Grand Cayman shore diving and east side lodging questions

[kristen8416]

I'm planning Grand Cayman trip for the end of April this year. Staying at the Marriott on SMB for 5 nights (free with points). I'm looking at Wall to Wall, Living the Dream, and Ambassador for diving while there. Who would you suggest would be best to dive with that I could also rent tanks for some shore diving, if that's even an option, and be able to dive near by. I've never been shore diving, so I'm not really even sure how that works. I've heard on here that I should also take advantage of the shore diving as well.

My second question is I'm thinking of staying one night on the east side to dive with Ocean Frontiers to hit that end up as well. Any suggestions for lodging over there?

 

[Damselfish]

I don't know if any of those 3 ops also rent tanks for independent shore diving, most GC ops don't. (It seems the most reliable place to just rent tanks is Divers Supply which is in a strip mall along SMB.) But most of the places to go shore diving, especially if you haven't done it before, are private property where you would rent tanks from the operator there anyway (and utilize their entry, rinse tanks, etc.) So I wouldn't take ability to rent tanks into account in your choice of a boat op.

While I wouldn't want to drive out to the East End a bunch of days for diving, for one day I'd normally just drive as for one night it's just not worth the time you'll spend packing and moving. But if you're only at the Marriott 5 nights any extension is good. The big 3 lodgings out there are Morritts, Reef Resort, and Compass Point (where Ocean Frontiers is located.) Your choice between those might be made by who will have a opening for only one night as they are somewhat oriented towards weekly rentals, especially Morritts and the Reef which are timeshares. Not that they won't rent nightly, but they might not want to rent for a night much in advance and possibly block someone from coming along later looking for the whole week. You could also look at Turtles Nest Inn which is only halfway out in Bodden town, but a much better drive than from the Marriott.

 

[diversteve]

Compass Point is a good option - Ocean Frontiers is on-site there. If you wanted to drive further there's the Reef or Morritt's but I don't see any advantage to either. Both are Tortuga Divers on-site also. My choice would be Ocean Frontiers though.

There's no shore diving at the Marriott. Red Sail is on-site there but they don't do it anywhere either.

The way shore diving works there at the regular sites is that each one has an on-site operator. They own/have improved the facilities to the water line so you rent tanks from each for that particular dive. Most won't allow "foreign" tanks on property anyway. Technically the water is all public access - getting there without going on private property is the "gotcha".

The three good shore dives north of the Marriott are in the NW Point/West Bay area. Turtle Reef is a good starting point, SunDivers is on-site there for tank rentals. Rather than describe it - here's the video. Turtle Reef | Scuba Diving in West Bay | iDive Cayman - it's IMO one of the best shore dives.

Lighthouse Point and Cobalt Coast are similar except since CC is around the point on the north side, you have to option to go out on the deep North Wall there. Divetech has a shop on either location, the one at Cobalt Coast used to provide one-way drops (probably still does) out on the wall so you can dive it then swim back in. They also run the West Bay Express once a week - an escorted scooter dive between their facilities.

Moving the other direction from the Marriott - Wall to Wall has a location at Lobster Post Dive center in north Georgetown. If you dive with them they give you a free tank to be used that afternoon at Cheeseburger Reef off their dock. It's not the best of Cayman shore diving but it is a reef. From the Marriott - about 2 miles south.

Next is Eden Rock/Devils Grotto - a series of shallow coral swim-thru's. Eden Rock Dive is on-site - it's also one of 2-3 locations on Cayman that will let you rent tanks for off-site diving - the other being Divers Supply and a 3rd I forget.

Eden Rock is 500' south of the cruise port so that hasn't done it much good over the decades. Also there can be up to 10K cruisers in port on a normal day (4-5 ships) so it's pretty congested till they leave around 4PM. If you start gearing up around 3:30 there you can do an hour dive b4 they close at 5PM - most of the cruisers will be gone. It's all in the 40' range. The Grotto is pretty bleak but a lot of swim-thru's. It's fantastic in summer when the Silversides invade - in April it's you and a few forlorn Tarpon.

Slightly south of there is Don Fosters - they dive the south side of Devils Grotto.

