ECPaul
Contributor
To all those contemplating a trip to dive Grand Cayman, here is what we experienced last week:
1. Accommodations. We stayed at the Royal Reef Resort (http://www.thereef.com.ky/) on the East end of GC, and this turned out to be a great choice for my wife, 2 diving teenagers, and me. At that end of the island the only other real choice is Compass Pointe, which is also very nice but lacks some of the amenities of Royal Reef (beautiful beach, nice pools, hot tubs, etc.). This was especially important for my wife, who is a diver but who could not dive this trip due to whiplash from being rear-ended a couple of weeks ago (big bummer). Note - if all that I wanted was to dive, I'd probably stay at Compass Pointe instead and save some $$, since the rooms are pretty comparable to those at the Reef, but for about 20 - 25% less.
2. Dive Op. We dove with Ocean Frontiers (http://www.oceanfrontiers.com/), and these guys turned out to be the best dive op that I've experienced anywhere. You bring your gear to them the first day, and leave it with them the rest of the week to take care of. After diving each day they break your gear down, wash it with fresh water, then hang it to dry. When you get on the boat for the next's days diving, they already have you set up - nothing to do but put weights into your BCD. And when changing from one tank to the other between morning 2-tank dives, they take care of everything. Truly valet service. And the dive masters were all superb, providing great area orientations before each dive with the use of a well-diagrammed dry-erase board. The option of guided or unguided diving was always available to everyone on board. Typically we'd go guided for the first deep dive, which was usually a wall dive to 100 - 110'. Then we'd go unguided for the shallower 2nd dive of the day.
3. The dives. We only ever dove along the East end and the Southern coast during this trip, although there is supposed to be some very good diving along the North wall of GC as well as out West. The wall dives were very dramatic - often we'd start out on top of the wall at about 60', then descend through a tunnel to pop out on the wall at 100' or so, with nothing but 6000' of blue water between us and the ocean floor. It was always a chance to look for big pelagics, but we did not see any really big fish cruising the wall during any of the 6 deep wall dives that we did. Nonetheless the coral, sponges and myriad creatures on the walls are in great shape, probably too deep to have been affected by Ivan. Likewise, the shallow dives were all fantastic, and I've never been in so many swim-throughs anywhere else. We also did a night dive and were treated to loads of brittle stars, a beautiful little octopus, a spotted moray, and a lemon ray. I dove EAN32, which is apparently the standard nitrox mix on the island, and ideal for the depths that we were doing.
Here's a bit of a confession - I did go with Ocean Frontiers to do their afternoon Stingray City trip, and although this may sound corny to some, it was really a blast to have really big stingrays swimming all over you for a handout of a little bit of squid. There was even a big green moray that decided to get into the act, which made things a bit interesting for a while.
4. Water conditions. This time of the year is supposed to be windier than other times of the year, and this proved to be the case last week. Almost every day the wind came howling out of the North or Northeast, but that did not turn out to be a problem as we were diving on the sheltered South Coast, so we never had water that was too rough to contend with. Viz was great - about 60 - 100 feet most days, and water temp averaged 80 - 81 degrees. Some people dove with skins, but my 3 mm was just right.
5. Eating. As with everything else on GC, eating out is an expensive proposition (I plan to spend more time in the more affordable Coz in the future), and so we ended up only eating out once, and that was at Portofinos on the East end. The food was very good. Since we had a full kitchen at the hotel, we made a couple of runs (30 minutes each way) to the grocery store, and cooked for ourselves most of the time. This proved to be very cost-effective and we'd do it again. Both Royal Reef and Compass Pointe have full kitchens in the rooms.
5. Rental car. Andys (http://www.andys.ky/) was the way to go, and pre-booking was an absolute necessity, providing us with a guaranteed car at reasonable rates - expect to pay a lot more if you don't reserve in advance, if you can get a car at all. And remember that as a British Colony you drive on the left side of the road, which is quite an adjustment for the first day or so (especially the traffic circles).
6. Crime. Practically non-existent on the island (in contrast to the situation in many other places in the Caribbean), making this a great place to go, although arguably the most expensive place to dive in the Caribbean as well.
