fish and had a great time. I'm really excited to try it again in the waters of Grand Cayman in a few weeks - I'll follow up again soon and let you know how it goes!