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GREAT FAMILY
DIVING ON GRAND CAYMAN
by Alison Boler
Given up trying to combine a family holiday with some intensive diving? Looking
for a diving holiday location that will please all members of the family no
matter what their level of experience - even the non-divers? Or maybe you are
looking for a location where you can get two excellent dives every day and
still get back to have lunch and the afternoon with the rest of the family?
Grand Cayman could well be the answer - it certainly was for our family.
Where is Grand Cayman?
Grand Cayman is a British Crown Colony in the West Indies. It is 22 miles long
by 8 miles wide and has over 60 miles of diveable shore. There are three
islands making up the Caymans: Grand Cayman; Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, with
Grand Cayman being by far the largest and most developed. There is a recompression
facility at Georgetown Hospital. Tourism is a huge business on Grand Cayman and
about one third of all visitors come to snorkel or dive. They know how to look
after divers.
 Grand Cayman is not the most scenic island in the Caribbean. It is
fairly flat and covered for the main part in mangroves and scrubby greenery.
The main tourist area, which is along Seven Mile Beach and the main road that
backs it, resembles tourist areas of the U.S.A., notably Orlando. Imagine parts
of southern Florida transported to the Caribbean and you have the picture.
In my opinion though, the white sand beaches, the diving and the secure relaxed
"hassle free" atmosphere more than make up for any lack of
"Caribbean Paradise" ambience. Grand Cayman is clearly a relatively
rich island. There are no beggars to be seen and no one will come along the
beach trying to sell you a sarong. If there are any crime problems, they are
very well concealed. It feels very safe in comparison with Jamaica for example.
Why we chose Grand Cayman
for our Holiday:
We had pretty specific reasons for choosing Grand Cayman for a family diving
holiday and it may be helpful if I share them with you.
- Superb sheer wall diving - if
you like deep walls, this is the best there is in the Caribbean. On a par with
many Red Sea sites.
- Superb shallow reef diving well
preserved and protected.
- Special interest diving i.e.
wrecks, Stingray City.
- Clear, warm water.
- Diving available from the shore
and from day boats.
- Possible to have 1/2 day two
tank trips - plenty of time for sunbathing or other holiday activities.
- Diving available for small
parties on day boats.
- Great diving in depths of water
both less than 20m, and well in excess of 20m.
- Excellent choice of
accommodation available.
- Excellent range of eating
possibilities from KFC upwards.
- Direct flight from the U.K.
- Safe and hassle free environment
whilst not diving.
- Lots of non-diving activities
available.
- Miles of white sand beach
including one of the best beaches in the world - Seven Mile Beach.
- Good weather conditions.
The range of diving was particularly important to us because
whilst Bob and I are experienced divers, our two daughters, Lucy (12) and Daisy
(10), only qualified earlier this year, and additionally are depth limited due
to their age. We needed a holiday location where we could access a lot of sites
that offered a range of depths from 10 - 20m and that would prove enjoyable for
the girls but not be boring for the grown ups.
We decided to shore dive for the first week in order both to save costs and
also so that the girls could acclimatise to the diving with easy shore access
before taking to the boats in the second week. We also knew that it might be
tough to find a boat diving operator with the flexibility to offer us the
programme we wanted. More about that later.
It was important that Grand Cayman offers a fantastic holiday location even if
you don't dive. We wanted to be sure that non diving time was just as good as
the time spent underwater. We didn't know how much diving the girls would want
to do. It had to be viable as a great holiday location even if they decided
they'd had enough after a few days. Grand Cayman has plenty of activities
available both water based and land based and Seven Mile Beach is picture
perfect white sand and turquoise clear water.