1/2 mile or so farther south is Sunset House - the AI dive resort. There's a small landing craft wreck there, the famous Mermaid (Amphitrite) statue in 55' and at the right time, the tourist sub will go thru there also. I like spending the afternoon there - My Bar is a divers bar with good food, you can watch the diving going on out front and there's two access points to the reef - the dock or the saltwater pool (open to the ocean) 50' north. The Cathy Church Photo Gallery/Shop there is also worth a look - nice lady who'll sign a print you buy if she's around. And talk diving with you for the next hour...lol. Sunset House - George Town - Cayman Islands

A little south past that is Smith's Cove - a shallow beach dive. No facilities so bring tanks rented from Eden Rock to dive it - they have a 24 hr. rental period.

That's pretty much all the accessible shore dives on GC. Some people dive Cemetery Beach on the north end of SMB but it's pretty shallow - you're likely to see good snorkelers at the "dive" site. You'd have to bring tanks for it also.

I don't think Ambassador or Living the Dream provides tank rentals. Neither do any of the boat based operators - some run their operations via website/phone and meet at the marina so tanks are just for their boat dives. Or in the case of Ambassador they have an office at Comfort Suites but there's no dive there - they keep their boats at one or two nearby marinas.

 

[kristen8416]

I don't know if any of those 3 ops also rent tanks for independent shore diving, most GC ops don't. (It seems the most reliable place to just rent tanks is Divers Supply which is in a strip mall along SMB.) But most of the places to go shore diving, especially if you haven't done it before, are private property where you would rent tanks from the operator there anyway (and utilize their entry, rinse tanks, etc.) So I wouldn't take ability to rent tanks into account in your choice of a boat op.

Thanks, good to know. I wasn't sure how the renting tanks for shore diving would work. I was thinking we could do morning boat dive and then maybe shore dive in the afternoon. I'd like to pick one operator and be able to leave my gear with them so we don't have to lug it around.

While I wouldn't want to drive out to the East End a bunch of days for diving, for one day I'd normally just drive as for one night it's just not worth the time you'll spend packing and moving. But if you're only at the Marriott 5 nights any extension is good. The big 3 lodgings out there are Morritts, Reef Resort, and Compass Point (where Ocean Frontiers is located.) Your choice between those might be made by who will have a opening for only one night as they are somewhat oriented towards weekly rentals, especially Morritts and the Reef which are timeshares. Not that they won't rent nightly, but they might not want to rent for a night much in advance and possibly block someone from coming along later looking for the whole week. You could also look at Turtles Nest Inn which is only halfway out in Bodden town, but a much better drive than from the Marriott.

The points aren't worth staying an additional day at the Marriott. If you stay 4 nights you get the 5th night free, so I always stay at least 5 nights. So, since I want to stay an additional day I figured why not do it on the other side of GC to try something different for a night and then just do a dive with OF. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to check those out. My other option was if I don't move over to East side for a night we could do a 3 tank with Wall to Wall because they go over to the East side. But I've seen post that have said not to do that, that you're better off driving over there and diving with OF.

 

[diversteve]

Babylon is among the best in East End dives although it's more north-central. Babylon | Scuba Diving in East End | iDive Cayman

OF typically has it on the weekly schedule so check with them for the days you might be out there. North Wall dives are somewhat weather dependent - but less so in April. Tortuga also does it as a scheduled dive some mornings from Morritt's where their shop/dock is.

I'm almost positive it's one on the 3-tank Wall to Wall safari as well.

 

[Doctorfish]

Wall to wall only does their 3 tanker if there are an adequate number of divers so I would not count on it. Babylon from shore is a long swim.

As far as west/north side shore diving, IMO, Turtle Reef, Lighthouse and Cobalt Coast are all very good. You need to rent tanks from them. I would not bother with with Eden Rock, Cheeseburger, Don Fosters as they are beat up. Sunset is OK if you swim out to the wall. Smith's not bad but you need to bring your own tanks. Diver's Supply will rent tanks. Most shore dive sites charge about $10-12 for tanks, some charge for weights as well.

If you do multiple days of boat diving with the same operator, most will give you a discount. I am not personally a Red Sail fan, their boats look very full. Other operators that you listed are all excellent but will max out their boats at 8-10 divers depending on boat size.

Most good operators are heavily subscribed so always a good idea to book in advance.

 

[Damselfish]

I can't think of a perfect solution to this when the hotel choice is fixed (the downside of using hotel or timeshare points almost anyplace when diving - often puts you someplace that's less than optimal for diving quality or convenience.) Some amount of lugging is probably unavoidable if you also want to shore dive. If you dive with one of the smaller boat ops like the ones mentioned, you're going to have to deal with your gear for shore dives, taking it after your boat diving and bringing it back. If you dive with Divetech they have locations at 2 good shore dives (Cobalt Coast and Lighthouse Point.) They're a good op though in my experience less "valet" than some others as far as gear handling and quite possibly more people on the boat. And the boat doesn't necessarily leave from there if conditions aren't suitable. If you were staying there you'd go get your gear out of your locker and throw it on the gear truck, and hop in their van to go to whatever dock they're leaving from. They will pick you up at your hotel for boat dives if you're not staying there but I don't remember how the gear thing works in that case. (I don't know if the lockers at those places are available to people just diving with them, or only to people staying there, maybe it would depend how full they are.)

