On December 30, 1997, I left to go to Grand Cayman Island.
A friend of mine had contacted me and wanted someone to house sit her condo for a month while she was visiting Scotland. I had three weeks vacation coming to me so I took the opportunity to go down south and do some scuba diving and stay warm.
Little did I know that on January 4, 1998, Montreal was about to be hit by the worst Ice Storm in it’s history.
Between 4 and 10 January 1998, sections of the St. Lawrence Valley from Kingston to Québec’s Eastern Townships received up to 100 mm of ice pellets and freezing rain — more than double the icy precipitation normally received in those areas in a whole year.
The company I was working for, The Troppus Group, was shut down for almost three weeks. At the time, I did not own a television and was not in the habit of watching one so I did not even know the storm had happened until I returned in late January.
Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands. The island is approximately 22 miles long with its widest point being 8 miles wide.
Unlike many other Caribbean islands, Grand Cayman is, for the most part, flat. The elevation ranges from sea level at the beaches to 60 feet above sea level on the North Side.
I was staying on the East End of the island, which felt like a small neighbourhood, thanks to the area being less-developed than Cayman’s western side.
There are numerous unspoiled beaches that are great for exploring and several good restaurants dotted along the coastline. The quiet roads are also great for cycling, and I enjoyed them as I had been left a bike. It was a 30 minute drive to get into George Town from here and I had also been left a Mazda Miata, so I was pretty mobile during my stay.
Did you know: Scuba Diving was first introduced to the world as a sport in the Cayman Islands in 1957.
Trinity Caves
I loved this dive. This site is located on the north end of Seven Mile Beach and is a series of 4 coral canyons. We went down as a group and entered a series of tunnels & chutes before popping out along the wall out at 100 feet. The main swim through starts at about 70 feet, where you can follow a tunnel back and around and out onto the main wall. A super fun dive full of caverns and swim-throughs.
You’ll see typical Caribbean life like nurse and reef sharks, possibly eagle rays, turtles, stingrays, and lots of fish: snapper, angelfish, grunts, parrot fish, and grouper as well as beautiful black coral, gigantic barrel sponges and sea anemones.
Visibility was well over 100 feet and the water was calm at this site. Even so, this site is best suited for experienced divers.
It’s Grand Cayman scuba diving at its best.
Big Tunnel
This site is also located north of Seven Mile Beach. The big attractions here are a huge coral arch and big tunnel which exits on the wall at about 130 feet. There are a lot of tunnels, ledges, crevices and swim throughs to explore here. You’ll see sponges, sea fans, gorgonians and a lot more. Eagles rays are often spotted along with pufferfish and tarpons to name a few.
The top of the archway starts at just over 100 with depths averaging around 100-110 feet on this dive. Visibility is typically excellent (100+ feet).
Again, as with trinity Caves, given the depth of this dive, it is best for experienced divers.
Stingray City
The most famous of all the dive sites in the Cayman Islands, Stingray City is also right up there as one of most famous and photographed in all the Caribbean.
Located in the North Sound, it is billed as the world’s greatest 12 foot dive. This spot is popular for both divers and snorkelers alike.
When you dive this spot, you kneel on the bottom and feed the rays out of your hand (your divemaster passes out the food). I really enjoyed this but I could see someone not liking it either, The stingrays are quite assertive and will virtually swim right into you once you open up your hand and they smell the food. Plus, this guy you see me pushing away in the cover photo… he swallowed my hand completely before I yanked it out. They have no teeth so nothing bad ocurred, but I know that would freak out a lot of people. These stingrays are like vacuums and suck the food out of your palm.
Tarpon Alley
Just outside the Stingray Cut is a site called Tarpon Alley which was packed with tarpon.
During my visit, there were almost a dozen of us on the boat and there was 1 Divemaster. He also drove the boat. When we reached the dive site, he picked up a mooring and proceeded to get us all in the water.
As I had more experience than most of the other divers, I volunteered to act as Divemaster and follow the group but as we neared the bottom, at about 60 feet, I heard a loud bang and looked up t see that the mooring line had snapped and the boat began to move.
The Instructor/Divemaster/Boat Driver signed to me to see if I would lead the group and fin kicked off to chase down the boat.
I did not know the dive site but I just figured, well, let’s go see what’s down here and sure enough, I found the Tarpons.
It was an interesting outing for me and before the dive was over, the Instructor/Divemaster/Boat Driver had caught up with the boat, managed to pick up a new mooring and make his way down to where we were. Needless to say, they let me dive for free that day.
Eden Rock Dive Centre
Eden Rock Diving Centre is the gateway to the main shore diving in Grand Cayman and is situated only a short swim from two of the worlds best shallow reefs – Eden Rock and Devil’s Grotto, both of which are ideal for scuba diving and snorkelling.
The Eden Rock Dive Center is located right next to these two excellent dive sites. Whether you’re snorkelling or scuba diving, you’ll enter the shallow water from one of the two diving ladders bolted onto the coral rock on the shore. From there, you can wade in and eventually swim out to the reef to start exploring.
The reef at Eden Rock rises from a 40 foot sandy bottom to within a few feet of the surface and is honeycombed with caves and tunnels lit by sunbeams streaming through skylight openings in the coral reef. The site has abundant corals, sponges and tropical fish and makes for an ideal way to send an afternoon. I bought a week long pass and came by at different times of the day every day. Since the depth is so shallow, I could stay in as long as I could manage my breath to conserve the sir in my tank and on one day, I managed a dive of almost 90 minutes.
Devils Grotto is a little different. This site also offers excellent spots for exploring as well as enjoying underwater wildlife and while I was here, enjoyed large schools of silversides swimming throughout, plus other fish like tarpon, parrotfish, and barracuda. This is another spot where you can take your time, and swim through the natural caves, caverns, and tunnels to explore every inch of this underwater oasis. The light shining through the holes in the caverns will take your breath away.
I had never experienced this type of diving before and am glad I got a chance to spend some time here.
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In late January, I got on a plane and headed back to Montreal.
I got to my condo on Lakeshore Drive in Dorval and settled in for a weekend, did some grocery shopping and stored my gear.
Monday morning I went back to work and everyone was pissed off at me for taking a month off during the worst ice storm in Canadian history.
I particularly remember the owner being very angry with me, like I had anything to do with the weather.
He was angry that I had not even bothered to watch the news. I told him I was on vacation. I didn’t watch the news at home and I sure didn’t go on vacation to watch the news about winter in Montreal while I was in the Cayman Islands.
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