When to Go:
We travelled in the last two weeks of August but Grand Cayman is a year round
diving location. High season is winter, especially around Christmas when it is
crowded with Americans fleeing the cold and snow. October/November can be risky
as it is the hurricane season. July/August sees tropical showers in amongst the
sunshine but they quickly pass. In addition, at this time, all sides of the
island including the north are available to the day boats as the prevailing
winds are gentler and more favourable. Even better, as it is the
"quiet" season, prices are cheaper. Daytime air temperatures in
August hovered around 30 °C, and the water temperature was exactly the same!!!.
Travel Arrangements:
We made our own travel arrangements and flew with British Airways and stayed at
the Marriott Beach Resort on Seven Mile Beach. We chose British Airways because
they offered a direct flight (short pause in Nassau both ways) and all of the
others required us to fly to Miami or some other U.S. gateway first and having
to change planes. The flight took 12 hours including about 1 hour on the ground
in Nassau. It was tedious but tolerable. We left Heathrow at 0900 and arrived
on Cayman at 1600. Returning we took off at 1800 and arrived home at about 11
a.m. the next day. Economy class travel through the night is not fun. I have
spent the last two years travelling extensively for work and I had accumulated
a vast store of airmiles, which we used for the flights and the hotel, however
flights are available from £400 - £700 and it is well worth shopping around.
Package holidays are a cost effective way to visit and can be found in all the
leading dive holiday specialists brochures and in various mainline ones like
Kuoni and Thomsons. You might decide - if you have time - that a stop-over in
Miami to break the journey up would be a good idea.
Whilst not as cheap as the Red Sea, Cayman stands up well in comparison to
other long haul destinations in terms of package price and value.
Money:
The local currency is the Cayman Dollar which is fixed at an exchange rate of 1
USD = 1.25 Cayman. You will commonly see prices quoted in both currencies and
both currencies are freely taken. However, if you pay in USD, you will almost
certainly be given Cayman in exchange. Always check when discussing costs that
you are both talking about the same currency. There are cash machines on the
island and you can also easily change traveller's cheques. We took US dollar
travellers cheques and some cash. In this report I will state either
"USD" or "CD" for clarity.
Where to Stay:
 Most of the
accommodation stretches along the aptly named Seven Mile Beach. There are
luxury condominiums and also the main hotels on this stretch. There are also
hotels and apartments on the non-beach side of the access road and these are
very good value in exchange for a short walk. We stayed at the Marriott
(frequent flier points) and it was superb but we would recommend some of the
small hotels for excellent value. The SeaView Hotel offers clean, spacious,
air-conditioned rooms for 99 USD per night in a diver friendly resort with a
superb restaurant. Its not on the beach but it offers excellent diving from the
rock shore directly off the dock. Other good choices in this category would be
the Cayman Islander (Seven Mile Beach) or Sunset House. Apartments and
condominiums are also a very good choice for larger groups or families because
they offer extra space and home comforts.
There are also resorts on the north west side of the island that are well
suited to divers. In particular the Cobalt Coast Resort offers very good rooms
and an excellent restaurant whilst being a main location for DiveTech, one of
the best diving operations on the island that we found. There is no beach but
there is the most superb mini wall and full wall right off the dock within 100m
of the ladder.
The north and east ends of Grand Cayman are less developed but offer fantastic
diving.
They would be a great choice if all you want to do is dive and laze on the
beach but they are a bit too far from the tourist centre to offer an easy
family holiday.
What About the Diving?
For an island that receives so many visitors, the reefs are in a remarkably
good condition in most areas. A series of permanent mooring buoys and very
strict guidelines were laid down some years ago and it shows. It had been 13
years since we visited the island and we were very pleasantly surprised with
the condition of the coral and the proliferation of fish life. Compared to some
of the areas close to Hurghada for instance, it is paradise. Some areas in
Georgetown itself are showing the effects of the increased traffic from the
cruise ships that call every week.
In general the side of the island typifies the diving found:
West side: inshore patch reef, offshore wall. Large sponges, tarpon,
stingrays, turtles, lobsters, soft and hard corals.
South Side: Caves, Tunnels, staghorn coral, more surge and current.
