Grand Cayman Trip Report
January 25th to 30th 2001
Daniel Senie
Faith Senie
Tom Sefranek
Trip plans called for a quick trip to an island to get warm and have some fun. The long weekend format was decided upon, and Worlddive provided information on possible travel and accommodation choices.
January 25th started early, with wake-up at 3AM. Tom arrived at 3:15 or so, and we loaded up the car. Off to Boston we went. The usual morning rush at American Airlines’ Miami counter was in full swing. We eventually got through the line, security and onto the plane. An uneventful flight to Miami was followed by another uneventful trip on Cayman Airways out to Grand Cayman.
After arrival, a quick taxi ride took us over to Georgetown Villas, a nice condo complex at the south end of Seven Mile Beach. Given the early flights, we were in the condo early in the afternoon. The condo was a 2 bedroom, 2-bath unit with full kitchen, and nicely furnished. The price was reasonable too.
We called to let the dive shop we were to use, Fisheye Dive and Photo, know that we’d arrived. We were scheduled to start diving the following afternoon, but opted to start early with dives on the following morning. Tom decided he had to get wet sooner, and tried his snorkeling gear out in the shallows off of the beach area at the condo complex. There was a fair bit of surf on Friday, and Tom got tumbled a bit, and lost one of his new fins. He found it again shortly thereafter, and did paddle around a bit. He emerged later with some skin missing on one shin. That reminded him to wear the dive skin the rest of the week.
Since we’d been up for far too many hours, we decided to have an early dinner and get to bed. For dinner we went to Thai Orchid, which was very close to the condo. This restaurant boasted a large vegetarian menu, and the food was outstanding.
Friday morning we were up before dawn. Our dive shop folks were picking us up at 7:30AM, and we had to get ready. Off we went with cameras set up, and dive gear ready. Fisheye has a few vans they use to shuttle divers around the island. We were taken to their shop to sign in, show certification cards and sign waivers. Then it was back in the van for a slow drive through traffic.
For several days before we arrived, the weather hadn’t been very good. Indeed, on the day we arrived, there were strong winds coming from the west. Given the conditions, the dive shop had positioned one of their boats, Viewfinder, on the south shore. The van took us through the morning traffic to a public beach where we met the boat. We climbed aboard, and got ourselves set up. Fisheye’s boats boast a nice camera table as well as a rinse tank for cameras.
There were a very few divers other than us on the boat. Conditions as we headed out the channel were a bit rough, but we enjoyed a few nice dives regardless. First up was Eye of the Needle, which is a cut and sand chute at the top of the wall. We quickly found ourselves just past 100 feet. It was cloudy, so the light wasn’t so good for wide-angle photography, but it was quite pleasant anyway. The second dive was at Paradise Reef West, along the south side near the corner to the west. This was a shallower dive, with plenty of Elkhorn coral. It was reminiscent of Elkhorn Forest over on Cayman Brac.
The winds had shifted to the east, so conditions on the south continued to get rougher. We were really cold after the 2nd dive, though we wore 3mm jumpsuits. The wind chilled us quite a bit. After stripping down to bathing suits (brrr!) we dried off and got our gear packed up. The van took us back to Fisheye, then off to our condo for a quick lunch. While we were eating, the van picked up another diver from a nearby hotel. Susan Ayers was out diving while her husband was busy with other activities. The folks handling the boat had moved it over to the west side while we had lunch.
Back to the boat we headed… This time we had only three divers, Faith, Dan and Susan. Tom snorkeled above as usual. First dive site was Trinity Caves, a site made famous in the movie, The Firm. Along for the afternoon dive was divemaster Bart, who shot video of us. Divemaster Jamie led the dive through the caves (really, they’re tall open-top archways, with light filtering down at all times, not claustrophobic at all). At one point we came across a large turtle. Bart shot a bunch of video, and I swam up to take a picture. Then it was on to more swim-throughs, the deepest part being 100 feet or so. The video was great, and we bought a copy before leaving the island.