There's a couple other places south of Georgetown like Sunset House or Don Fosters where you could both do boat dives and shore dive on site, but you'd still have to get there, and be making a huge sacrifice in the quality of the diving. And I'm not sure you'd wind up doing much less gear lugging than if you just had to toss it in your car. I wouldn't consider those an option.

 

[kristen8416]

Thanks diversteve! This was very thorough and will help greatly. We've always done boat dives so I'm very green with the whole shore diving thing. We'll definitely do OF on the East side one day. I'm still up in the air between the West side. I've heard such good things about all 3 (Wall to Wall, Ambassador, and Living the Dream) Do you have an opinion on them? I prefer a boat with more advanced divers that will go to the best sites, rather than easy shallow. I also like the idea of the "full service" aspect. We dive mostly in the Keys, so we have never experienced someone else taking care of our gear. Moving it from hotel to the docks, rinsing, and back to hotel to do all over the next day gets old, but worth it of course.

---------- Post added February 10th, 2015 at 01:10 PM ----------

I can't think of a perfect solution to this when the hotel choice is fixed (the downside of using hotel or timeshare points almost anyplace when diving - often puts you someplace that's less than optimal for diving quality or convenience.) Some amount of lugging is probably unavoidable if you also want to shore dive. If you dive with one of the smaller boat ops like the ones mentioned, you're going to have to deal with your gear for shore dives, taking it after your boat diving and bringing it back. If you dive with Divetech they have locations at 2 good shore dives (Cobalt Coast and Lighthouse Point.) They're a good op though in my experience less "valet" than some others as far as gear handling and quite possibly more people on the boat. And the boat doesn't necessarily leave from there if conditions aren't suitable. If you were staying there you'd go get your gear out of your locker and throw it on the gear truck, and hop in their van to go to whatever dock they're leaving from. They will pick you up at your hotel for boat dives if you're not staying there but I don't remember how the gear thing works in that case. (I don't know if the lockers at those places are available to people just diving with them, or only to people staying there, maybe it would depend how full they are.)

There's a couple other places south of Georgetown like Sunset House or Don Fosters where you could both do boat dives and shore dive on site, but you'd still have to get there, and be making a huge sacrifice in the quality of the diving. And I'm not sure you'd wind up doing much less gear lugging than if you just had to toss it in your car. I wouldn't consider those an option.

Yes, it is very limiting but it opens up funds for more diving. When you don't have to pay for hotel or airfare it makes the trip much more possible. I definitely don't want to be on a cattle call boat that has a lot of people and less service. I'd prefer boats that strictly keep maximum amount of divers. I've been on overcrowded boats and would prefer to avoid that. That's also why I want to narrow it down to one and book asap. For the reasons you mentioned we probably won't do a ton of shore diving, but I would definitely like to try it.

 

[Damselfish]

As far as the 3 ops you are looking at, if you haven't already why don't you contact them and check availability. April is not that far away so that may help make your choice if one or two of them are already booked for when you're there.

 

[diversteve]

I like Giles at Wall to Wall - I know him slightly from Bob Soto's (closed in 2004?) I also know of - but have never met Jason at Ambassador. Another option is Casey/Ken at Neptune's Divers - she's a sweetheart.

I have no personal knowledge of LTD. One thing to check with them (or anyone) is diver load limits. Wall to Wall is 8max, Ambassador goes 2-8 max. Neptune's is 8. With a buddy on Neptune's you don't have to play follow the DM either. Not sure about the others. Although not a bad idea since they know where the good stuff is. I'm pretty sure Ambassador will still go with 2 divers if the opportunity presents itself while you're there. It could in the afternoons since a lot of operators dive Stingray City instead. And it couldn't be closer - Comfort Suites is directly south of the Marriott.



I hauled my gear back and forth daily so I don't have to go retrieve it first to go shorediving. We boat dove most mornings and shore dove most afternoons to keep the costs down. 4 boat dives/day is $200 or so. I let them clean/dry it on Friday...lol.