Kharon
Contributor
Spent a week on GC and unfortunately the "group leader" took us to more or less the same section of reef repeatedly for shore dives. I found the Eden Rock/Devil's Grotto area to be really poor. Lots of dead or unhealthy hard coral and very little fish life. Not interested in swim throughs of dead and dammaged coral.
The only dives that were worth doing (IMO) was the Kittywake (even though I don't like wrecks) and Oro Verdi/Paradise Reef - done from boat. Even these were disappointing from the standpoint of the "Cayman is the Diving Capital of the World / Best diving in the Caribbean" hype. NOT! There was more life but certainly not up to Bonaire or Dominica.
My exposure was entirely on the west end so I probably saw the worst of GC diving. However I would advise - this is an extremely expensive place to dive. A tank (air not nitrox) will run almost $16 US ($12.50 Cayman) and they charge you for weights - add another $5 to $6 Cayman for that ($6.25 to $7.50 US) - total between $20 and $25 for a mediocre shore dive. Definitely not worth the price of admission. Compare to Bonaire with a week of unlimited air (Nitrox free if you have the card) and weights free at $150 (doing 3 dives a day = $7.50 a dive)
The worst experience was being shortchanged repeatedly (not at dive shops) when paying in US and getting back change in Cayman Dollars. It ranged from always rounding your change down to an even Cayman dollar amount and keeping the rest to simply returning half the amount you were owed (waitress then disappeared till we left).
I'm glad I went as I always would have wondered. I will never go back as what I saw was that Cayman is extremely overrated, vastly over-hyped, and totally over-priced. There are way too many much better dive destinations that are less expensive and just as easy to get to.
The only dives that were worth doing (IMO) was the Kittywake (even though I don't like wrecks) and Oro Verdi/Paradise Reef - done from boat. Even these were disappointing from the standpoint of the "Cayman is the Diving Capital of the World / Best diving in the Caribbean" hype. NOT! There was more life but certainly not up to Bonaire or Dominica.
My exposure was entirely on the west end so I probably saw the worst of GC diving. However I would advise - this is an extremely expensive place to dive. A tank (air not nitrox) will run almost $16 US ($12.50 Cayman) and they charge you for weights - add another $5 to $6 Cayman for that ($6.25 to $7.50 US) - total between $20 and $25 for a mediocre shore dive. Definitely not worth the price of admission. Compare to Bonaire with a week of unlimited air (Nitrox free if you have the card) and weights free at $150 (doing 3 dives a day = $7.50 a dive)
The worst experience was being shortchanged repeatedly (not at dive shops) when paying in US and getting back change in Cayman Dollars. It ranged from always rounding your change down to an even Cayman dollar amount and keeping the rest to simply returning half the amount you were owed (waitress then disappeared till we left).
I'm glad I went as I always would have wondered. I will never go back as what I saw was that Cayman is extremely overrated, vastly over-hyped, and totally over-priced. There are way too many much better dive destinations that are less expensive and just as easy to get to.