Little Cayman (January, 2002)
Author: Michael Hynan

My wife, Lauren, and I spent Jan. 3-10, 2002 at Paradise Villas, Little Cayman.

Despite the problems with Island Air mentioned in previous postings (and other reports we heard on LC), we were treated well. We travel with full scuba gear, which amounted to $45 extra in payments for the extra weight we were carrying. The weather was quite windy with storms when we landed on Grand Cayman from Detroit. We were dismayed to learn that our full 4:30 flight was postponed indefinitely, as was the earlier afternoon full flight. To make a long story short, the weather lifted, the earlier flight took off a little after 4 p.m., returned, and got our group to LC by 6 p.m. Landing before dark was essential as the air strip on LC has no lights. For our return, Marc, the friendly and wise administrator/dive master of Paradise Villas (PV) suggested that we pack one heavy suitcase to be sent over to GC by Island Air on the afternoon flight the day before we left. This avoided the possibility of too much weight on the plane and delayed luggage.

When we landed at the airport, as expected we were greeted by Marc and Sabine, who oriented us as to our stay. We were very happy with our room. It was not lavish, but very nice. A Firm King size bed adjaced to the bathroom and shower was next to the living/dining/cooking area, which contained a couch and table in the living area and refrigerator, stove, microwave, coffee pot, utensils, and table in the "kitchen" area. There are porches both waterfront and back (where we dried our wet suits). Pictures on their web site do not do justice to how close the 6 small buildings in the resort (each containing 2 units) are to the water. Sitting on the waterfront porch was wonderful, listening to the surf. Supplied by food and drink from the close-by store, we ate breakfast and lunch in our unit. We also cooked 2 dinners in the unit, frozen porterhouses bought at the store and surprisingly good. Our other dinners at the Hungry Iguana were mostly good to excellent. Their "jerk" something did not have much flavor. The lobster and shrimp linguine was outstanding. Pizza was very good as were the fish dishes we ate. We also heard good reports about their hamburgers. Our only complaints about the Hungry Iguana was that at times there was quite a delay between getting our order in and getting our food. The first night, there was a group of 20-25 college students all ordering pizza. They got there ahead of us, and it seemed as though they could only make 4 pizzas at a time. We were forewarned by the very pleasant waitress that there would be quite a wait. Food is expensive on Cayman. Be forewarned.

Diving was wonderful, with the exception of the limitations of wind and weather. Our previous warm water diving was limited to Jamaica and the Key Largo area; so we got very spoiled, which was our goal in going to LC. It was 75 deg F. when we arrived, which Marc said is as cold as it gets. But this also makes the locals shiver. (My wife and I live in Wisconsin, Northern USA). With the exception of 1 day, the wind direction mandated that we dive on the South (less desirable) side of the island. But those dives FAR exceeded anything I saw in the FL Keys. (Although there seem to be larger schools of fish, e.g., barracuda, in the Keys than on LC.) We did not dive the first full day. We did bike to the shore of the N. side of the island on that day and saw the large breakers over the Jackson Bay area that prevented anyone from diving there that day.

Day 1. High temp got to 75 and every one on the dive boat acted more cold (and complained about it) than Lauren and me. This contrast effect is probably one of the strange advantages of Lauren and I having done our advanced training in the 40-50 degree water off the San Juan Islands in Washington state in wet suits with 65 degree air temp. The weather was not a problem, but being rusty after a 4 mo lay-off from diving was. Lauren also always has clearing problems in diving. Our first dive was a wall dive, Dynamite Drop. Any question about the skill or care of the dive masters was answered on this dive. There were 2 other divers, who were concluding their stay on LC with this day's days dive, Lauren, myself, and Vince, our leader and friend of cats. As I descended, I watched Vince get his buoyancy at about 60 ft. or so and lie back seemingly motionless as if he were on a couch and watch Lauren bounce between 10 and 15 ft. I was between the two of them turning my head back and forth, until Lauren cleared sufficiently to descend. I was thankful that Vince was vigilant and concerned with all his divers. This was also true of Marc and Rod, our other dive leader. Dynamite Drop was a dive we could not fully appreciate until we had worked the kinks out. There was also more current than expected. 90 ft., 26. min. Dive 2 was a reef dive, Richard's Reef, led by Marc. A beautiful reef, big lobsters, a bimini top, and a very nice coral structure at the end.

