Cayman Islands Trip Report

Cayman Islands Trip Report

June 15-24, 2006

In the wee hours of June 15^th, Michael and I headed off to Atlantic City, not to the casinos but to the airport. Less than eight hours later, we had touched down in Grand Cayman.

After booking the Jim Church School of Underwater Photography’s class aboard the Cayman Aggressor, we decided to add two days on before the trip. That way we’d be on the island and rested before the big trip. With the help of Tom (shrop3483) and Cindy (gunard), we got a great place to stay, a reasonably priced rental car, fabulous dining recommendations and the inside scoop of where to do a couple of shore dives.

We decided we wanted a low key place to stay. Eldemires Guest House was just the ticket. We got an ample sized room with a common kitchen. As we had no roommates, we had the kitchen to ourselves. Never fear, I did not cook, but we utilized the refrigerator with waters, Gatorades and Red Bull. Eldemires is conveniently located near the Sunset House. We ended up having dinner both nights at the Sunset House as we didn’t need to drive.

As soon as we checked into Eldemires, a nap was in order. Around 4:30pm we went over to the Sunset House, grabbed a couple of tanks and did a check out dive. My Aeris dive computer had been back to Aeris several times last year. I had only used it once at the quarry prior to our trip so I was anxious to see if it was working properly. If not, I’d be renting one for the week. We were pretty tired and did a rather uneventful dive. We made our way over to the mermaid statue and swam around a bit. I had a yellowtail snapper follow me around like a little puppy. Every time I turned around, there he was. He heeled better than my own pup. The mission for this dive was accomplished, my computer worked perfectly.

52 minutes later, we were rinsing gear and grabbing a couple of bar stools at MyBar. The Red Stripes were cold and the food was really good. This is quite the happening place for sunset. Our biggest complaint was all the 80’s music they played. When mentioned to the bartender, she smiled sympathetically and said they’ve been complaining to the owner forever… He insists the customers like it.

The next morning we grabbed our gear and headed out to DiveTech at Turtle Reef stopping for breakfast at Cimbocos on the way. Cindy was right, they make the best eggs benedict around. Also following Cindy’s advice, our first dive at Turtle Reef was out and to the right. We were met with beautiful coral formations and lots of critters. A huge grouper was hanging out under a coral ledge. Several soapfish were lying in the sand. I thought they were dead but they swam off when I got too close. A stingray was out in the sand hunting with a Jack. This ended up being a fairly common sight throughout the week, but at this point, it was the first I’ve ever seen that type of behavior. We also saw a small turtle swimming out into the abyss. On our way back to shore, Michael pointed out a well camouflaged scorpion fish. In the shallows near the ladder were a couple of peacock flounder as well as a yellow stingray. On my way out, one of the divemasters pointed out the resident moray eel. He came out but didn’t seem too thrilled and quickly retreated into his hole.

After our surface interval we did a second dive, this time to the left. The “landscape” wasn’t as scenic but we saw some terrific sea life. Huge parrotfish were in the sand at about 20ft. There must have been 7 or 8. As we got over to the mini wall and down to about 60ft we ran into a school of tarpon. We got right in the middle of them and they just stayed the course. It was pretty neat being in the middle of such big fish. We managed to find a couple of little critters, a lettuce slug, flamingo tongue, coral shrimp and arrow crabs. We saw a little spotted eel – no more than 9 – 10 inches long swimming from hole to hole. On the way back we saw more stingrays, a school of reef squid and another scorpion fish.