Caribbean Shallow, Accessible and Abundant Sea Life

[KathyV]

If you only compare DIVE costs you are correct. But what about food and lodging?

We typically do a week of boat/shore dives and GC was a lot more expensive for us although IIRC our flight was surprisingly reasonable - maybe even less than connections thru Oahu. Up until a few years ago when they merged with AA - we could get good deals on America West/USAir as they competed non-stop out of Phoenix with Hawaiian and Aloha. But those flights are gone now.

When we go to Maui, food prices (even in the markets) are a big budget item but on GC we only did minimal shopping and our bill was easily over $200. And it was not enough food for the week if we'd wanted to do all our own meals - which we don't - it's vacation.

YMMV

Food is quite expensive on Cayman but car rentals, diving, and flights are usually not so bad. There is a wide range of prices for lodgings but if you stay on Seven Mile Beach you will probably pay the highest rates. We prefer to rent an apartment (car rental included) on the beach - not the powdery white sands of 7MB but there's good snorkeling right outside our door. We stay in a quieter, more residential area of the island, and the price is very reasonable, but we have to do some driving. That's not a problem because nowadays we mostly prefer to go shore diving on GC with occasional boat dives. If I were there for a dedicated dive vacation, I would look for more convenient options - like we do on the Sister Islands, and there are some reasonable all-inclusive packages available on Brac and Little Cayman.

You get what you pay for and if something is essential or important to you than you should include it in your budget. I am sure that there are many options and price ranges in Hawaii too, if you shop around. But I just don't care for blanket negative statements about a place, without qualifications, because it may not give a complete picture.

 

[Kharon]

If your wife wants to see lots of fish there are two places I would avaid like the plague - Roatan and Placencia, Belize. Very expensive trips for me and extremely disappointing.

 

[PatW]

The best two places for shallow reefs that I know are Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. At Little Cayman, the boat usually moors in about 20’. So you can spend the whole dive at less than 30’.

The Brac has better corals than Little. But the south side walls are deep. About 55’ at the shallowest and much of it at 85’. But Sea Feather wall is a great dive. The north walls are about 60’ and the shallow dives about 25’-50’. The Brac has some healthy stag horn and elk horn. You almost never see them anymore.

Doc has a good point. Taking some time with a good instructor might resolve the problem.

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

Bayahibe, Dominican Republic. There is reef diving, wall diving, wreck diving. Most of the dive sites are less than 60 ft. and most are about a 20 min boat ride. I always dive with and highly recommend ScubaFun | Dive Center Bayahibe

 

[Suppresst]

Hello everyone, and thanks. For some technical reason I don't understand, I do not get notifications of anything from this forum to my email, so I had no idea of the many and varied responses until today, when, thank God, I remembered to check back.

I am going to go over them all and it may take me several days to react. So, I'm still out here, and am grateful. Your time has not been squandered.

 

[Suppresst]

Well, I surprised myself and got through all the posts today, and while I'll probably have more pointed reactions later to specific posts, I'd like to start with some generalized reactions:

1. A big consideration for me in selecting Grand Cayman was proximity to British-influenced civilization - such as medical. As it turned out we both needed medical attention (she for heartburn and I for badly lacerated ankle on Kittiwake wreck) and we got excellent, immediate treatment. I wonder about access to good medical care at some of the places recommended, and I wonder to what extent any, or all of you take that into consideration. I do realize that "adventure" involves risk, but risks have to be calculated - risk versus benefit. Diving would have to be massively better somewhere for me to risk limited or no access to immediate medical, including hypebaric chambers.
2. One person mentioned Key Largo. Well, I used to live and dive there (1980's) so logical place to return to, but I read, definitely read, that a big international conference on coral health is being held there (or was recently held there) because all Florida Key's coral was wiped out by some kind of infectious disease. Comments?
3. Many of you urge Yucatan Peninsula but I've read of cartel wars involving employment of hand grenades in downtown Cancun. How do those of you who go there factor that in - worth the risk?, in denial?, don't care?, how?

 

[gbf]

"Any less stressful than sliding off a step of a boat, all positively buoyant, floating till you’re relaxed enough to slowly deflate and.....no- no Bonaire shore dive is easier than that simple entry."

Disagree, but different strokes for different folks.

Walk down the steps at Capt. Don's. Stand in waist deep water until you're comfortable. Sit down until you're comfortable. Stand up and walk out if you don't like the arrangements or swim out over the sand in 10'-20' and look at the cool critters there until you're comfortable, or spend your entire dive there - I've done that lots of times. There are odd beasties living in that sand and in the mooring blocks. Swim 100' to the top of the reef in 30'-40' of water, hang out there - it's a good place to spend your entire dive.

Most of the major resorts, Don's, Buddy, Den Laman, Sand dollar, etc. have docks with steps you can use to ease into shallow water at your own pace, and under control.

