We’re just back from a diving vacation in Grand Cayman. We couldn’t resist revisiting the island for some thrilling and exhilarating diving. Crystal-clear water, dramatic drop-off walls, colorful and healthy reefs, and the famous Kittiwake wreck—what more could we ask for?
We returned to the East End and stayed once again at the Compass Point Dive Resort and dove with Ocean Frontiers who are located on site. Their motto is ‘Roll out of bed onto the dive boat’, and it is quite literally that!
Ocean Frontiers is the premiere dive operator on the East End of Grand Cayman, which we enjoy as it’s off the beaten path and less crowded than the George Town and Seven Mile Beach area which is full of tourists especially when there are multiple cruise ships in port (which seems to always be the case nowadays).
A fun fact for us was that on this recent trip, even with groups of 8 or 12 experienced divers, we were often the last ones up when doing dive profiles as long as 70+ minutes with average depths of 50ft. OK, we’re not like Houdini or anything but we do see a marked improvement in our air consumption, our buoyancy, and our comfort level, all of which are making the dives easier. We were diving with enriched air (Nitrox), which helps, but we also found that even after repetitive days of 2 or 3 dives we were less tired. I think that being at ease reduces stress and has us struggling less below the surface, leading to better air consumption and longer bottom times.
The Ocean Frontiers dive formula is one that we love: Basically the first part of each dive starts with a guided tour of the wall or reef (often to 100ft on the first dive, and 70-80ft on the second), then the divemaster gets us back under the boat (signaling to us the boat location) where we have some free time to explore the area at our leisure.
Stunning Reefs and Walls
With a visibility of 100ft+ it’s easy to see the boat from the bottom and with hardly any current to speak of you can basically take your time as air permits to explore the reef and its inhabitants. We’ve also learned that the slower you go, and even if you simply hover in the same spot for a while, small creatures start to peek out and have a look at you. Little gobies poking their heads out of the sand or coral, tiny shrimps peeking out from under ledges, flamingo tongues hanging on to coral branches, and hermit crabs sticking out from under their shells. This was always our favorite part of the dives!
We had last been in the Caymans in June and we had hoped that late July might allow for different dive sites more to the south side of the resort, but the prevailing winds and conditions forced us to do all our dives on the north side of the island again. Even though some of the sites were repeats, it’s hard to complain about diving the North Wall of Grand Cayman—each dive was spectacular! Just hovering over the 3000ft abyss and admiring the coral wall with its many swim throughs is something that I don’t think we would ever get tired of…
The Kittiwake
One special treat was our dive on the famous Kittiwake shipwreck in George Town. This is the famous wreck that we wanted to dive last time we were here, but our timing with the flights didn’t work out so this time we planned the trip around this particular dive, making sure we could do it.
We had actually done a very frustrating snorkel trip while in port on a cruise where we saw the wreck from the surface and envied the divers we saw below. Again with the short time in port we could not manage to find a way to dive it at that time. Well, this time all the cards lined up and with anticipation we headed out to the Lobster Pot Dive Center to hit the wreck with our Ocean Frontiers guide.
This was by far the best wreck dive we have done. Visibility was amazingly clear, and the shipwreck is so well opened up that penetration even for novice wreck divers is easy. Our guide saw to it that everyone was comfortable and took us through the larger passageways.
We visited the engine room, mess hall, and various compartments on the ship and weaved in and out of the structure ending up at the steering wheel!
When originally sunk, this wreck was upright but with tropical storm Nate it was knocked over to about 65 degrees. It’s still easy to navigate and kudos to our guide who made this an amazing dive for us!
Conclusion
Aside from diving, we really just took it easy. There was a game of Scuba-Opoly in the room, which was entertaining, with all the properties being premiere dive resorts and the railroads being decompression chambers, etc. DAN makes it, and we might just look to get a copy for playing with our diver friends.
Well, 5 days and 9 dives later, we were ready to come home and a quick one-hour flight and we were back in Miami. We have mixed feelings about going back for a third time to Compass Point and thought that if we did we’d try more in the Jan-Mar time-frame to see if we could hit some of the other sites.
We’ve also heard good things about Sunset House and Cobalt Coast on the west side of the island and of course Cayman Brac and Little Cayman are also supposed to be fantastic. We’re also looking forward to a return to Cozumel in November where we have enjoyed dives while cruising.
For now, we’re going to be diving some more of the local Miami sites in the next few months and hopefully completing our rescue course. More on those in the future…
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