ianr33
Contributor
My annual Cayman pilgrimage happened over Thanksgiving this year. Most of our group of 8 stayed at the Coconut Bay condos by the Turtle Farm ,the remainder tried Rockyshore Guest Welcome to your private Cayman Islands Getaway for a change of pace.
Cocounut Bay Cayman Vacation for the perfect hassle free holiday is convenient,lots of space and reasonably priced. Rockyshore is simple,inexepensive and has more of an island feel (chickens,cows,trash by the side of the road) Seven Mile Beach it is not.Which is a Good Thing in my book.
We keep coming back here as there is something for everybody,from 30 foot reefs to trimix depths.
My basic plan was to do some deeper dives,mainly from shore.
When we picked up our doubles and deco tanks from Divetech at Cobalt Coast on Sunday it did not look good. 3 foot breakers were crashing into the dock whipped up by strong NE winds. We took the tanks over to the new Divetech location at Lighthouse Point,better but still scary looking.Finally we tried Sundivers at the Turtle Farm (The old Divetech location) They very graciously let us use their ladder,even with outside tanks.
Had a nice dive out on the "big" wall although the viz was not as good as it can be,no doubt due to the constant wind and wave action of the last few weeks. Highlight of the dive was seeing an enormous barracuda come up out of the depths.Must have been 6 feet long and fat!
Over the next couple of days we did 3 dives in the Lighthouse Point area.Getting in once at Lighthouse point and twice at the boat ramp just to the South.This is the most sheltered entry when the waves are up. All these dives were to around 150 ish with run times between an hour and 90 minutes. The wall in this area is very beautiful and pristine.Lots of fish and a few turtles.
Wednesday afternoon we did a boat dive with Divetech. Originally we had been intending to do the Carrie Lee but as they were of the opinion that it was not that good a dive at a depth of 200 ft (our certification limit) we headed to a site called Sand Chute instead. Plan was to do 20 minutes at 200 feet on Trimix 18/35 with 32% and 80% nitrox for deco. We followed our guide Javen (who was diving an inspiration rebreather) down a ,surprise! sand chute between coral walls. At 200 feet this chute stops dead as if it had been chiselled off and drops into the abyss (somewhere around 6000 feet deep! ) We took a right turn and slowly cruised along this enormous wall feeling rather insignificant. Just before our turn I could see some very cool looking plates of rock sticking out of the wall maybe 50 feet below me. Need to do Advanced trimix to go see those though. Oh well,next time maybe.
Thursday we headed back to the Boat Dock .It was starting to feel like home. Plan was to swim over to Lighthouse Point for another Trimix dive.As our deco bottles were not full we cut back on the run time to 15 minutes at 200 feet. This turned out to be the WOW dive of the trip.At 200 feet the 45 degree slope again goes vertical and disappears into forever.Overhangs,rivers of sand,HUGE sponges and an immense blueness everywhere.Just beautiful and totally addictive.As we switched to our 32% nitrox at 120 feet we watched a medium sized turtle eating a sponge. He (or maybe she) would lie on top of the concave sponge,push hard with his back flippers so as to push his beak deep into the sponge and bite off a big chunk.We hung around for 5 minutes,scratched him on top of his head then carried on with our ascent.
The "big" and "mini" walls in this area are separated by a sand flat at 65 feet that takes about 10 minutes to swim over. We hit an annoyingly strong current that was trying to push us back out. With 4 tanks we were a big target and my SAC rate went way up.After a few minutes I decided that a pull and glide tactic in the sand was called for. I was having visions of having to send up a bag to do deco from while getting blown out to sea. Fortunately the mini wall soon appeared and we finished our deco in an aquarium.
Thursday evening we went to Eden Rock. The less said about that the better. Friday morning was shallow dives at Cobalt Coast where the waves had finally died down and saturday was heading back to reality.
Divetech (Divetech.com) were wonderful as always.Those guys work their butts off all day and do it with a smile. More than happy to take a boat out with only 2 paying customers.
The new Sundivers (Sundivers.ky) is also highly recommended,very nice people. Ask Ollen for a look at his $250k worth of compressors.