Great fun diving.
North Side: Sheer walls, eagle rays, sting rays and large pelagics..
East side: wilder, wall diving.
The patch reefs tend to rise up around three to four metres from the sand and
run in fingers from shore outwards. Usually you swim up and down the fingers
exploring at different levels as there are often creatures lurking in the
shelters at the bottom. Some of the gaps between the fingers become overgrown
forming tunnels or swim-throughs.
The water is very warm - 29 - 31° C and many people do not wear a diving suit.
I started out wearing a 3mm suit but found it too warm especially pre dive and
dived the remainder of the trip in swimwear. I did wear the suit for the night
dives and for dives where we were swimming through very narrow tunnels but this
was as a precaution against abrasion and not for thermal protection. Our
youngest daughter wore her 3mm suit throughout because she has very little
thermal protection of her own.
Gloves and knives are frowned on in the Cayman Islands in order to protect the
marine life.
Shore Diving:
The shore diving on Grand Cayman is excellent and very under publicised. Many
dive operators will not even mention to you that it is available. Some dive
sites are accessed from the public beaches and some from the properties of
various dive operators. If you dive from one of the commercial facilities they
will very reasonably insist that you take tanks from them and also sign in with
them. A typical tank of compressed air costs USD 7 and weights around USD 4.
So, USD 18 will get you two great shore dives. That's incredible value. It
costs more if you want a divemaster to lead you, but probably most British
divers would not want this. Frankly, it is simplicity itself to navigate around
in the clear water just by using a pair of reciprocal bearings and a bit of
natural pilotage. Even easier on the wall dives. It is almost too convenient
not to dive from one of the specialist locations as they offer easy entry/exit,
guide maps, fresh water rinsing, hire kit and spares, showers, etc. We would
recommend the following shore dive sites:
Sunset House Reef: a mixture of patch reef and overgrown
coral tunnels and swim throughs leading out to a wall dive. There is also a
small wreck nearby and a sunken bronze mermaid. Access from the Sunset House
hotel and dive shop.
Seaview Hotel Reef: Good patch reef leading to wall.. Next
door to Sunset House.
Eden Rock Reef/ Devils Grotto: Famous series of tunnels
and swimthroughs now
showing the wear and tear of the visiting cruise boat divers and snorkelers.
There is also a small wreck to visit.
 Turtle Reef: DiveTech are
located here and at Cobalt Coast Resort and both locations offer absolutely
superb shore diving. There is a mini wall from about 6m to about 17m at around
100m off the dock where you will see a large number of fish and crustaceans
including lobsters of various kinds, tarpon, moray eels, grouper and turtles.
There are also large patches of garden eels in the sand. The main wall is
accessed 200m from the shore and provides superb diving. Well worth multiple
visits and at a bargain price. We also night dived here.
There are plenty of other shore dives that were available from the shore and
which are detailed in the dive books and involve maybe a 250m swim from shore.
The drop offs to the main Cayman wall on the west and north west side are
particular close to the beach area and the main sites are clearly marked by
buoys.. The conditions are so optimal that competent adult divers equipped with
an SMB would certainly have no difficulty. We judged them too far a swim out
and back for the kids, so did not try them.
We used DiveTech as our operator for shore diving. We had heard very good
reports about them from other divers and they had been very helpful during our
email enquiries. They are both recreational and technical diving specialists
and also offer training in free diving. They offer a very full service across
these spectrums and more than anyone else we met provided a "one stop
shop". They offered us a 10% Instructors discount on all prices too, which
was nice. We would certainly dive with them again and cannot fault their
professionalism and friendly service. In addition to their different dive
offerings, they also hire out underwater scooters, which are great fun.
It is also worth noting that if you stay in one of the dedicated dive resorts
that offer shore diving, you can often get very good deals which roll unlimited
shore diving on the property into the accommodation package. Well worth asking
about.
