Grand Cayman by Mark Ferrante

Grand Cayman, 1999
Author: Mark V. Ferrante

FROM PEARL LAKE TO PARADISE, A GRAND CAYMAN STORY: Bigger is not Better

It was a nice spring day at Pearl Lake. The water temp was a tepid 49degrees Fahrenheit, the viz was a whopping 2 to 5 feet. Under the guidance of two great Adventures In Scuba instructors, Ed Schweitzer and Burt Wagner (in their cases: Bigger is Better), we completed our PADI checkout dives. As I watched with some concern while kneeling on the flatbed in the golden Pearl, Burt "gently" held on to (or rather held down) my petite dive buddy, Missey, to "assist" her in learning to "relax" while she was choking into her regulator. To my surprise, it worked; she came up happy and thankful that he made her pull through a difficult moment. After a controlled emergency accent to the surface, everyone in our Adventures in Scuba class made the grade; we were certified PADI recreational divers! Next step was on to our various paradises for vacation. A few weeks later, there I was in Grand Cayman. Water temps 82 to 88 degrees; viz: 75 to 200 feet. With the help of the Internet, I had a little bit of information about almost every dive centers on the island. Since I was newly certified and my two dive buddies, Mary Beth and Marion had not dove in a while, we decided to do a shallow dive at Stingray City. To cut down on boat travel time, we chose an outfit called Aquanauts, located near Stingray City. Aquanauts was a cattle boat outfit, but we got lucky and had only two other people in our group (one of which was Hal Watts, who just happens to hold a 1967 Guinness World Record Deep Dive for a deep dive at 390 feet (119 meters). Hal owns a 300 foot sink hole (the Forty Fathom Grotto) and runs a dive center in Ocala, Florida, 90 miles north of Orlando. (Hal Watts & the Professional Scuba Association at: info@halwattspsa.com or web page: http://mrscuba.com phone: 352-368-7974) The blue gills in Pearl Lake were friendly and nice to see, but seeing and feeding ten to fifteen stingray for the first time is an awesome experience. Next, we called a smaller outfit, Red Baron Dive Charters, which was individually operated by Nick Buckley, a transplanted Britt who looked like Roger Daultry, with an accent that was a cross between Crocodile Dundee and Ringo Star. Nick only takes out 3 to 4 divers at a time on a small but powerful boat. We decided to blow Nick off and try another, but bigger outfit. Big mistake. The large company was unorganized and the instructor told us, last minute when we came to sign up, that he could not go down with as our guide because he had dove earlier that morning. The sites he took us to were nothing special, just moorings that all of the large cattle boat outfits all use. After a day of Mary Beth saying "I told you we should have gone with Nick", of course our next dives were with Crocodile Nick. (Red Barron Dive Charters, Nick Buckley: julnnick@candw.ky ; phone/fax: 345-949-9116) We met Nick on his boat at the Cayman Yacht Club which is just north of the popular but crowed Seven Mile Beach Area. In addition to a clean boat stocked with all of the necessary safety equipment, Nick furnished us with towels and refreshments and a warm Cayman smile. In addition to being a highly qualified and experienced dive instructor and underwater photographer, Nick turned out to be a really nice guy. My two female dive buddies fell in love, instantly. After a half hour briefing and tales about the Cayman Islands, Nick took us to a remote spot along the North Wall area and advised us that, since it had rained and the channel tides were flowing out, we had a pretty good chance o f seeing pelagics (the larger deep sea life like Manta Rays, eagle rays, shark). On the way out to the site, we saw a flying fish and a couple of sea turtles. Then, twenty minutes into our first dive, there she was, bigger than life: a female Manta Ray with about a seven and a half to eight foot wing span! We followed after her and she swooped back towards us and did inverted barrel rolls feeding down the side of the North Wall until she dropped out of sight into the deep dark blue waters along the North Wall. (Cayman has walls that drop off as deep as 6,000 feet). Naturally, we did not have a camera, but we were able to buy some photo reprints that Nick had taken of another Manta (also know as a devil fish, but she flew through the water with the grace of an angel). To give you an idea of what a big deal this was, we ran into other dive instructors who had been living in the Caymans for 12 years and had never seen a Manta Ray. While