Day 2 was our window of opportunity (wind shift) and we took advantage of it. At Paradise Villas, you get a short truck ride to the dive boat, so there is never more than 10 min on the boat going to a site. They have, I believe, one boat moored on the N. side and one on the S. side. This day was very sunny with afternoon temperatures about 85. So we motored to the beach next to Jackson Bay, launched on very calm waters, and Rod led our first dive on Cumber's cove. The terrain to the wall was just amazing (something I said to myself repeated the next few days, even on the other side of LC). Like most of our wall dives we went down to the 85-100 ft. range, spent a brief time there, most of the dive was around 60 ft., safety stops on this side of the island were spent hovering over shallow reefs just below the boat. In addition to the landscape, this dive featured 2 reef sharks, many rays, and a peacock flounder. After dive one, Marc suggested that we grab the day and consider making this a 3 dive trip rather than the usual 2. Dive 2, led by Marc, was at Marilyn's cut at the Bloody Bay wall. It featured a dive-through descent to 75 ft., then heading South and returning North along the wall. Great dive and terrain. Dive 3, led by Rod, was at Mixing Bowl, the intersection of Bloody Bay and Jackson Bay. 53 ft. for 48 min. This might have been an even more interesting dive if we had gone deeper, but repetitive diving prevented that. This dive featured another shark, so we were not disappointed that Ben did not show up.

Day 3 and another front bring us back to the S. side and a first dive at Black Hole, which is aptly named. It looked like it went down forever. By now our control is getting so good that this felt like floating over and around a mountain top and side; examining the ridges, peaks, cuts, holes, and gorges. 93 ft., 41 min. The only disappointment was finding only 2 lobsters, not the possible 14, in the coral head at the end of the dive. 2nd dive at Hooray's reef, 45 ft. 54 min. Noticed two pairs of baby blue tang, which are about the size of a silver dollar, yellow, with blue eyes rimmed with white.

Day 4 brings to the Sota Trader, a Barge wreck just off the resort. A nice wreck with a large resident Jew fish, a large parrot fish and beautiful adjacent reef. 50 ft. 47 min. Dive 2 is at Windsock, another beautiful reef. Lauren finds 3 lobsters hiding and I found a pair of juvenile spotted drum, very interesting small fish. This dive is led by Rod, who is very good at finding and pointing out very interesting small things. 46 ft. 54 min

Last (sad) day. Dive 1 is at Charlie's chimneys, another wonderful wall that brings the mountain feelings of Day 3 back. 93 ft., 39 min. Saw 2 very large grouper at about 130 ft. hiding under a ledge. Visibility is so good that I swear that some sandy areas I saw below must have been at 250-300 ft. Our last dive is at Gay's reef, off the Pirate Point resort. It features a small wreck of PP's first dive boat with 2 recognizable I/O engines. We see the largest lobster of the trip and a nurse shark lying still on the sand.

All in all, the dive crew (and the rest of the resort staff) were fun, friendly, and very helpful. They gave suggestions in such a way that they were helpful, not perceived as challenges. The nice part about a small resort is that the schedule was flexible. On our first day, we left for our dives at 8:15 a.m. The next 4 days the divers, given options of 8:15 or 9:30 chose the later; which meant that we arrived at the moorings for the wall dives just as the dive boats from the other resorts were concluding their first dives.

We will return to Paradise Villas and LC.

Mike Hynan

©1999-2007 DiveAtlas Web Publishing.  All Rights Reserved
This entire domain and all associated e-mail addresses are located in the State of Washington,
and sending mail to addresses at this domain is subject to the provisions of the Revised Code of Washington.