Boat Diving
There are a huge number of dive operators on Grand Cayman but it is very
important to pick one that really suits you. Many divers who visit the island
are from North America and perhaps only dive on holiday, once a year. Many of
the large commercial operators tailor their trips to this sort of diver and
offer a pattern of strictly lead dives that is typically
Dive 1: 30m for 20 minutes
Dive 2: 18m for 30 minutes.
Some of these boats will have over 20 divers on them. In my opinion, these are
boats to avoid and do not represent good value for money to the experienced
diver who wishes to maximise their in-water time.
Not only did we want to have a more personal boat diving experience, but we
really needed to because of our particular depth requirements. The traditional
pattern of one deep/one shallow wouldn't work for us. We wanted someone who
could offer us the flexibility of two shallow dives. This proved to be quite
difficult to arrange. We found dive operators that offered small party( 8
divers or less) diving and of these I can recommend:
* DiveTech
* Red Baron Divers
* Don Fosters Cayman Diver (not Don Fosters Dive Cayman)
Unfortunately none of these operators could offer us a "double
shallow" boat for our second week because they had an excess of
experienced divers on board who naturally wanted to visit the deep walls. For
the experienced diver looking for a full value for money boat diving experience
these companies offer an excellent service. They have boats that typically take
under 8 divers and they can therefore be far more flexible in both sites
visited and time spent. They are all happy for experienced divers to dive using
their computers to delimit their bottom time, which is not the case with some
other operators who insist on the rigid time schedule.
We had the enormous good fortune to find SeaView Divers who not only
could offer us small party diving, but were also prepared to offer us the
flexibility of a diving programme made up of two shallow dives per 1/2 day
trip. Most days we had the boat to ourselves. SeaView Divers is based at the
Seaview Hotel just outside of Georgetown and has just re-opened under new
management. Tara Cunningham and Dan Hodgins, a Canadian couple, have 20 years
of diving experience behind them and up until recently were part of the
DiveTech family. They are both technical diving instructors (IANTD) and
recreational diving instructors (PADI) and in addition they are accomplished
free divers. Tara is part of the Canadian national team. Quite apart from that
they are two genuinely nice people who go out of their way to help their
customers enjoy their holiday experience.
Seaview Divers offers both shore and boat diving. They have a 30' Wayward
purpose built fast diving boat with a 220 HP engine on the back. It can get you
around the island in no time. Average time from dock to dive mooring was an
exciting 15 - 20 minutes! They dive south, west and north sides of the island.
A two tank trip is USD 65 per person including tanks and weights, which is good
value. Always ask for a discount especially if you are booking more than one
day's diving.
Dan and Tara are happy to dive with you or to let you dive and do your own
thing as long as you surfaced with 50 bar in your cylinder. We generally stayed
underwater for 50 - 60 minutes per dive. All of the operators charge between
USD 65 and USD 85 for a two-tank trip but as I have pointed out, the value you
get for that money in terms of underwater time is very variable. On Cayman,
small is definitely better.
We arranged for an afternoon two tank dive for six days. We met the boat at the
Seaview dock at 1:30 pm and we returned to the dock at about 5:30. It was a
good schedule because it meant that we could get up a bit late if we wanted,
spend the morning on the beach or around the pool, have an early light lunch and
then spend the afternoon diving. We would then get back to the hotel by about
6, have showers, change and be out for dinner at around 7:30.
 Most of the
dive operators offer morning and afternoon one or two tank dives. Morning trips
start at times from about 8 am to about 9:30 depending on the operator. I can
see that if you were the only diver in your party and you didn't mind getting
up a bit early and sloping off you could easily be back to the hotel for 11:30
almost before they'd missed you. That seems a pretty painless way for the
diving parent with partner and family in tow to enjoy their diving but also
enjoy a family holiday.
Some of the sites (all in the 14 - 20m depth range) we dived were:
The Wreck of the Oro Verde: Broken up but scenic wreck
dive. Plenty of fossicking, some large grouper and barracuda.
