The Cayman Islands are world renowned for their incredible scuba diving and snorkelling. The underwater visibility is second to none, the seas are calm and there are virtually no currents. A host of dive operators can teach you how to dive, improve your skills, take you snorkelling with friendly stingrays and even turn your passion into a career. Indeed the Cayman Islands offer a wealth of opportunity for anyone interested in getting in, under or on the water, at every level of experience.
Learning to Dive
Learning to dive is a “must do” for many new arrivals. Without question the most popular form of diver education is made available by an organisation called PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) and is available from a variety of dive operators in Cayman. Having said that, many people “try a dive” prior to committing to a full certification programme and this is an excellent way of testing the water, if you’ll excuse the pun. Commonly known on Island as the Resort Course, it consists of a short theory session where you’ll learn the simple do’s and don’ts, be given an introduction to the equipment and an explanation of some very basic skills. You will get to dive in a pool to become acclimatised to being underwater and then you get to do a real dive in the ocean with your instructor. This programme normally takes about three hours and is a great way to see if diving is for you.
While the resort course is a fantastic introduction, it does have its limitations. You have to go with an instructor, you are limited to a shallow depth and it is only relevant in Cayman. If you want to go further, the next step is to complete the PADI course, get certified and go diving.
The PADI Open Water course is often completed in as little as three days and is the licence you need to dive! This is the minimum qualification required to rent equipment, go on excursions and basically get you in and out of the water safely. Many dive stores/operators on the Island will offer weekend courses designed to suit your schedule. This extremely popular course is open to those aged 10 years and up. Children under 15 years old may become certified to Junior Open Water level, although this is at the instructor’s discretion, so we advise you to discuss this option with your dive centre. Options even exist for you to be taught at home in your own pool!
Once you are certified and have joined the diving family, there are endless opportunities to go diving on the Island. Shore diving is a very popular weekend pursuit and you’ll find new diving friends at various locations. Sunset House, Don Fosters and DiveTech are some of the oldest dive resorts on the Island which boast great shore diving. Ask for discounted rates for residents.
Once you have gained your initial certification, not only can you shore dive at various locations, you can also go on arranged excursions. This is the best way to discover the ‘Walls’ of Cayman. For many the main reason to dive here is to explore the most amazing walls and drop-offs that surround the Island. You will soon have your favourite sites and conversations will turn to North West Point, Tarpon Alley, Great House Wall, Orange Canyon and coral covered swim-throughs leading out to the crystal azure, where you’ll share inner space with Eagle Rays, Horse Eyed Jacks and Hawksbill Turtles. The only disappointment will be that you should have learned to do this years ago!
Before long, you will be taking two tank (two dive) trips to explore the renowned beauty of the West Wall which borders 7 Mile Beach, the breathtaking North Wall and East End, where dynamic scenery and encounters with large species of fish are frequent. Generally, dive boats will leave early and get you home for lunch. The first dive will probably be one of the wall dives you have heard so much about. Experienced divers will have the opportunity to explore with their dive buddy, while novices choose to be guided. The best thing about guided dives is that the instructors know where they are going and will show you the very best that the particular site has to offer. After a short surface interval you will be back on a second dive on one of Cayman’s shallow reefs. Exploring the nooks and crannies of the reef will enable you to see a host of amazing creatures: lobsters, eels, soft coral, anenomies and more. The colours will amaze you and are exaggerated due to the increased level of light at shallower depths.
Sunset House and Don Fosters operate just south of George Town and provide great shore diving as well as boat dives. DiveTech is located both at Cobalt Coast (northwest Cayman) and more recently at Lighthouse Point, a brand new and hardly dived location in West Bay. They also offer great shore dives and boat dives to the walls and have extremely experienced staff offering a number of courses including several advanced/technical programmes. DiveTech’s mini wall is a must see! Finally you should also head out to visit Ocean Frontiers in East End to experience some dramatic wall dives with bigger fish. (I saw a nurse shark, reef shark and a hammerhead in a single dive here! Ed.)
Snorkelling Areas
George Town Area
Just south of George Town you will find a mass of coral heads, caves and abundant fish life, while further north is the Wreck of the Calie, an old four-masted schooner.
Seven Mile Beach
The main snorkelling area here can be found at the north end of Seven Mile Beach at Cemetery Reef, which is about 100 yards offshore, but often in less than 10 ft of water. Good for fish life.
West Bay
Just down the road from the Turtle Farm is Turtle Reef, which as the name suggests, is a great place to find those elusive turtles.
North Sound
Here you will find the world famous sandbar where you can feed and interact with stingrays in only 3–4 ft of water. Take some squid. The Coral Gardens are nearby where you will find corals and fish in about 10 ft of water. Both places are only accessible by boat.
