Grand Cayman/Cozumel by Bill F

First the Cruise ship part of the report for all those who will be going to the Carribean by ship. The Celebrity Century was a great ship..Service, ship and food all were first rate. IMHO you won't go wrong if you pick this cruise line and ship. We went on the western Carribean cruise which took us to Ocho Rios, Jamaica (didn't dive), Grand Cayman(great diving), Cozumel(fantastic diving) and Key West(didn't dive). I booked my Grand Cayman dive as a ship's shore excursion and the Cozumel dive with Dive With Martin directly via the internet before I left. I would strongly recommend you make your own arrangements for every port you plan on diving before you leave to save you money and potential disappointment if the ship cancels the dive excursion(as they did in Cozumel), for any reason.

Grand Cayman:
I went with an outfit called Beach Club Divers who ran a pretty good operation. They are located next to the Beach Club Hotel and can be contacted by phone at (345) 949-8100 or mail at Beach Club Divers P.O. Box 903 G.T. Grand Cayman Islands, BWI A two tank dive booked directly through them is about $55-65. They are a short $4.00 cab ride from the pier. I now know what they mean by blue water diving. Having spent all my dive time in Texas lakes, imagine my surprise when I jumped in, looked around, and actually saw more than 10 feet! And the water was such a pretty shade of blue it was incredible. The visibility was easily 100 feet! The boat we went out on was about a 28 foot Pontoon and we had around 15 to 18 divers. The boat was set up fine, if a little crowded, and we had 4 dive masters. On the way out to the first dive (Slaughterhouse Reef) they asked who wanted to dive the wall and go deep and who wanted to stay a little shallower. Well, I heard wall and naturally wanted to see what I had always been reading about so my hand shot up! The plan was to go down to about 100 feet for about 30 to 40 minutes. I was hoping my air consumption wasn't at my usual somewhat faster rate than others, a normal newbie problem I'm told. I guess all the dark, no viz lake diving paid off as I was so relaxed and enthralled at what I was seeing I actually got some pretty good bottom time (for me). We went down to a depth of 112 fsw for 30 minutes dropping along the wall. The dive master was pretty good about pointing out stuff like a small sea turtle swimming between a valley in the wall, and what looked like a barracuda, although it probably wasn't as I always thought they swam in schools, and other fish. There wasn't really an abundance of animal life on the reef but there was sure a lot of colors and interesting coral to look at. The second dive at Peter's Reef and the wreck Oro-Verde which is in relatively shallow water at a depth of 49 feet. The wreck was kinda broken up but still had a lot of places for the fish to hide in and swim around. The fish were a lot more plentiful around this reef and wreck and the coral was just as pretty. We stayed down for 50 min which gave me a lot of time to explore and enjoy the dive. When it was time to board the boat I almost couldn't lift my head out of the water as I didn't want to quit experiencing nirvana.

Cozumel:
By the time the ship docked and we got off it was about 9:30. Martin had said he was at the end of the pier and he would be expecting me. Having never been there I didn't know what to expect and I was hoping that Martin hadn't already left for the first dive of the day. Well, both the island and Martin are great. When I and my dinner table mate, who was also a diver, walked to the end of the pier to Martin's dive hut I told them who I was and you'd a thought I was a long lost cousin. Everyone seemed to know who I was and they said they had been waiting for me. I signed up while my friend rented his gear, which included a computer. We then walked a short distance to the boat, handed the guys our gear and off we went. Martin runs a fleet of small fast boats which was really neat as this was the definitely not going to be a cattle car experience and we got to the first dive location fairly quickly. Jesus, the dive master asked us where we wanted to go and we all (7 including me) wanted to go to Palancar reef. I think Jesus was the best dive master I have experienced so far. He was always looking back at us to make sure we were ok etc. Sometimes I thought he spent the whole dive swimming backwards. When one of the divers got low on air kinda quick, he just gave him his Octo (very long hose) and we all continued on the dive. I can't compliment him enough. Palancar reef was so much more impressive than Grand Cayman! We dove a wall down to about 99 fsw and stayed down for a total of 47 min. Once again, I happily amazed myself at my air consumption. As we were swimming down I noticed a current but it wasn't too strong. I started looking into crevices and under overhangs and was immediately rewarded by seeing the biggest lobster I had ever seen! The visibility was not as good as Grand Cayman as it was about 75 feet or so, and the water didn't have that blue look to it, but the coral formations and color were much more magnificent! Palancar didn't have a lot of fish this day but that didn't diminish my total wonderment at the beauty I was experiencing. After the dive Jesus asked if we wanted to buy some fish to attract Grouper etc. at the next reef. We all agreed so for the surface interval we beached the boat at a small beach with a bar and fish vendor. I remember thinking life doesn't get much better than it was right then. The second dive was at a reef(didn't get the name) that did have a lot of fish but the formations were not as impressive. We kept to a max depth of 54 fsw for 56 min making it a current time record for me. The visibility was only about 50 feet on this reef, but compared to Texas lakes it was still like clear air so I couldn't complain even though Jesus said the day before the visibility was about 300 fsw. I really got a good understanding of drift diving at this location as the current was a lot stronger than at Palancar and you could see the coral bending with the current. I thought "drift diving" was really great and was probably a big reason for my record down time. The fish food was a good idea, as the Grouper were there and were they big and hungry! We also saw a very aggressive black and white spotted ele swimming along the bottom. He stopped long enough to grab some food from Jesus and got quite nasty toward the Grouper, who thought about taking some for himself, before continuing on his journey. The real highlight of the dive for me was when Jesus took us through a series of swim-throughs that were just like caves. Now that was an adrenalin rush. I imagined I was cave diving and decided right there I would do some real cave dives in the future.

I can't wait to go back to either Grand Cayman or Cozumel.