Peter's Reef: Very scenic patch reef adjacent to Oro Verde
wreck. Fingers of coral to explore at different levels. Lobster. Lots of reef
fish and turtles.
Spanish Anchor: An isolated anchor dating back to the 15th
century and overgrown with coral. Surrounded by a patch reef. Turtles and
plenty of reef fish.
 Doc Poulson
Wreck: An anchor barge sunk as an artificial reef in 1991 and named in
honour of the Doctor's work at the recompression chamber. Plenty of openings in
the wreck for exploration and has become quite well colonised with glassfish,
grouper and barracuda. We enjoyed this wreck so much we visited it twice. The
surrounding reef is also very good.
Mitch Millers Reef: Superb, patch reef system that was
literally bursting with fish life. I encountered the largest lobster here I
have ever seen and this holiday in general was good for lobster encounters!!
Large schools of snapper, grunts, parrotfish, wrasse. One dive is not enough.
Fish Reef/Mesa
A coral head shaped like a huge raised mushroom from the ocean floor. Large
grouper in the shady overhang. Very fine corals. Barracuda, grunts, snappers,
stingray, lobster and turtles on show. Very abundant marine life in a small
area. Also of interest is that this is a site often visited by one of the
tourist mini subs and it is fun to see it materialise and wave to the tourists
inside. This is also a great night dive site.
 Japanese
Garden
This is a boat dive on the south side of the island and the underwater
topography here is quite different from the west side. Many caves and tunnels
to explore and fine examples of both hard and soft coral. Encountered some very
large barracuda. You could spend lots of time exploring here.
Bow-winkle
Another south side site. Even more impressive caves and tunnels to explore.
Large examples of stag horn and elk horn coral. Jacks, chubb tarpon, barracuda
and grouper to be seen. This was one of our favourite sites.
Stingray City
The one dive on the North side that we absolutely had to do. Commonly reckoned
to be one of the best 4m dives in the world!!! This world famous site allows
divers to interact with large numbers of Southern Stingrays who have been
conditioned to stay on the sand flats there to be fed their favourite food -
squid. It is an incredible experience to find yourself surrounded by these
gentle creatures - if a little intense at first for some people. The stingrays
will sit on your head like a sombrero if that's what it takes to get at your squid!!
They seem to like to have their soft underbellies gently stroked too. Well,
don't we all...! This dive is not to be missed whatever your age or experience.
There are some absolutely wonderful wall dives along the north and north west
shores of Grand Cayman where the wall plummets away in a sheer cliff, or
underwater mountains rise out of the deep blue water. We have dived these sites
in previous years, but they were out of reach to us this time. To find out more
about them, see my sources section at the end.
Killer Puffer
Not sure why its called this, but it is also known as Aquarium and this is a
very apt name. Many different species of fish to be seen: morays, turtles,
sergean majors, snapper, pufferfish, parrotfish, wrasse. Also excellent coral formations.
 Hammerhead Hole
Apparently named in jest by some divemasters!! No sharks present but a variety
of marine life visible amongst the fingers of coral. Stingray, moray eels and
lobsters present.
These are just some of the possible shallow dive sites that were accessible to
us. I can honestly say that we had a great week's diving with Seaview and gave
proof to the claim that great diving does not have to be deep diving. It was
fantastic to be able to all dive together without having to split up. These
dive sites would also suit photographers as they give a great selection of
subjects with optimal light conditions.
Obviously, Seaview also run boat diving on a more normal pattern of
deep/shallow and deep technical diving to suit the normal adult market.
What else is there to do?
There are any number of water sports available along the beaches: waterskiing,
banana boat, jet skis, laser yachts. You can horse ride both in the interior
and along deserted beaches. There are lots of charter yachts to take you on a
variety of cruises ranging from all day rum picnics to sunset dinner cruises.
