Well, I've been out of the water for a couple of years due to the birth of my lovely daughter but now I'm getting ready to get back in the water. I'm going with a group of friends to Grand Cayman (also with hubby and daughter) and was hoping for recommendations on where the best diving might be or for any dive operator recommendations. I suspect the East End is where the best diving is - is that true? I'm on the fence as whether to take my u/w setup but as this will not be an exclusive diving vacation I'm thinkin' it may not be worth lugging all that weight around. I have an aquatica housing for my Fuji S2.
Anyway, any pointers, suggestions etc about diving or good eats, or just about anything is appreciated. B)
Dive away!
Karen (guess)
If you want to dive the East End then there is really only one choice regularly and that is Ocean Frontiers and there are plenty of great operators on the west side for some more casual diving on the touristy side of the island (diving is easy generally on the west and the same operators will probably provide north dives which are GREAT)
Examples of names of companies I would recommend are:
there are others .. lots of others but they would probably hit my top three just because off the guys who work there and the quality of time you will have with either of them. I suggest contacting them and seeing which one you think will best suit you. Whichever you choose you won't have a bad time.
Thanks Giles!
I'm planning on doing some easy dives to ease back into the water and perhaps will leave the more interesting stuff for a later during my stay. This may not be the time to also try to re acquaint myself with my camera though.
Karen
Dive Tech (www.divetech.com) is my favorite operator for diving the North Wall, and Ocean Frontiers is my favorite op for the East End.
I just got back from GC few weeks ago. Was diving with Ocean Frontiers on the East End. Can't recommend them high enough. My dive profiles from that trip, if you interested.
The shore dive at Dive Tech (Turtle Farm Reef) is a really great warmup. It has a mini-wall that drops down to about 60' and there are usually tarpon there. Or there were when I went diving there w/ Giles :-)
Cheers
James
Actually doing Turtle Reef if the conditions are good is a great choice ... I have heard rumours that access to the site from the shore will soon be stopped.
(New owners of the restaurant at that area don't want messy divers walking past their new shore side bar all day long, also heard that DiveTech are being told to leave when their rental contract is up)
Hi Giles I can tell you first hand that was a rumour, Ollen Miller, owns and runs the new Sun Divers at the Cracked Conch and it's going very well. Oh and by the way, they have over 200 brand new tanks to rent out, 50 brand new sets of diving gear and if you're there ask to see the compressor room, Ollen has done a fantatic job.
Like Patrick said, Dive Tech is out at Turtle Reef.
They have opened a new shore diving site about 1/4 mile south of turtle reef. A new dive shop will be built in January, but the site is open for divers now.
Personally, I still prefer the mini wall at Turtle Reef, but the main wall at Dive Tech's new site is gorgeous. There are HUGE barrel sponges south of the entrance, and some really nice pinnacles north of it.
I obviously need to get up there ... i had heard that Ollen had got involved but didn't know it had already happened .. I feel like such a tourist now !
I had a chat to him ages ago in the old Durty Reids about a project he was thinking of doing but at that time it wasn't the cracked conch. Good for him.
Thanks for the great suggestions! I'm actually getting excited now that there seems to be some healthy reefs out there. I had thought perhaps they'd been mostly trampled.
I'm going to check out Dive Tech and Ocean Frontiers. I'll let my friends know about the beach dive off Turtle Farm Reef and will probably be my first dive.
One of my friends is "dying" to do the Sting Ray City dive. I'm not really interested but is this something I should see?