The second afternoon dive was to Governor’s Reef. The dive masters stayed aboard, and send the three divers below. They sent Susan with some pieces of orange to feed the angel fish. While I’m not sure it’s a good idea to feed the fish, it was evident the wildlife in the Caymans does get its share of feeding by humans. I was able to get some pictures of the fish up very close as a result.
We had a pleasant dive poking around the reef, looking at garden eels, angel fish, and the usual assortment of other fishes. A large hog fish was a pleasant discovery. We saw it dig up a large clam or something of that sort, and pulverize it in its powerful mouth. One less clam for the Cayman Islands, and one more smiling, smirking (full), hogfish…
Talking with Susan on the boat, we recommended the Thai Orchid restaurant, and when we went back there later for dinner, we ran into Susan and her husband there. After another great meal, we went back to the condo to relax for a while, and get to sleep.
Saturday started in similar fashion, with the van meeting us at 7:30AM. On this day there were again a limited number of divers. We had plenty of dive masters, though, including Stephanie, the photo pro, who was taking pictures of the divers, and of turtles she found. Faith and I explored the reef wall, dropping a little below 90 feet before slowly moving back up. The dive site name was Eagle’s Nest, named after a large barrel sponge at the top of the wall. While poking around the shallower area at the top of the wall (shallow is relative, in this area, at about 55 feet), I discovered a yellow stingray, fast asleep between a few corals. Faith found a brass plaque that was dedicated to a woman who’d started diving at age 53.
The second dive of the day was at Mesa, also known as Fish Reef. This is a plateau of coral with undercuts and short drop-offs all around the mooring pin is in the center of the plateau. This site had several cleaning stations, and great deal of fish life. While we were there, one of the submarine ride outfits showed up. The sub is one in which two passengers ride inside a bubble of Lexan, while the driver sits outside on the back wearing a full-face mask. We posed for the tourists in the sub, who took pictures of us. It looked like the folks in the sub got a real kick out of seeing us, and I had a good time looking at the sub.
We had decided we’d only do the morning dives, but had enquired about a night dive. Unfortunately there wasn’t sufficient interest, so we didn’t wind up diving that evening. The afternoon was spent relaxing on the patio, reading and snoozing. For dinner we went to an interesting restaurant called Cimboco. These folks understood the word Vegan, and made us some fabulous pasta dishes.
Sunday morning we were once again out with Fisheye. This time we went out on their other boat, Shutterspeed. The boat left from a marina on the east side of the Seven Mile Beach area, which put us in the protected bay. We were supposed to do a deep dive off the North Wall first, but the conditions were quite rough. Everyone decided we would be better off just doing a longer dive at Stingray City instead.
For those who don’t know, Stingray City is known as the best 12-foot dive in the world. It’s 12 feet if you touch your gauge to the sand. The attraction, of course, is the stingrays. In this place, the rays are hand fed by the divers. The interaction experience is quite unique. I shot my entire roll of film in 25 minutes. Faith shot hers in a little more, but still ran out early. I surfaced, put my camera on the boat, and got back in.
Stingrays feed by sucking food into their mouths, then tenderizing it. They are the Hoover vacuum cleaners of the ocean, with an adult female able to suck a queen conch out of its shell. In trying to feed the rays, both Faith and I had rays try to suck on our arms. Faith got an especially well-defined, circular bruise from the suction. She also had a yellow-tail jack try to eat her fingers. All in all it was quite exciting, and definitely is a dive not to miss.
Since we weren’t all that tired after our 12 foot dive, we thought about doing some more dives in the afternoon. We’d already signed up with Treasure Island for a night dive, and checked to see what they had for the afternoon. Since Treasure Island’s shop was about 20 feet from the front door of our condo, we figured we’d try them out.
So, after a short lunch break, we headed out on one of their boats, Twitty (seems their founders are country music fans). This dive operation was a bit odd. They appeared to be a full-serve, do-everything-for-you operation, but really weren’t. For these afternoon dives, they had only two people working the boat, both of whom also were in the water for the dives. I generally prefer to see someone stay with the boat. I’ll have more to say about that subject later.