You can even go on a pirate ship cruise complete with cannon firing.
A popular tourist trip is to literally go to Hell! Hell is a small hamlet in
the west of the island and you can buy postcards there and get them postmarked
to send home. It is also near the Cayman Turtle Farm where thousands of turtles
are bred and raised each year. Most of them find their way into the turtle
products traditional to the islands, but many hundreds are released into the
wild too. Our favourite trip was to the Tortuga Rum Company, which involved
many samples of the various flavours, not to mention the utterly satanic rum
cakes. Lucky we weren't trying to squeeze into our wetsuits this trip...
 There are also various
submarine trips available on Cayman ranging from a large tourist sub, to a
two-man tourist sub and a two man deep submersible craft that will take you
1000 feet down the Cayman Trench to see the wreck of the KirkPride. If you can
afford to go, don't miss it. I went about 12 years ago and three moments stick
clearly in my mind:
1. The moment the
large flexi glass dome gave a loud crack.
2. The moment the
large lights came on illuminating a world of giant sponges and marine growths
3. The moment we
came upon the Kirkpride and she looked just like a model ship in a goldfish
bowl, it was so clear and the telegraph, nameplate and compass binnacle were
all visible.
For those of you that like to shop, Grand Cayman is a duty free
port and Georgetown in particular is a hotbed of tempting shopping choices
aimed at the cruise and tourist markets. We didn't stretch much beyond the
obligatory rum cakes, but jewellery is supposed to be a very good buy.
How About Eating?
There is a vast range of eateries available on Cayman and you can suit your own
budget. Meals tend to be on the expensive side. I would describe it as American
style with English prices. You can easily spend £25 per head in more or less
any restaurant you enter. Not bad if there's just one of you, but pricey
multiplied by four.
There are ways of keeping the costs low. For a start, all of the well-known
chain restaurants are on the island, some in several locations: McDonalds,
Burger King, KFC, Dominos Pizza, Pizza Hut. All are good for a cheap feed.
Many of the restaurants have "special" nights or "early bird
dinners" and these are often worth looking out for. For instance on
Tuesdays and Thursdays the Texas Lone Star Bar and Grill offers an "all
you can eat Fajita special" for around $13 per head. Its good value. It is
also worth picking up copies of the tourist magazines you will find displayed
in your hotel lobby. They often contain vouchers you can use for a discount or
a free drink.
Here are some of the restaurants we found:
Chicken Chicken: Small restaurant that specialises in wood
smoked rotisserie chickens backed up by lots of side dishes like unbelievably
delicious garlic and butter mashed potato. A full chicken with two large side
orders, 4 pieces of corn bread and 4 drinks costs CD 23. It's a good dinner for
four or a blow-out for two. You can also take it away.
Fidel Murphys Irish Pub: Unbelievably huge
portions of delicious food at cheap prices served in the atmosphere of a
traditional Irish pub. They even have Guinness on draft. Typical dishes are
Shepherds Pie (CD 8.95), Roast Beef Dinner (CD 9.95), Irish Stew (CD 8.95) etc
etc. There aren't many meals that I walk away from without a clear place (!!)
but the roast beef dinner beat me. Really excellent.
Texas Lone Star Bar and Grill: An island institution
with the divemasters. Nightly specials and a kicking atmosphere. They serve
great margaritas by the jug. An average entr饠is around CD 14 and the
portions are good. I don't think it's as good as it used to be, but that may
just be me getting older.
The Outback Steak House: Humungous portions of
meat based dishes in an Australian ambience. Included in the price of your entr饠is either soup
or salad and accompanying warm bread. We couldn't resist the prime rib dinner
where you get a 12 oz slab of butter soft beef with potato of choice et al for
CD 14.95. They also serve pasta, ribs, chicken, steaks and fish. There are some
evil puddings, but we never managed to get to them.
