I visited the Caymens Island from the UK May this year and spent a week on the Caymen Agressor IV.
About the Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands, a British Colony, is made up of three islands. Grand Cayman is located 480 miles south of Miami. Cayman Brac and Little Cayman are 80 miles to the north-east of Grand Cayman.
The Cayman Islands used to be called “Las Tortugas,” meaning “The Turtles,” because of the great number of sea turtles seen swimming in the water there. Although we saw a few turtles we didn't see that many, so it was just as well the named changed.
Previous famous Caribbean piracy residents of the Cayman Islands included Sir Henry Morgan and Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard) used these islands as a base of operations.
Getting There
Straight forward really. We flew with BA from Manchester to Heathrow for our connecting flight to Grand Cayman via the Bahamas. When you land in the Bahamas most of the passengers leave. It takes about 1hr for them to turn the plane around for the last leg of the trip to Grand Cayman.
Once you land in Grand Cayman you are met by a crew member from the boat and transferred by taxi to the Cayman Aggressor IV. Ask for a receipt from the taxi driver as you can claim this back when you settle your bill on the boat at the end of your trip.
About the Cayman Aggressor IV
The Yacht is based in George Town, Grand Cayman. It is of aluminium construction and was built in 1998, however it was refitted out in 2009. It takes 18 passengers with 6 crew who are very attentive and probably the best crew I have encountered on any liveaboard (Galapagos, Maldives, Egypt Sudan, Thailand and Chu'uk) that I have been on.
I stayed in the Deluxe stateroom of which there are 6. It has a double bed and a single berth above it, a private head and shower, port light and a TV/DVD. I nearly forgot it has a hair dryer not that I have any use for one of those these days.
The other accommodation is made up of one Master stateroom which has a double bed, the only difference between this room and the Deluxe. There are two twin staterooms with two single beds (bunks), shared head and shower with the adjoining twin room.
The Cayman Aggressor has all the safety equipment you would expect as well as all the entertainment and other amenities that Americans would expect.
Meals
You won't go hungry on this trip. Breakfast includes fresh fruits, toast, bagels, eggs cooked to order etc. A mid-morning (09:30 – 10:00) snack after your first dive will be something like cookies, fresh breads, or sweet rolls.
Lunches are buffer style and served at 12:30 and are excellent. You also have the choice to have soup and a desert.
After your third dive it is time for another snack. Again could be cookies but it could be the something hot like conch fritters.
After your fourth dive it is time for Dinner (6pm). Again outstanding food, chicken, pasta, sea food and always a vegetarian option as long as you tell the chef, who incidentally used to work as a Chef on the Royal Caribbean cruise ships.
After the night dive you are greeted with a nice cup of hot chocolate.
There is a complimentary bar service on board, with iced tea, soft drinks, local beer and wine. The bar is only closed when in port. The rule is once you have an alcoholic drink that is the end of your days diving.
Diving
The Cayman Aggressor does not permit spear fishing or collecting of anything at any time , regardless of whether it is natural or man-made, alive or dead. Fishing is not allowed anywhere inside the reef, and collecting lobster and conch is prohibited.
There is ample storage space for your diving equipment in your personal locker with plenty of room between each diver.
The dive platform is a reasonable size. The boarding ladders are easy to use . On the platform there are two fresh water showers with soap and shampoo and of course hot towels are hanging over the rails after every dive.
For those of you who have cameras there is a dedicated dip tank and a three tier camera table with low pressure air hoses.
Prior to each dive the guide gives a detailed briefing supported with either a video or usually a map of the dive site. You then have about half an hour to choose when you want to go and dive. The beauty of this is that you don't all jump together. To get five dives in a day doesn't give you too much time. We choose to get in straight after the briefing while others were still getting kitted up, however as we were diving deeper than the others it really didn't matter.
The Dives
In total we did 25 dives broken down as follows: Grand Cayman (GC) x 5, Little Cayman (LC) x 16 and Cayman Brac (CB)x 4.
I won't bore you with all the dives as there are too many. My aim to to tell you about my favourites.
Stingray City (GC)
I don't suppose you can go to the Cayman Islands and not mention this site. Basically the max depth is 3-4m. You kneel on the bottom and one of the guides gives you a piece of squid that you tease the stingray with. Not my cup of tea really. We had five Southern Stingrays interacting with us. I always envisaged there being more, however apparently the week before they only had one. One to watch for is a large green moray that appears and wants some of the food. The guides lead it away thank god.
Capt. Keith Tibbets (CB)
This wreck is also known as the Russian Destroyer 356 a Brigadier Frigate. The fore and aft cannons, machine gun turrets and missile launcher all remain in tact. The Bow sits in 24m of water with the stern in 18m. As the wreck sits on a sandy bottom there are hundreds of Brown Garden Eels all over the place. We had three Southern Stingrays hunting on the sandy bottom. The visibility must have been at least 30m as was most of the dives. As the wreck has not been down too long (1996) there is not a great deal of life on it, however this coupled with the good visibility makes for easy penetration with no need for a distance line.
Great Wall (LC)
Stride entry from the back of the boat as usual and dropped down the wall to 36m. The wall just kept going and going. This dive was best for Shark interaction. Three Caribbean Reef sharks came past very close then circled and just kept going and coming back. This lasted for about 10 minutes. It was then time to start our ascent to the shallows which was full of life: Southern Stingray, Angel Fish, Barracuda for getting the Corals, Sponges etc.
Kittiwake (GC)
There is a comprehensive report in the Dive (BSAC May) magazine.
We only did one dive on this wreck as it is easy to cover it all in one dive. Penetration is the easiest penetration I have ever done. Crystal clear water with large openings to get out if you need to. It is only a shallow wreck, that shallow you can stand on top of the bridge and your head will be out of the water. The max depth in my log book shows that I did 16.5m and saw a rather large Goliath Grouper by the prop. As it has only been down since January 2011 don't expect to see lots of coral on it.
General Dives (GC, LC & CB)
If you are not on a wreck then you will more than likely being diving a wall. The depth of most walls is deeper than you will ever want to see.
We had only one dive when the visibility was poor and that was still 10m plus. All the others must have been 30m plus easily.
Water temperature was a consistent 27-28ºC.
We saw Caribbean Reef sharks on on a number of dives in Little Cayman at depths between 30-37m. A few people saw a few sharks in the shallows. However more sharks were seen on the walls at depth.
At 30m we didn't much fish life, however the sponges and corals were outstanding.
We only did one night which was OK, too many blood worms. Most of us couldn't be bothered doing the night dives so I requested a dawn dive. With the consent of the rest of the boat the crew obliged with this request. Good customer service. I tried this recently in Egypt and got a clear no.
There was very little if any current over the week we spent on the Cayman Aggressor. This obviously made for very easy diving.
My buddy flooded his camera on about the third dive. The crew offered the use of one of the boats cameras complete with strobe at no cost. Again excellent service.
In summary
I have never used the Aggressor fleet before as they tend to be a little expensive. The old saying of you get what you pay for is true in the case. I couldn't fault anything about the boat, the service or the crew. We even got a got a free disc at the end of the trip with some of the underwater photographs that were taken by the crew. Aggressor's strap-line is: Eat, Sleep and Dive which we did in comfort and style.