Bottom line - we'll go back to GC again, probably stay at Compass Pointe next time, and have another great time.
1. Accommodations. We stayed at the Royal Reef Resort (http://www.thereef.com.ky/) on the East end of GC, and this turned out to be a great choice for my wife, 2 diving teenagers, and me. At that end of the island the only other real choice is Compass Pointe, which is also very nice but lacks some of the amenities of Royal Reef (beautiful beach, nice pools, hot tubs, etc.). This was especially important for my wife, who is a diver but who could not dive this trip due to whiplash from being rear-ended a couple of weeks ago (big bummer). Note - if all that I wanted was to dive, I'd probably stay at Compass Pointe instead and save some $$, since the rooms are pretty comparable to those at the Reef, but for about 20 - 25% less.
2. Dive Op. We dove with Ocean Frontiers (http://www.oceanfrontiers.com/), and these guys turned out to be the best dive op that I've experienced anywhere. You bring your gear to them the first day, and leave it with them the rest of the week to take care of. After diving each day they break your gear down, wash it with fresh water, then hang it to dry. When you get on the boat for the next's days diving, they already have you set up - nothing to do but put weights into your BCD. And when changing from one tank to the other between morning 2-tank dives, they take care of everything. Truly valet service. And the dive masters were all superb, providing great area orientations before each dive with the use of a well-diagrammed dry-erase board. The option of guided or unguided diving was always available to everyone on board. Typically we'd go guided for the first deep dive, which was usually a wall dive to 100 - 110'. Then we'd go unguided for the shallower 2nd dive of the day.
3. The dives. We only ever dove along the East end and the Southern coast during this trip, although there is supposed to be some very good diving along the North wall of GC as well as out West. The wall dives were very dramatic - often we'd start out on top of the wall at about 60', then descend through a tunnel to pop out on the wall at 100' or so, with nothing but 6000' of blue water between us and the ocean floor. It was always a chance to look for big pelagics, but we did not see any really big fish cruising the wall during any of the 6 deep wall dives that we did. Nonetheless the coral, sponges and myriad creatures on the walls are in great shape, probably too deep to have been affected by Ivan. Likewise, the shallow dives were all fantastic, and I've never been in so many swim-throughs anywhere else. We also did a night dive and were treated to loads of brittle stars, a beautiful little octopus, a spotted moray, and a lemon ray. I dove EAN32, which is apparently the standard nitrox mix on the island, and ideal for the depths that we were doing.
Here's a bit of a confession - I did go with Ocean Frontiers to do their afternoon Stingray City trip, and although this may sound corny to some, it was really a blast to have really big stingrays swimming all over you for a handout of a little bit of squid. There was even a big green moray that decided to get into the act, which made things a bit interesting for a while.
4. Water conditions. This time of the year is supposed to be windier than other times of the year, and this proved to be the case last week. Almost every day the wind came howling out of the North or Northeast, but that did not turn out to be a problem as we were diving on the sheltered South Coast, so we never had water that was too rough to contend with. Viz was great - about 60 - 100 feet most days, and water temp averaged 80 - 81 degrees. Some people dove with skins, but my 3 mm was just right.
5. Eating. As with everything else on GC, eating out is an expensive proposition (I plan to spend more time in the more affordable Coz in the future), and so we ended up only eating out once, and that was at Portofinos on the East end. The food was very good. Since we had a full kitchen at the hotel, we made a couple of runs (30 minutes each way) to the grocery store, and cooked for ourselves most of the time. This proved to be very cost-effective and we'd do it again. Both Royal Reef and Compass Pointe have full kitchens in the rooms.
5. Rental car. Andys (http://www.andys.ky/) was the way to go, and pre-booking was an absolute necessity, providing us with a guaranteed car at reasonable rates - expect to pay a lot more if you don't reserve in advance, if you can get a car at all. And remember that as a British Colony you drive on the left side of the road, which is quite an adjustment for the first day or so (especially the traffic circles).
6. Crime. Practically non-existent on the island (in contrast to the situation in many other places in the Caribbean), making this a great place to go, although arguably the most expensive place to dive in the Caribbean as well.
Bottom line - we'll go back to GC again, probably stay at Compass Pointe next time, and have another great time.