Ragazzi: Fantastic Italian restaurant with a modern,
casual but stylish atmosphere. Wonderful pizzas start at CD 10.95 and there are
good pasta dishes and meat and fish entrees all priced very reasonably. Portions
are large and they give you free bruschettas and warm bread, so you can afford
to skip a starter.
Hook: A strange restaurant that incorporates a Greek
taverna, a Japanese sushi bar and a Caymanian Grill all under one roof. It
takes you ages to get through the three menus, but I suppose if you wanted
sushi and souvlaki, it would be ideal. Mains run in at about CD 14.95 and it
wasn't one of the restaurants that we revisited. It was OK but nothing special.
Eats Crocodile Rock: You hear a lot of raves about this
restaurant but we were disappointed. It was ok but the service was poor and I
thought it was overpriced for the food quality. Maybe we caught them on a bad
night but I wouldn't return.
Sunset House Sunset Bar: Great location for a
sundowner and a snack - right on the dock looking west. They have put on a big
thatched roof now and its got a sort of Polynesian feeling, without being
kitsch. We tried the Conch Fritters (CD 4.95) - fantastic - and the burgers (CD
6.95) also very good.
Drinking alcohol is horrifically expensive. A glass of wine (large I admit) was
universally CD 5.75, which is around £4.00. A bottle of wine that you would buy
for around £4 at home was around CD 30 i.e. over £20. My liver was very
grateful for the rest....
Here are some other eating tips that worked for us: Firstly, most hotels will
supply a refrigerator to your room, particularly if you have children. We had
ours free of charge, which I think is the norm if you are staying more than a
couple of days. The fridge meant that we could go to the supermarket (Fosters
Food Hall - wonderful selection) and stock up on cokes, milk, juice, beers etc
- all the things that really add up when you are constantly raiding the mini
bar or room service. We also took with us a load of those breakfast snack bars
and we always catered our own breakfast from them with some fruit and juice.
Breakfast can run up very expensive in the hotels and it is almost never
included in the room rate. Obviously this is an advantage of self-catering because
you can really stock up.
Portions are large. Often for lunch we would all order from the kid's menu and
I swear to you that the meals were of a size you would be served at home as a
grown up. There was absolutely no problem in doing this and no one raised an
eyebrow. The kid's meals were around $4.95 including a drink.
Some bar restaurants have special nights where they extend the Happy Hour till
8 or 9 and serve free hors d'oevres throughout. Frankly, the food served was a
meal in itself and provided you had eaten lunch, would easily see you through.
If you feel like a splurge and have a good appetite, several of the big hotels
do an incredible Sunday Brunch Buffet and BBQ. They are huge all you can eat
affairs with a vast array of dishes on offer and various entertainments too
i.e. fire dancers, and bands. They tend to be priced at about CD 35 per person
for a four or five hour stuff-fest. I have it on good authority that the ones
at the Hyatt and the Westin are the best, with the Westin edging just ahead at
the moment.
One brilliant idea that helps you decide where to eat and avoids the
embarrassment of sitting down and realising that you can just about afford to
eat a starter, is that they publish a magazine which is freely available in all
hotel and condominium properties which contains the menu of most restaurants on
the island. So, you can browse through to see which restaurant is serving
something tempting and whether you can afford it. It also details the
"special" nights, which you can then plan into your schedule!!
The other service on offer, which might be of interest to people staying in
self-catering accommodation, is that a large number of the Seven Mile Beach
area restaurants subscribe to a home delivery service. Basically you ring the
delivery service and order from the menus of the restaurants you have chosen
and they will deliver the food to your door. You can order starters from one
place and mains from another. Or you can have burgers and your partner can have
Chinese. The charge is CD 5 per restaurant pickup.
Anything Else?