The first dive was to a shallow site called Aquarium. The site was well named, and fish were plentiful. The crew person on the boat also was dive instructor teaching a class. We shot our film, and then headed back toward the boat. The temperatures were cool on this dive as with others, and we were a bit cool, so we headed to the mooring line and did our safety stop. We were lucky to not be the first ones to the boat, as some of the dive students were able to take our cameras from us. We were already set up for the second dive when the crew returned.
The second dive was on the wreck of the Oro Verde. At this site there were schools of chub and horse-eye jacks above the wreck. On the wreck were an amazing number of cleaning stations where tiger grouper and barracuda were being serviced. Since we were again getting cold, and still had a night dive later, we worked our way up the mooring line. While hanging for our safety stop, the schools of fish were up close to us. It was unfortunate we were out of film, as the scene of the instructor and class below, with the school of chub playing in their bubbles, would have been great.
Tom had decided to pass on the afternoon boat trip. Venturing out from the beach, Tom found a nice assortment of colorful fish around a stand of Elkhorn coral, right near the beach. Tom was using the snorkeling camera, and took lots of pictures.
Shortly after returning from the afternoon dive, it was time to get back on the boat for a night dive. The crew on the boat for the evening trip were better than the afternoon crew. Probably because we were at anchor, and not at a mooring line, they did leave someone on the boat. The dive was on the wreck of the Balboa, a lumber steamer destroyed in the hurricane of 1932. The wreck is in the inner harbor, divable only at night, and only when there are no cruise ships in port. Since the wreck was a hazard to navigation, the Royal Navy used explosives to distribute the ship around the sea floor.
On this dive we saw lots of sleeping parrotfish, wandering conch, a large, donkey dung sea cucumber, spiny lobster, lots of sponges, small shrimp peering out of holes, a variety of colorful fish, and Faith was able to play with an octopus. We’d unfortunately shot all of our film, and since it was a Sunday most stores were closed, so we didn’t get to take any pictures on the night dive.
This concluded our diving for the trip. Since it was only a 5 day trip, we were quite happy with the 10 dives we did, for a little over 7 hours under water. We shot 11 rolls of film underwater all told.
Upon returning to shore, we got cleaned up quickly and headed back for one more visit to Thai Orchid. We sampled even more of the menu, and again were not disappointed. Having recommended the restaurant to folks on the boat for the night dive, we were not surprised to see two of our fellow divers arrive at the restaurant.
Friday morning we needed to check out with the dive shops, and settle our bills. We started with Treasure Island, since they were close. We settled the bill and left a small tip, really just for the night dive. We didn’t feel they earned a top for the afternoon. From there we walked up the road to the north, past all the hotels and condos. Eventually we arrived at Fisheye. We checked out, then headed to a restaurant next door, and got some fruit punch, then started walking south.
We stopped off at the Cantonese restaurant a few blocks south, which was just OK. From there we headed south to the Hyatt, and walked out to the ferry slip. Faith and I were considering taking the ferry to Rum Point and spending some time there, but we’d just missed a boat, and didn’t want to wait for the next one (they run every 2 ½ hours). Tom headed back to the condo to go snorkeling, and Faith and I crossed the pedestrian bridge to the beach. After poking around shops, we decided to walk down the beach. It was a lengthy walk back to the condo, which we did barefoot. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I took a lot of pictures with the digital camera.
Once we were all back at the condo and relaxing, we decided we should get a tour of the islane. We hired a taxi and set out. We probably should have set a time limit up front, because the lady really took her time, and stopped too often. It was good to get a feel for just how big the island is, and to see the resorts at the East End. While not exactly what we hoped it would be, it was worth doing.
We had the taxi drop us back at Cimboco, where we had another fabulous meal. After that we walked back to the condo, and started packing.
Tuesday morning it was time to leave the island. We did our final packing, checked out of the condo, called for a taxi and headed out. Cayman Airways took us back to Miami. From there, we switched over to American for the trip north. Air traffic delays resulted in our plane being parked on the tarmac in Miami for an extra hour before departure. One in Boston, American was slow with the baggage, but otherwise there were no glitches. The following day we were back to work and wishing we weren’t!