Grand Cayman for New Years, new to diving and looking for best shore dives.

[randpchi]

Dive tech has a shop at the Holiday Inn, correct? How is that?

 

[jonhall]

DiveTech is now at the Holiday Inn Resort in the North Sound. Great dive op, but agree with earlier posts that you probably can't go wrong with any or any of the shore dive locations mentioned. Dove with them a long time ago and in 2015 before they left Cobalt Coast. Good people working there..

7 mile beach has great (yes, I said great) dive sites and plenty of them. Also has calmer waters than some other sides of the island. Dove the Kittawake Feb. 2015. Although a shallow wreck and a swim through, it was too new of a wreck, for me, with no coral growth yet. Think it will be a great habitat in the future.

There is a map of all of the dives sites around the island. They are numbered as well as named. Big Tunnels along 7MB is one of my favorites.

I will be going to GC on New Years Eve. Fireworks somewhere along 7MB, our first activity on this trip! Staying at Cobalt Coast so I will probably dive with Reef Divers, the dive op now onsite. Also spending a week at Compass Point on east side of island, so will dive with Ocean Frontiers, another really good dive op.

Think it's great you're staying on 7MB. Great location!

 

[scoobydrew]

Dive tech has a shop at the Holiday Inn, correct? How is that?

Hey there, I work for Divetech so am happy to give info on this. Jonhall gives accurate info - thanks for that.

We are currently working out of two locations - Lighthouse Point and Holiday Inn. Lighthouse Point is a condo based accommodation, clean powered, eco resort with shore diving on site. Some of the high points of the site are the Guardian of the Reef statue who lives there on the mini wall, the abundance of life on the reef and the relatively short distance to swim to the main wall.

Holiday Inn does not have shore diving, it is located on the inside of the north sound. It does have a dock there so we can pick people up from it to go to the north wall at the right time of year but the sound does not offer good shore diving. When people stay with us we still offer free shore diving on multi day packages, if they are staying in Holiday Inn then we just bring them back to Lighthouse after the morning boat comes in and then run them back to HI when they are done.

Shore diving in Grand Cayman is awesome, if you're here for a week then you could pretty much spread yourself accross each of the sites, if you do call by lighthouse then ask for me (Drew) as it's always nice to met someone from Scubaboard.

You can also look up a website called Idive which is a directory of dive sites on Grand Cayman, it has a lot of video content that gives a very good introduction to the site prior to going.

If you have any questions about the island or whatever feel free to PM me.

Safe travels

Drew

 

[Sil123]

The shore dive sites on GC have onsite dive ops that will rent tanks and weights for about $15 CI. Our favorite is Turtle Reef, but other good spots include Cobalt Coast and Lighthouse Point and Sunset House.

Eden Rock and Devil's Grotto used to be great sites but they have gotten rather beaten up over the years and are popular spots with the cruise ship passengers.

I have heard that the shore dive at Sunset House is also showing signs of wear but I haven't dived it recently so I cannot say.

Although it's not a shore dive you should dive Sting Ray City at least once; but avoid going when the cruise ships are in port. Sunday is a good day or go early in the morning before they arrive.

There's a lot of good snorkeling from shore on GC, see the link to Tsetudo's guide below.

We love driving around GC but we always take a Garmin GPS with us and find that it is very helpful, especially when negotiating the roundabouts or dealing with the narrow, angled, one-way streets of Georgetown.

Have fun!

http://snorkelblog.tumblr.com/

Thanks for the info!

 

[diversteve]

There's two Stingray City's also - the dive and the nearby Sandbar site where all the snorkel/cruise boats go. The dive itself should be mostly divers on any number of dive boats that do it in the afternoon plus a few related snorkelers sometimes also. Since it's only 15' deep, they get almost as much out of the experience. Should be calmer being inside the Sound also.

I also liked Turtle Reef. Someone once told me that when it's too rough to dive there - a higher likelihood in winter - that Lighthouse Point still could be depending on the wind direction. So if it is, call over to Divetech b4 driving back down to SMB.

Some of the operators move boats and dive south of Cayman when the north is too rough. Often that's in winter.

Eden Rock/Devils Grotto would be last on my list. The cruise port is 500 yards away and there can be 4-5 ships in port. Decades of divers haven't done it much good either. Also if they've started construction on the new cruise pier, it's going to be silted over during the dredging. Even Sunset House's owner is concerned about that. Smith's Cove is another shore option, it's south of Georgetown.

One last point, any of the Seven Mile Beach dives except Cemetery Beach are boat dives. Some are pretty close and some operators like Red Sail beach their flat-top boats at "their" resorts (the Westin or the Marriott) so that's a pretty short boat ride out - you can clearly see divers on the boats at the sites there.

As someone mentioned, the Kittiwake is pretty close also - I haven't seen it but I have seen a video of divers scootering out there, checking it out, then back on one charge. It has its own website with links to operators going there - most on Cayman do.

Also a lot of the operators are boat based or in the case of Sunset House or Divetech (Drew?) - don't allow tank removal from the premises. You can rent tanks at Divers Supply or Eden Rock.

Here's the iDive site mentioned: Scuba Diving Videos, Guide to Best Grand Cayman Dive Sites