The Cayman Islands

Love rays
Paul Quarry, 42, lives and works in London as an advertising copywriter. He has been diving since 1993 and visited the Cayman Islands through The Barefoot Traveller with his wife, Kate, also a diver, and their twin daughters, Natalie and Georgia.

We decided to visit the Caymans because we’d heard that the diving was good and we wanted somewhere that wouldn’t present the children with any health problems, as they were only 20 months old at the time.

I found the Southern Cross Club, which is on Little Cayman, on the Internet. It looked idyllic and sounded really friendly. Little Cayman is a very short flight from Grand Cayman, so we spent three nights at the Indies Suites on Grand Cayman before transferring to the Southern Cross Club.

The Indies Suites was very good – large apartments with a pool, near the beach. We dived Stingray City, Grand Cayman’s most famous dive, which was great fun – one of the other divers got a ‘lovebite’ from a ray!

Just about everything at the Southern Cross Club was excellent: the staff were very friendly and the food was fantastic. The owner, Peter, would organise impromptu outings. On one occasion he suggested that we take beer and snacks and watch the sunset at a particular place he knew of on the island, and on another that we go on a snorkelling trip with the visiting dolphin, Spot. Because of the windy weather, we couldn’t dive Bloody Bay Wall on the north of the island for much of the holiday – and that area definitely has the best diving. Night dives were regarded as too risky, again because of the weather, and we didn’t get to experience the legendary ‘gin-clear’ visibility. Apparently it can reach 60m. My only criticism would be that the divemasters were a bit reluctant to take the boats to rougher areas.

However, the diving on the south side of the island was still very good: a great variety of fish and healthy coral. As well as all the reef fish we regularly saw turtles, barracuda, lobsters and stingrays. One day we took the longer trip over to Cayman Brac to dive the wreck of the Captain Keith Tibbetts, a Russian frigate which was sunk there – it was a beautiful dive, with eagle rays and turtles.

I would love to go to the Southern Cross Club again, but the prospect of 12 hours on a plane with two toddlers is currently dampening my enthusiasm.



Mixed feelings
Fay Presto, 52, is a professional magician, and the first female member of the Inner Magic Circle. She first completed her BSAC pool training 20 years ago, followed by a few try-dives in Jamaica and Greece, but circumstances meant that she did not qualify as a diver until 1998. She lives in Holloway, north London, and is single.

I visited the Caymans in September 1999 through Regal diving. I’ve been on a few holidays through Regal, and I think they’re terrific – they just sort it out. Because of what I do for a living, I usually only give them a few days’ notice to find a holiday for me, and the trip to the Caymans was no exception: I phoned them with four days to go. I flew direct to Grand Cayman, staying at the Seaview Diver Resort [Regal no longer uses this hotel]. I’d say that Regal have never sent me on a duff holiday, despite the lack of notice, but the Caymans didn’t work for me.

The hotel was right on the beach, and should have been idyllic. I thought there would be steel bands playing in the evenings, but it was all heavy metal from the bar, which was the hangout for the local dive guides. The diving set-up also didn’t really suit me, but would have been perfect for anyone on holiday with a partner or family.

The package included two boat dives, both in the morning, with unlimited shore diving – but I couldn’t take advantage of the shore dives, as I didn’t have a buddy. Towards the end of my stay I did a couple of really fabulous shore dives with an American guy, but before that I couldn’t find anyone to shore dive with. The morning dives were on a small boat, and were finished by midday, which is great for people who like to spend the rest of the day doing something else.

I much prefer the arrangement I’ve come across in the Red Sea, where it takes around an hour to motor out to the dive site, which gives you plenty of space to get the video and dive kit sorted out. You can have lunch and snorkel between dives, write up your dive log, do the second dive and get back to shore by 4pm. Sitting around on the Egyptian boats you have plenty of time to get to know people, whereas in the Caymans I found it difficult to break my way into the groups, partly because there was very little time on the boat. There was no time to reflect on the first dive or even to write up my log between dives – something I like to do.

I hired a Jeep, and I without it would have been stuck in the hotel. The weather was generally overcast, with some fine days and some with heavy rain: you could almost have dived in the high street, it was so flooded! In the afternoons I drove around, took pictures, and did a bit too much retail therapy. The island is paradise, with miles of coral beach and fabulous sunsets. I found that I couldn’t run through my video footage, as UK systems work on PAL and the Caymans on NTSC, so if I ever went there again, I’d take a laptop, or some kind of conversion kit.

The boat dives were all drifts or dives with sandy bottoms: we didn’t do any wrecks or night dives. There are coral pinnacles, where we saw a few pelagics, a couple of really spectacular eagle rays, and the usual tropical fish, queen angels and barracuda. I really enjoyed the few shore dives I did, as there was no rush, and I think it’s the shallows that do it for me – there’s such rich, rich colour.

After my Grand Cayman holiday I went to the Red Sea – with Regal again – and hired a dive buddy. I think dive operations should have a professional dive buddy scheme, and give the buddies star ratings – it’s a great idea. Once I get my nose stuck down the end of a video camera I can’t concentrate on anything else, so I need a camera assistant more than a dive buddy, basically.

About the Cayman Islands
The three Cayman Islands (Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, known as ‘the Brac’) are directly south of central Cuba. Although most of the inhabitants speak English with an American accent, the islands are a British colony, hence the convenient direct flights from the UK. Known as a tax haven, the islands’ other economic mainstay is tourism.