If/when you feel like you want to expand horizons, do some of the easier walk-in-the-sand (Plaza, Pink Beach come to mind) sites. Or don't. Make a week of Bari Reef - lots of worse things you could do.

No need to float around on the surface - I hate-hate-hate doing that. No need to manage a free descent. No chance to bobo and do a negative entry (after the "helpful" divemaster turns your air "on").

Bonaire is not for everybody, in fact I think I might be past doing some of the heavier lifting shore dives after this past trip - I'm old. But you can make it some of the most benign and easy diving you'll ever do - if you want to.

Airfare is awful, though.

 

[yle]

Well, I surprised myself and got through all the posts today, and while I'll probably have more pointed reactions later to specific posts, I'd like to start with some generalized reactions:

One person mentioned Key Largo. Well, I used to live and dive there (1980's) so logical place to return to, but I read, definitely read, that a big international conference on coral health is being held there (or was recently held there) because all Florida Key's coral was wiped out by some kind of infectious disease. Comments?

Many of you urge Yucatan Peninsula but I've read of cartel wars involving employment of hand grenades in downtown Cancun. How do those of you who go there factor that in - worth the risk?, in denial?, don't care?, how?

Key Largo: the coral is not "wiped out". The current state of coral reefs worldwide is a serious issue, and the reefs from Florida to Cozumel have been experiencing something unusual recently. But it's not as if all the reefs have disappeared. If you need a low-stress diving environment to allow your wife to develop skills and confidence, I 100% agree with the Key Largo recommendation. Cost, ease of access (why leave the country?), top medical care, plenty of dive ops, shallow reefs, tons of life... it's a no brainer.

Cancun and hand grenades: I just got home from Cozumel late last night. I was there for the past week. I didn't see or hear or hear of any hand grenades. Or any kind of cartel activity. Granted, it's not exactly Cancun... but it's the same neighborhood. Oh, and our flight was full. So if there's a problem with the Cancun/Cozumel area, it seems the majority of people travelling there have no knowledge of it.

Keep in mind that anything you hear about in the popular media will have been "spiced up" to grab your attention.

However... even assuming there are no hand grenades or any cartel activity in Cancun, I still vote Key Largo >> Cancun for what your wife needs.

 

[KathyV]

Well, I surprised myself and got through all the posts today, and while I'll probably have more pointed reactions later to specific posts, I'd like to start with some generalized reactions:

1. A big consideration for me in selecting Grand Cayman was proximity to British-influenced civilization - such as medical. As it turned out we both needed medical attention (she for heartburn and I for badly lacerated ankle on Kittiwake wreck) and we got excellent, immediate treatment. I wonder about access to good medical care at some of the places recommended, and I wonder to what extent any, or all of you take that into consideration. I do realize that "adventure" involves risk, but risks have to be calculated - risk versus benefit. Diving would have to be massively better somewhere for me to risk limited or no access to immediate medical, including hypebaric chambers...

Access to high-quality medical care on vacation is also important to us, especially as we have gotten older. We were more willing to take risks when we were younger - but we still did our research and tried to head warnings, especially advisories from the US State Department and the CDC.

Once I remember sitting around the beach bar at a resort on Roatan and I mentioned something about the preventive malaria medication we were taking - everybody stopped talking and looked surprised and said "Malaria, what malaria?!" Some visitors may not even realize that health and medical care are important issues.

Some of the reasons that we have come to like Cayman so much are the low crime rates, good roads, and high-quality medical care available. We can eat the food and drink the water without worry and there is small chance of contracting tropical diseases. The Sister Islands are more rural and less developed than Grand Cayman, but they are still part of a modern, first world country and that is attractive to us. Too bad that it is expensive, but sometimes you really do get what you pay for!

 

[chillyinCanada]

Well, I surprised myself and got through all the posts today, and while I'll probably have more pointed reactions later to specific posts, I'd like to start with some generalized reactions:

1. A big consideration for me in selecting Grand Cayman was proximity to British-influenced civilization - such as medical. As it turned out we both needed medical attention (she for heartburn and I for badly lacerated ankle on Kittiwake wreck) and we got excellent, immediate treatment. I wonder about access to good medical care at some of the places recommended, and I wonder to what extent any, or all of you take that into consideration. I do realize that "adventure" involves risk, but risks have to be calculated - risk versus benefit. Diving would have to be massively better somewhere for me to risk limited or no access to immediate medical, including hypebaric chambers.
2. One person mentioned Key Largo. Well, I used to live and dive there (1980's) so logical place to return to, but I read, definitely read, that a big international conference on coral health is being held there (or was recently held there) because all Florida Key's coral was wiped out by some kind of infectious disease. Comments?
3. Many of you urge Yucatan Peninsula but I've read of cartel wars involving employment of hand grenades in downtown Cancun. How do those of you who go there factor that in - worth the risk?, in denial?, don't care?, how?

Has your wife seen her own doctor or a gastroenterologist at home? It sounds like she may have GERDS, perhaps even Barrett's. A regular daily dose of medicine can help.