Back From Grand Cayman
Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 5:43 pm
I've been blessed with several fantastic trips this year. The one I have just returned from was on the East side of Grand Cayman Island. This is usually the more difficult weather side of the island which means very few divers compared to the much more protected west side. Only two dive companies here VS too many to count on the other side.
The stereotype held true, the wind and seas were very tough for the crew to navigate and made getting back on the boat difficult at times with the 4-6' swells although the crew was the best I've ever shared a boat with! Ocean Frontiers quite possibly has the best skilled most experienced and fun to be around boat crew ever! Certainly the best of any place I have ever traveled to around the world in my diving career. Plus they all speak english as a first language, the real English too, the original British English.
The down side for many will be the driving is on the left. You must drive to the resort at Compass Point. Having lived in South Africa much of my life I was fine with this, but others from the USA were in shear panic mode driving there from the airport on the other side of the island. They use "traffic circles or roundabouts, or whatever you want to call them rather than traffic lights in much of the region. These are not always 4 entry exit roundabouts, some have 6 or more entry and exit points. Choosing the correct one while driving on the left was a horror show for the Americans visiting here!
The car is included in the price of the resort stay. However should you choose to buy car insurance it is about the cost of 6 months of full coverage insurance for my car in the USA in Rural Eastern Wa. I paid 350 bucks for the 10 days!
Food is outrageous as well, 2-12" pizzas and 2 soft drinks was 90 bucks as an example. Grocery stores are not much better. Even though we had a condo fully equipped to cook and have our own food, it was not that much less expensive. Breakfast was included and fantastic. However the lunch and dinner was probably over 700 bucks for two,.. for the ten days.
The Island is spotless clean and well kept. Astonishing by Caribbean normal standards, when including Mexico. I never saw a cigarette butt on the ground. Come to think of it, I never recalled seeing anyone smoke, maybe it's not legal there? The Iguanas are everyplace and served in restaurants as "Tree Chicken" it's very good. I ate it several times for dinner. I ran over a few on the road when they bolt across as you're driving the winding roads.
Okay so enough of the story line above water. The diving is fantastic. Especially if you enjoy swim throughs and deeper than average dives. We did 27 dives in 7 days of diving. Half were over 100 fsw with a serious carful eye on depth because Nitrox is a requirement to dive with them more than twice a day. We used Nitrox on every dive except the 4 night dives which were 30' or less, mine were only 26' deep.
We saw lots of eagle rays, many species of sharks and we got close! 10' away from 10' sharks! Exciting as can be! Some Nurse sharks and common rays as well. The sea life is abundant and the reefs magnificent. They offer lion fish hunts which I would have done with a couple more days available. Those single dives would have conflicted with a 4 dive day on another boat. So I scrapped the lion fish hunt. I saw lion fish on every dive, some being very big like football sized bodies!
Most dives are only 15-30 min from the dock many are still within plain sight of the resort and dock. The seas were tough and folks getting seasick was common and all around me. The boats are built specific for diving and made perfectly in my opinion. It's not for everyone with the daily depths and the rough water, or maybe even the cost for the 10 day trip. It's certainly one of the places on my short list of return visits.
The stereotype held true, the wind and seas were very tough for the crew to navigate and made getting back on the boat difficult at times with the 4-6' swells although the crew was the best I've ever shared a boat with! Ocean Frontiers quite possibly has the best skilled most experienced and fun to be around boat crew ever! Certainly the best of any place I have ever traveled to around the world in my diving career. Plus they all speak english as a first language, the real English too, the original British English.
The down side for many will be the driving is on the left. You must drive to the resort at Compass Point. Having lived in South Africa much of my life I was fine with this, but others from the USA were in shear panic mode driving there from the airport on the other side of the island. They use "traffic circles or roundabouts, or whatever you want to call them rather than traffic lights in much of the region. These are not always 4 entry exit roundabouts, some have 6 or more entry and exit points. Choosing the correct one while driving on the left was a horror show for the Americans visiting here!
The car is included in the price of the resort stay. However should you choose to buy car insurance it is about the cost of 6 months of full coverage insurance for my car in the USA in Rural Eastern Wa. I paid 350 bucks for the 10 days!
Food is outrageous as well, 2-12" pizzas and 2 soft drinks was 90 bucks as an example. Grocery stores are not much better. Even though we had a condo fully equipped to cook and have our own food, it was not that much less expensive. Breakfast was included and fantastic. However the lunch and dinner was probably over 700 bucks for two,.. for the ten days.
The Island is spotless clean and well kept. Astonishing by Caribbean normal standards, when including Mexico. I never saw a cigarette butt on the ground. Come to think of it, I never recalled seeing anyone smoke, maybe it's not legal there? The Iguanas are everyplace and served in restaurants as "Tree Chicken" it's very good. I ate it several times for dinner. I ran over a few on the road when they bolt across as you're driving the winding roads.
Okay so enough of the story line above water. The diving is fantastic. Especially if you enjoy swim throughs and deeper than average dives. We did 27 dives in 7 days of diving. Half were over 100 fsw with a serious carful eye on depth because Nitrox is a requirement to dive with them more than twice a day. We used Nitrox on every dive except the 4 night dives which were 30' or less, mine were only 26' deep.
We saw lots of eagle rays, many species of sharks and we got close! 10' away from 10' sharks! Exciting as can be! Some Nurse sharks and common rays as well. The sea life is abundant and the reefs magnificent. They offer lion fish hunts which I would have done with a couple more days available. Those single dives would have conflicted with a 4 dive day on another boat. So I scrapped the lion fish hunt. I saw lion fish on every dive, some being very big like football sized bodies!
Most dives are only 15-30 min from the dock many are still within plain sight of the resort and dock. The seas were tough and folks getting seasick was common and all around me. The boats are built specific for diving and made perfectly in my opinion. It's not for everyone with the daily depths and the rough water, or maybe even the cost for the 10 day trip. It's certainly one of the places on my short list of return visits.