Grand Cayman is the largest and most developed island, with a population of around 30,000. Its most famous dive is Stingray City. This 3m dive – also good for snorkellers – is a short boat ride into North Sound, to a site where the divers simply kneel on a sandy bottom while stingrays and fish are fed around them. Expect close encounters with as many as 20 rays.

The Brac, whose population is only 2,000, is home to the islands’ unique Brac parrots, and closest to what is probably the islands’ second most famous dive site, the wreck of the Captain Keith Tibbetts. This 95m Russian destroyer, originally simply numbered 356, was renamed and sunk as an artificial reef in 1996. The Brac is also notable for having the highest point in the Caymans, a limestone cliff that reaches about 43m in the northeast.

Little Cayman is the least developed island with reputedly the best diving off Bloody Bay Wall to the north. It has a handful of hotels, a post office, grocery store and bank, and a population of around 100, most of whom work in the tourist industry. Wandering the island’s 12-mile length are some 2,000 large iguanas, which have right of way over cars. The island is also of interest to birdwatchers, particularly for red-footed boobies and magnificent frigate birds.

Spot the dolphin
David Evans, 45, lives in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey and is a chartered accountant. He learned to dive four years ago in Turkey, and his buddy is his partner, Teresa.

I’d been on a few trips to Aqaba in Jordan with Aquatours, and I was chatting to Kirk and Linda [of Aquatours] at one of the dive shows, and they suggested I try the Caymans. I’d never been to the Caribbean before, or talked to anyone who’d dived the Caymans, so it was purely on Kirk and Linda’s recommendation. Teresa and I stayed on Cayman Brac at the Brac Reef Beach Resort, a small dive hotel which has its own dive operation, Reef Divers. Our trip was at Easter, and on the first day the weather was very rough and stormy. Teresa decided not to dive that day, but once the boat had gone round to the other side of the island, the water was like a millpond. From then on the weather was perfect, and the diving was great.

It was mainly little stuff that we focused on during the dives – there were loads of small fish, coral and some impressive parrotfish. We often saw stingrays and eagle rays, and the resident dolphin, Spot, would turn up. He was a real bonus: he would come right up to you and you could really interact with him.

The closest dive sites were only 15 minutes away, and the longest trip, which took an hour, was to Bloody Bay Wall off Little Cayman. The diving was not at all arduous, but still interesting. Bloody Bay Wall was impressive, and I also enjoyed my two dives on the Keith Tibbetts. This wreck is quite shallow and hasn’t been down there long. It sits on sand in clear water and is visited by lots of rays. You can easily go in and out of the cabins. We were lucky in having calm days to dive that side of the island, where there are also wonderful wall dives.

I have subsequently visited Los Roques in Venezuela, which is supposed to be one of last untouched sites for divers. However, I thought the diving at Cayman Brac was just as impressive, and you could dive it in a lot more comfort. In Venezuela we were out in the sun all day with no cover, on what was essentially a big rowing boat with a motor, in a 2.5m swell. At Reef Divers the boats were well equipped and comfortable, and the staff did everything for you – set up your kit and changed your tanks between dives. There was a cool box on the boat with drinks and sweets. It’s set up for the American market, so all the facilities are fantastic, the food’s excellent and the hotel is very comfortable.

The holiday wasn’t cheap, but I couldn’t fault it and, because we were doing three dives a day, you get more diving out of a relatively expensive holiday. Despite the comfort, the Brac Reef Beach Resort is a dive resort and I don’t know what you’d do if you weren’t diving. I think that two weeks there would be too long: this year we preceded a week in Cayman Brac with a week in northern Florida, snorkelling with manatees and doing some freshwater cavern diving. We’ll probably go back to Cayman Brac next Easter, and combine it with a visit to the States again.

Who to contact

UK tour operators

Aquatours
Tel: 0870 4423288,
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web site: http://www.aquatours.com.

The Barefoot Traveller
Tel: 020 8741 4319,
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web site: http://www.barefoot-traveller.com.

Divequest
Tel: 01254 826322,
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Dive Worldwide
Tel: 01243 870618,
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Harlequin Worldwide Travel
Tel: 01708 850330,
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web site: http://www.harlequin-holidays.co.uk/diving.

Hayes & Jarvis
Tel: 0870 8989890,
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Kuoni Travel
Tel: 01306 747006,
web site: http://www.kuoni.co.uk.

Regal Holidays
Tel: 01353 778096,
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web site: http://www.regal-diving.co.uk.

Scuba Safaris
Tel: 01342 851196,
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web site: http://www.scuba-safaris.com.

Aggressor Fleet
Tel: 001 504 385 2628,
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web site: http://www.aggressor.com
(UK agent for the Cayman Aggressor IV liveaboard,
are Hayes & Jarvis, Kuoni and Scuba Safaris).

The main dive centres

Bob Soto’s Diving (Grand Cayman)
Tel: 001 345 949 2022.

Fisheye (Grand Cayman)
Tel: 001 345 945 4209,
web site: http://www.fisheye.com.

Little Cayman Beach Resort
Tel: 001 345 948 1033.

Reef Divers (Cayman Brac)
Tel: 001 345 948 1323.
The Southern Cross Club (Little Cayman)
Tel: 001 345 948 1099,
e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ,
web site: http://www.southerncrossclub.com.

Cayman Islands Tourist Board (in the UK)
Tel: 020 7491 6958,
e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ,
web site:http">www.divecayman.ky.'>http:// www.divecayman.ky.