I don’t have any teaching duties while my students are on spring break, so I decided to get in a trip to the ocean. My requirements for location: it had to be warm, have good scuba diving, and be relatively inexpensive.
Grand Cayman is definitely NOT inexpensive, so how did I end up there? Well, my friend Dave is a swim coach on Grand Cayman, and he generously offered to let me stay at his place. I also had enough airline miles saved up to get the flights for free. So as it turns out, I probably had one of the least expensive week-long trips to Grand Cayman possible.
Days 1 & 2: travel and settling in
Technically, my trip started Saturday afternoon when my flight left Tucson. My travel itinerary: Tucson to Phoenix at 7 pm; Phoenix to Miami at 1:15 am; and Miami to Grand Cayman at 10:30 am. I was able to sleep on the flights, but was still pretty tired by the time I got to Grand Cayman.
In case you didn’t know where the Cayman Islands are.
Dave picked me up at the airport, and we headed straight for the beach where he played with some friends in a beach volleyball tournament. I had lunch and took in the beautiful ocean views between cheering on Dave and his team. Apparently, these tourneys run every Sunday for 6 weeks, then cycle off for 6 weeks before picking up again. There were probably 50 people playing (all skill levels), and a bunch more people hanging out, listening to music, playing with their kids in the sand, and rooting for their friends. It’s pretty easy to like this island!
The view from the beach volleyball courts.
After a few hours of sun and sand, Dave drove me around the west side of the island. Things that stood out:
- There are feral chickens everywhere
- I haven’t seen any stop lights yet
- A man walking with his goat
- GIANT estates
- It is incredibly easy to differentiate between locals and cruise ship tourists
At this point, it was about 5 pm and I had been awake for a day and a half, with the exception of a couple airplane naps. I could barely keep my eyes open, so I took a quick nap to rejuvenate myself. I made sure to wake up after about an hour so I’d be able to sleep through the night, and woke up just in time to walk out Dave’s back door onto the beach and take in a stunning sunset. How awesome is this place!?
After dinner, Dave helped set me up with a dive operator for the next morning and we chatted a bit about the good old days. I first met him when I joined his swim club in Phoenix for winter training my senior year of high school (2004). The first workout we ever did together was 20x500m long course on 6:30 (if you are/were a swimmer, you’re dying just reading that). Later, we swam together for several years at the University of Arizona, starting in fall 2005.
Day 3: scuba and snorkeling
I started the morning off with 2 dives with DNS Diving. They’re a great, small operation – only 7 guests on the boat and all were experienced and easy to dive with. I arrived at the West End dock at 7:15 and we were in the water for the first dive (dive site: Darvin’s Theory) before 8.
Darvin’s Theory is one of more than a hundred dive sites on the island’s west wall. I guess you have to start somewhere!
My max depth was about 30 m/100 ft, and the dive was 50 minutes long. The visibility was AMAZING, probably around 80 feet or more, but I have to admit I got a bit chilly in the 26C/79F water, even with a 3mm wetsuit on.
Despite being chilly, I had a great first dive. Among the highlights: a small sea turtle (only about a foot long) that hung out with me for a while (see photo).
Sea turtle.
After a short surface interval, we jumped in for a second dive at Round Rock. This site is also on the wall, but instead of dropping down the wall, we stayed relatively shallow, exploring some coral around 15 m /50 ft deep and a sandy patch next to it. My dive only lasted 40 minutes because I was starting to get close to no-decompression limits, even though I had about 1400 psi left when I surfaced.
My favorite part of this dive: the garden eels! There’s something about looking out over the sand and seeing dozens of them bobbing up and down that makes me so happy inside.
Because the diving is so close to shore in Grand Cayman, and because the surface interval was only 50 minutes, we were back at the dock by 11. I still had a whole day in front of me! So what did I do? Take a nap, of course.
After my nap, I took advantage of Dave’s house’s great location and sauntered down to the beach to go snorkeling. I had a great time – I saw several flounders, a stingray (though its tail and sting were missing), a lionfish, a smooth trunkfish, and tons of other reef fishes that I love to watch.
Afterward, I walked around a bit, watched the sunset, got some groceries, and spent some time editing photos and writing this blog post. Not a bad day at all.
Flounder.
Day 4: snorkeling and scuba
Due to a lack of planning on my part (typical), I ended up not being able to do any morning dives. Instead, I spent the morning snorkeling, which was perfectly fine with me. I spotted an eagle ray, a large group of squid, a couple juvenile angelfish, some more flounders, and another stingray.
Eagle ray.
The squid like to be in a line.
A closer view of one of the squid.
I did manage to secure a spot on an afternoon 2-tank boat dive with DNS Diving, as well as a night dive with them. The first afternoon dive was my first ever wreck dive: the ex-USS Kittiwake. This ship, a submarine rescue vessel, was commissioned in 1946 and decommissioned in 1994. In 2011, it was purposely sunk in Grand Cayman’s West End waters to form an artificial reef.
We had a max depth of 70 ft and a dive time of just over 50 minutes. In addition to the ship, there were also loads of garden eels in the sand surrounding the Kittiwake. We also saw a lionfish and a coral-banded shrimp hanging out by the ship’s wheel.
The ex-USS Kittiwake.
Garden eels.
The second afternoon dive was at Bonnie’s Arch, also on the West End. As the name suggests, there is a large natural arch at this site, which is fun to swim under. There were a bunch of arrow crabs in its nooks and crannies, as well as a couple eels, a cleaner shrimp, and a couple of neat filefish. We again had a max depth of 70 feet, but this time stayed under for nearly an hour.
Bonnie’s arch.
Flamingo tongue – one of my favorite mollusks.
I love night dives, and had to be sure to get one in this trip. After a break and a burger at Macabuca Bar & Grill, I joined DNS for a shore dive in the water right next to the restaurant (dive site name: Macabuca). Within minutes, we found a pretty large common octopus. Later on the dive, I also found a small bluish/purplish Caribbean reef octopus, a spotted moray eel, a spiny lobster, and tons and tons of tiny shrimp.
An absolutely gorgeous octopus.
Caribbean reef octopus peeking out.
Brittle star.
Coral polyps feeding.
Arrow crab.
Basket star at night.
And with that, I’ve finished covering the first half of my trip. To read Spring Break Scuba Trip: Grand Cayman: Part 2, click here! To see all my photos from the trip, click here!
Dives so far this trip: 5
Total dives: 97
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