Many other sites are dotted around the Island and include wrecks, corals, sea fans, fish, lobsters and many other fascinating forms of life.
Diving Areas
George Town
Coral, caves, tunnels and even a mermaid just south of George Town at Eden Rock and Sunset House. Look out for the huge tarpon! Also, various wrecks in the area.
West Bay
Great shore dives from Cracked Conch, Lighthouse Point and Colbalt Coast. You can access ‘The Wall’ via boat trips or underwater scooters, or the mini-wall from the shore.
North Sound
Lots of dive sites on ‘The Wall’. Only accessible by boat. Expect to see incredible coral wall formations and occasionally eagle rays, nurse sharks, moray eels and all sorts of other underwater wonders. Inside the reef is the world famous Stingray City where you can interact with stingrays in 20 ft of water.
East End
Dramatic coral and wall diving. Reef sharks, nurse sharks and even hammerheads can occasionally be seen.
ADVANCED DIVE COURSES
You may want to complete further courses to build on your experience. Every dive centre will offer some form of continuing education. The Advanced course is next, and introduces you to deep diving, night diving and navigation. This is a great course and a firm favourite with many, simply because there is very little classroom study and the majority of the course is completed in the water. There are a host of speciality courses, which are designed to introduce you to specific areas of interest. The list is endless with choices to suit everyone, from the popular photography/video classes to deep diving, search and recovery, stingray interaction, reef awareness, underwater naturalist to technical applications including the extremely popular Enriched Air (Nitrox) course. There is a course for everyone and many centres offer a very large range of these programmes.
TECHNICAL DIVING
For the truly adventurous, those who know no limits, you can learn to use rebreathers, (devices designed by the military, which emit no bubbles or noise), mixed gases and extended range diving. While DiveTech is by no means a purely technical operation, as Nancy will tell you, they can offer all the deep diving stuff you need. It helps having one of the world’s most technically experienced females owning the business!
Technical diving is by definition: dives conducted beyond the 130 ft depth limit; dives requiring a decompression stop; dives beyond the light zone; or dives into an overhead environment. Obviously this type of advanced, extended range diving is not for everyone, and it requires a commitment to safe, responsible, self-disciplined diving. Technical diving is a recreational sport. Just like skiing a black diamond run or climbing Mount Everest aren’t accomplished overnight, neither is technical diving. It takes a love of the sport, a lot of training and practice and a little bit of an adventurous spirit to get you there.
Courses in Nitrox, Advanced Nitrox, Normoxic, Trimix and Advanced Trimix enable divers to safely explore deeper depths.
Nitrox diving is open to anyone and is basically diving with a single tank of nitrogen mixed with 32% oxygen. (Air has 21% oxygen). This allows divers to dive to the same depths as normal scuba divers but enables you to dive for a longer time before reaching decompression limits. Nitrox has the added bonus of making you feel less tired after a dive! A Nitrox course cost CI$159 and one tank of Nitrox will only cost about CI$3 more than a regular tank of air.
If you like diving between 100 and 150 feet, Advanced Nitrox enables you to stay safely at these depths for about 45 minutes instead of 10–20 minutes. Basically you dive with double tanks with a side mounted decompression bottle and you have to learn the fundamentals of decompression diving.
Normoxic Trimix takes divers to the 200 foot range, reducing oxygen content to about 18% and adding some helium to buffer the effects of narcosis. For those wishing to go deeper (330ft+), Advanced Trimix and Expedition courses are also available.
Rebreather diving (Closed Circuit Rebreathers or CCR) is another form of diving that has become very popular in the last decade and it basically allows you to massively extend your dive time. You could spend three hours at 100 ft.! The advantage of using a rebreather is that there are no bubbles (so you get up close and personal with the marine life), the air you breath is warmer and more moist (so you stay warmer and your dive is more comfortable); and of course you get extended bottom times with limited decompression issues. However this form of diving is for the dedicated diver as courses typically cost CI$1100 and you will probably own your own equipment.
At some point, you may wish to turn your passion for the undersea world into a career. Becoming a dive master is the first step. Here you will be trained to develop your skills to a professional level and your academic understanding will increase dramatically. You will work along side full-time instructors working with real students. At this level you can get paid too!
DiveTech
Tel: (345) 946 5658
Located at their new dive shop at Lighthouse Point, North West Point Rd., West Bay and at Cobalt Coast Resort, West Bay. They offer classes from beginners to technical, equipment rental and boat dives.
Don Fosters
Tel: (345) 949 5679
South Church Street, South Sound
Beginner to Dive Master training, equipment rental, boat dives.
Ocean Frontiers Ltd.
Tel: (345) 947 7500
Compass Point, East End
Full range of diver certification classes, off-site tank rental, boat dives to East End dive sites.
Red Sail Sports
Tel: (345) 949 8745
www.redsailcayman.com