Car Hire: I would strongly recommend that you take a hire car for at least part
of your trip particularly if you intend to shore dive or if you want to visit
restaurants outside of your hotel. Being a British Crown Colony, Cayman drives
on the left, which is familiar. Unfortunately, most of the rental cars are U.S.
imports and left hand drive! In actual fact, this is not really a problem and
we soon got used to it. You will need to show a driving licence (British is
fine). There aren't a lot of roads on Cayman, mainly around Georgetown and one
road that runs around the coastline. We used 1 tank of petrol during the
two-week visit and the fill up cost us about £20. We rented our vehicle from
Andy's Car Rentals which is the main local dealer and who advertises that they
will not be beaten on price. We certainly couldn't beat them, and we did try.
All standard sized saloon cars are available and Suzuki Jeeps are very popular.
We hired a 4wheel drive Suzuki Grand Vitara because we knew that we would often
have 4 bodies and two enormous dive bags and 4 cylinders on board and we needed
to ensure that they were secure if we were diving from the shore. Including all
the taxes, insurances etc it cost us USD 600 for the two weeks. We arranged
everything by email and the service was spot on and the car excellent. We were
delighted with it and it was perfect as a dive equipment carrier. If there are
more than two of you, or if you have a group, I would really recommend taking
one of these.
Bugs and Nasties: We encountered no mosquitoes during the
entire trip and there were no sand flies. This is in marked contrast to other
Caribbean islands we have visited. There is a fair bit of fire coral on the
reefs to beware of, and also some tiny jellyfish at certain times of the year.
Time Zone: Cayman runs on Eastern Standard Time which is 5
hours behind British time. The only complication to this is that Cayman does
not observe Daylight Savings Time so that when the rest of the world moves on 1
hour in the summer, Cayman does not. Therefore, in the summer time when we are
observing BST, Cayman is 6 hours behind the UK. It is also 1 hour behind the
rest of the EST zone which have moved on one hour!! So, if you visit Cayman in
the winter, it will be on the same time as Nassau, New York or Miami. If you
visit in the summer, it will be 1 hour behind those locations.
 In Summary:
This was one of the best holidays we have ever had. The diving was superb and
so easy to access that we just felt relaxed throughout. Certainly in comparison
to other Caribbean islands I have visited, it was far superior. I was weaned on
Red Sea diving and if like me you love wall diving, you must try Cayman. If you
want a large variety of sites that will suit a multiplicity of diving
experience, it fits the bill. If you're the only diver in your family and you
want to dive in a place which the rest of your family will really love, it's
the place for you!!
Useful Numbers and References:
Seaview Hotel Dive Center, 001 345 945 0558, email: divegirl@candw.ky website:
www.seaviewdivers.com
DiveTech: 001 345 9465658, email: divetech@candw.ky
website: www.divetech.com
Red Baron Divers 001 345 916 1293, website: www.redbarondivers.com
Don Fosters Cayman Diver Ltd. 001 345 946 4386, email: dfoster@candw.ky
Andy's Car Rental 001 345 949 8111, email: info@andys.ky,
website: www.andys.ky .
General Interest Websites:
www.caymanislands.ky
www.caymans.com
www.divecayman.ky
www.caymanrestaurants.com
Most Useful Dive Guides
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The Dive Sites of The Cayman IslandsOver 270 top dive and
snorkel sites; Author: Lawson Wood, Contemporary Books, ISBN 0 07 138865 6
This was the best of the three.
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from the Travel Club Bookshop
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Available from Amazon
Diving Cayman Islands, Author: Jesse Cancelmo, Aqua Quest Publications ISBN 1
881652 10 6
The Cayman Islands Dive Guide, Author: Stephen Frink and William Harrigan ,
Abbeville Press, ISBN 0 7892 0609 9
Our details:
Allie and Bob Boler are both BSAC National Instructors and SSI Advanced Open
Water Instructors, Lucy Boler is an SSI Junior Advanced Open Water Diver with
29 logged dives and Daisy Boler is an SSI Junior Open Water Diver with 26
logged dives. Allie's email address is Alison.boler@btinternet.com
September 2002.
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