visiting a nearby dive shop, we became celebrities and the envy of all of the staff and our sighting was mentioned on the dive shop's morning radio dive report on the next morning. Nick delivered what he modestly promised might happen during our dive, so we advance booked another day of diving and a couple of night dives. We did the night dives from the Conch Club Restaurant's shore diving area which is situated near the northwest point of the island (just north of the Turtle Farm). As Nick briefed us with vivid details of what to expect and to look for on our night dive (my first night dive and still my favorite), drawn by his funny accent and exciting descriptions of the marine life, a crowd of people from the restaurant gathered around us and listened to Nick as if they were about to enter the water with us. If you have never done a night dive, please do. Normally as you increase your depth, you start to lose the colors of the spectrum and everything becomes blue, green and brown, but with the flash lights, everything is brilliant and on fire. Many of the large fish you saw during the daytime are lethargically sleeping which allows you to get right up to them for photographs. And, the "they only come out at night" species are everywhere. In addition to almost every type of existing tropical fish, we also saw the famous resident octopus, garden eels, and very large moray eels, Carribean lobster and crabs. Descriptions, pictures or videos cannot do justice to this awesome experience. Another fine day, in between Crocodile Nick dives, we did a "Safari" (three dives, with breakfast, lunch & refreshments included) with the famous Don Foster himself. He sold his original, very successful dive center, which still operates under his name and he now runs a small company called Cayman Divers, Ltd. We met Don with his island mates Kali (a true island man with the island accent and everything) and Scotty (a transplanted Texan who looked more like a cowboy than a diver) at the Cayman Yacht Club on Don's 50 foot yacht and were treated to bagels and juice. As with Nick, we had the whole boat to ourselves. At lunch time, we moored in an area where the charter boat companies bring the non-scuba tourists to feed the stingrays. For three dives and meals, the price for this package was a bargain. Where did we stay? Bigger was very nice, but not better; we stayed at a time-share called Tortura Club, on the East End. (Two bedroom, two-story, 3 bath condominium at a resort offering 4 star amenities.) Trouble was, it was 40 to 50 minutes of a treacherous drive (Cayman is one of the few places left in the world were you have to drive on the left) to most of the places we wanted to dive. On the way to town one day, in the rural part of the drive, we discovered an authentic jerk chicken/pork hut, complete with an island resident lady manning the chopping block after cooking the meal in homemade 50 gallon drum grills. As we sat down to eat, we met the owners (Alain and Marleine, a too young to be retired husband & wife team from Montreal, Canada) of the newly opened Turtle Nest Inn (www.candw.ky/users/turtlein ), which is conveniently situated in a quiet section of the island, only 10 miles from Seven Mile Beach. On the last day of our trip, we stopped by their inn to say good-by and found it to be modern, elegant and also a bargain. As they kept their place immaculate and were very friendly hosts, it looked like a great place to stay. This was confirmed by a fun family (from Whitefish, Montana) we met while diving with Ocean Frontiers on the East End. (Ocean Frontiers-East End was a large outfit, but they did have a helpful, friendly staff on their boats and my new life friend Tracy, who runs their office, took good care of us. You can e-mail Tracy at: oceanf@candw.ky ) In closing, I highly recommend that, at least three weeks before your trip, you use the Internet and tourism boards to contact the various dive centers to get more information. Many of the dive centers have autoresponders for their web pages that immediately send you an e-mail with basic information and pricing. Since we went during the low season, we were able to plan great dive experiences without having to commit in advance, however, if you plan a shorter trip or a trip during the high season, you may have to book a few dives in advance to make sure you do not get shut out. From Pearl Lake to 16 Carribean dives in 8 days, it is going to be hard to top this experience, but with the help of Adventures in Scuba (and their Advanced Open Water Diver courses I plan to take), I'll keep on trying.