Every time I go to Cayman I think it will be my last. I dont like the traffic or the Cruise Ships and I hate the amount of development. But somehow those walls and the endless blue keep drawing me back.
Cocounut Bay Cayman Vacation for the perfect hassle free holiday is convenient,lots of space and reasonably priced. Rockyshore is simple,inexepensive and has more of an island feel (chickens,cows,trash by the side of the road) Seven Mile Beach it is not.Which is a Good Thing in my book.
We keep coming back here as there is something for everybody,from 30 foot reefs to trimix depths.
My basic plan was to do some deeper dives,mainly from shore.
When we picked up our doubles and deco tanks from Divetech at Cobalt Coast on Sunday it did not look good. 3 foot breakers were crashing into the dock whipped up by strong NE winds. We took the tanks over to the new Divetech location at Lighthouse Point,better but still scary looking.Finally we tried Sundivers at the Turtle Farm (The old Divetech location) They very graciously let us use their ladder,even with outside tanks.
Had a nice dive out on the "big" wall although the viz was not as good as it can be,no doubt due to the constant wind and wave action of the last few weeks. Highlight of the dive was seeing an enormous barracuda come up out of the depths.Must have been 6 feet long and fat!
Over the next couple of days we did 3 dives in the Lighthouse Point area.Getting in once at Lighthouse point and twice at the boat ramp just to the South.This is the most sheltered entry when the waves are up. All these dives were to around 150 ish with run times between an hour and 90 minutes. The wall in this area is very beautiful and pristine.Lots of fish and a few turtles.
Wednesday afternoon we did a boat dive with Divetech. Originally we had been intending to do the Carrie Lee but as they were of the opinion that it was not that good a dive at a depth of 200 ft (our certification limit) we headed to a site called Sand Chute instead. Plan was to do 20 minutes at 200 feet on Trimix 18/35 with 32% and 80% nitrox for deco. We followed our guide Javen (who was diving an inspiration rebreather) down a ,surprise! sand chute between coral walls. At 200 feet this chute stops dead as if it had been chiselled off and drops into the abyss (somewhere around 6000 feet deep! ) We took a right turn and slowly cruised along this enormous wall feeling rather insignificant. Just before our turn I could see some very cool looking plates of rock sticking out of the wall maybe 50 feet below me. Need to do Advanced trimix to go see those though. Oh well,next time maybe.
Thursday we headed back to the Boat Dock .It was starting to feel like home. Plan was to swim over to Lighthouse Point for another Trimix dive.As our deco bottles were not full we cut back on the run time to 15 minutes at 200 feet. This turned out to be the WOW dive of the trip.At 200 feet the 45 degree slope again goes vertical and disappears into forever.Overhangs,rivers of sand,HUGE sponges and an immense blueness everywhere.Just beautiful and totally addictive.As we switched to our 32% nitrox at 120 feet we watched a medium sized turtle eating a sponge. He (or maybe she) would lie on top of the concave sponge,push hard with his back flippers so as to push his beak deep into the sponge and bite off a big chunk.We hung around for 5 minutes,scratched him on top of his head then carried on with our ascent.
The "big" and "mini" walls in this area are separated by a sand flat at 65 feet that takes about 10 minutes to swim over. We hit an annoyingly strong current that was trying to push us back out. With 4 tanks we were a big target and my SAC rate went way up.After a few minutes I decided that a pull and glide tactic in the sand was called for. I was having visions of having to send up a bag to do deco from while getting blown out to sea. Fortunately the mini wall soon appeared and we finished our deco in an aquarium.
Thursday evening we went to Eden Rock. The less said about that the better. Friday morning was shallow dives at Cobalt Coast where the waves had finally died down and saturday was heading back to reality.
Divetech (Divetech.com) were wonderful as always.Those guys work their butts off all day and do it with a smile. More than happy to take a boat out with only 2 paying customers.
The new Sundivers (Sundivers.ky) is also highly recommended,very nice people. Ask Ollen for a look at his $250k worth of compressors.
Every time I go to Cayman I think it will be my last. I dont like the traffic or the Cruise Ships and I hate the amount of development. But somehow those walls and the endless blue keep drawing me back.
)
