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GREAT FAMILY DIVING ON GRAND CAYMAN
We decided to shore dive for the first week in order both to save costs and also so that the girls could acclimatise to the diving with easy shore access before taking to the boats in the second week. We also knew that it might be tough to find a boat diving operator with the flexibility to offer us the programme we wanted. More about that later. It was important that Grand Cayman offers a fantastic holiday location even if you don't dive. We wanted to be sure that non diving time was just as good as the time spent underwater. We didn't know how much diving the girls would want to do. It had to be viable as a great holiday location even if they decided they'd had enough after a few days. Grand Cayman has plenty of activities available both water based and land based and Seven Mile Beach is picture perfect white sand and turquoise clear water. When to Go: We travelled in the last two weeks of August but Grand Cayman is a year round diving location. High season is winter, especially around Christmas when it is crowded with Americans fleeing the cold and snow. October/November can be risky as it is the hurricane season. July/August sees tropical showers in amongst the sunshine but they quickly pass. In addition, at this time, all sides of the island including the north are available to the day boats as the prevailing winds are gentler and more favourable. Even better, as it is the "quiet" season, prices are cheaper. Daytime air temperatures in August hovered around 30 ° C, and the water temperature was exactly the same!!!. Travel Arrangements: We made our own travel arrangements and flew with British Airways and stayed at the Marriott Beach Resort on Seven Mile Beach. We chose British Airways because they offered a direct flight (short pause in Nassau both ways) and all of the others required us to fly to Miami or some other U.S. gateway first and having to change planes. The flight took 12 hours including about 1 hour on the ground in Nassau. It was tedious but tolerable. We left Heathrow at 0900 and arrived on Cayman at 1600. Returning we took off at 1800 and arrived home at about 11 a.m. the next day. Economy class travel through the night is not fun. I have spent the last two years travelling extensively for work and I had accumulated a vast store of airmiles, which we used for the flights and the hotel, however flights are available from £400 - £700 and it is well worth shopping around. Package holidays are a cost effective way to visit and can be found in all the leading dive holiday specialists brochures and in various mainline ones like Kuoni and Thomsons. You might decide - if you have time - that a stop-over in Miami to break the journey up would be a good idea. Whilst not as cheap as the Red Sea, Cayman stands up well in comparison to other long haul destinations in terms of package price and value. Money: The local currency is the Cayman Dollar which is fixed at an exchange rate of 1 USD = 1.25 Cayman. You will commonly see prices quoted in both currencies and both currencies are freely taken. However, if you pay in USD, you will almost certainly be given Cayman in exchange. Always check when discussing costs that you are both talking about the same currency. There are cash machines on the island and you can also easily change traveller's cheques. We took US dollar travellers cheques and some cash. In this report I will state either "USD" or "CD" for clarity. Where to Stay: 
Most of the accommodation stretches along the aptly named Seven Mile Beach. There are luxury condominiums and also the main hotels on this stretch. There are also hotels and apartments on the non-beach side of the access road and these are very good value in exchange for a short walk. We stayed at the Marriott (frequent flier points) and it was superb but we would recommend some of the small hotels for excellent value. The SeaView Hotel offers clean, spacious, air-conditioned rooms for 99 USD per night in a diver friendly resort with a superb restaurant. Its not on the beach but it offers excellent diving from the rock shore directly off the dock. Other good choices in this category would be the Cayman Islander (Seven Mile Beach) or Sunset House. Apartments and condominiums are also a very good choice for larger groups or families because they offer extra space and home comforts. There are also resorts on the north west side of the island that are well suited to divers. In particular the Cobalt Coast Resort offers very good rooms and an excellent restaurant whilst being a main location for DiveTech, one of the best diving operations on the island that we found. There is no beach but there is the most superb mini wall and full wall right off the dock within 100m of the ladder. The north and east ends of Grand Cayman are less developed but offer fantastic diving. They would be a great choice if all you want to do is dive and laze on the beach but they are a bit too far from the tourist centre to offer an easy family holiday. What About the Diving? For an island that receives so many visitors, the reefs are in a remarkably good condition in most areas. A series of permanent mooring buoys and very strict guidelines were laid down some years ago and it shows. It had been 13 years since we visited the island and we were very pleasantly surprised with the condition of the coral and the proliferation of fish life. Compared to some of the areas close to Hurghada for instance, it is paradise. Some areas in Georgetown itself are showing the effects of the increased traffic from the cruise ships that call every week. In general the side of the island typifies the diving found: West side: inshore patch reef, offshore wall. Large sponges, tarpon, stingrays, turtles, lobsters, soft and hard corals. South Side: Caves, Tunnels, staghorn coral, more surge and current. Great fun diving. North Side: Sheer walls, eagle rays, sting rays and large pelagics.. East side: wilder, wall diving. The patch reefs tend to rise up around three to four metres from the sand and run in fingers from shore outwards. Usually you swim up and down the fingers exploring at different levels as there are often creatures lurking in the shelters at the bottom. Some of the gaps between the fingers become overgrown forming tunnels or swim-throughs. The water is very warm - 29 - 31° C and many people do not wear a diving suit. I started out wearing a 3mm suit but found it too warm especially pre dive and dived the remainder of the trip in swimwear. I did wear the suit for the night dives and for dives where we were swimming through very narrow tunnels but this was as a precaution against abrasion and not for thermal protection. Our youngest daughter wore her 3mm suit throughout because she has very little thermal protection of her own. Gloves and knives are frowned on in the Cayman Islands in order to protect the marine life. Shore Diving: The shore diving on Grand Cayman is excellent and very under publicised. Many dive operators will not even mention to you that it is available. Some dive sites are accessed from the public beaches and some from the properties of various dive operators. If you dive from one of the commercial facilities they will very reasonably insist that you take tanks from them and also sign in with them. A typical tank of compressed air costs USD 7 and weights around USD 4. So, USD 18 will get you two great shore dives. That's incredible value. It costs more if you want a divemaster to lead you, but probably most British divers would not want this. Frankly, it is simplicity itself to navigate around in the clear water just by using a pair of reciprocal bearings and a bit of natural pilotage. Even easier on the wall dives. It is almost too convenient not to dive from one of the specialist locations as they offer easy entry/exit, guide maps, fresh water rinsing, hire kit and spares, showers, etc. We would recommend the following shore dive sites: Sunset House Reef: a mixture of patch reef and overgrown coral tunnels and swim throughs leading out to a wall dive. There is also a small wreck nearby and a sunken bronze mermaid. Access from the Sunset House hotel and dive shop. Seaview Hotel Reef: Good patch reef leading to wall.. Next door to Sunset House. Eden Rock Reef/ Devils Grotto: Famous series of tunnels and swimthroughs now showing the wear and tear of the visiting cruise boat divers and snorkelers. There is also a small wreck to visit. 
Turtle Reef: DiveTech are located here and at Cobalt Coast Resort and both locations offer absolutely superb shore diving. There is a mini wall from about 6m to about 17m at around 100m off the dock where you will see a large number of fish and crustaceans including lobsters of various kinds, tarpon, moray eels, grouper and turtles. There are also large patches of garden eels in the sand. The main wall is accessed 200m from the shore and provides superb diving. Well worth multiple visits and at a bargain price. We also night dived here.There are plenty of other shore dives that were available from the shore and which are detailed in the dive books and involve maybe a 250m swim from shore. The drop offs to the main Cayman wall on the west and north west side are particular close to the beach area and the main sites are clearly marked by buoys.. The conditions are so optimal that competent adult divers equipped with an SMB would certainly have no difficulty. We judged them too far a swim out and back for the kids, so did not try them. We used DiveTech as our operator for shore diving. We had heard very good reports about them from other divers and they had been very helpful during our email enquiries. They are both recreational and technical diving specialists and also offer training in free diving. They offer a very full service across these spectrums and more than anyone else we met provided a "one stop shop". They offered us a 10% Instructors discount on all prices too, which was nice. We would certainly dive with them again and cannot fault their professionalism and friendly service. In addition to their different dive offerings, they also hire out underwater scooters, which are great fun. It is also worth noting that if you stay in one of the dedicated dive resorts that offer shore diving, you can often get very good deals which roll unlimited shore diving on the property into the accommodation package. Well worth asking about. Boat Diving There are a huge number of dive operators on Grand Cayman but it is very important to pick one that really suits you. Many divers who visit the island are from North America and perhaps only dive on holiday, once a year. Many of the large commercial operators tailor their trips to this sort of diver and offer a pattern of strictly lead dives that is typically Dive 1: 30m for 20 minutes Dive 2: 18m for 30 minutes. Some of these boats will have over 20 divers on them. In my opinion, these are boats to avoid and do not represent good value for money to the experienced diver who wishes to maximise their in-water time. Not only did we want to have a more personal boat diving experience, but we really needed to because of our particular depth requirements. The traditional pattern of one deep/one shallow wouldn't work for us. We wanted someone who could offer us the flexibility of two shallow dives. This proved to be quite difficult to arrange. We found dive operators that offered small party( 8 divers or less) diving and of these I can recommend: * DiveTech * Red Baron Divers * Don Fosters Cayman Diver (not Don Fosters Dive Cayman) Unfortunately none of these operators could offer us a "double shallow" boat for our second week because they had an excess of experienced divers on board who naturally wanted to visit the deep walls. For the experienced diver looking for a full value for money boat diving experience these companies offer an excellent service. They have boats that typically take under 8 divers and they can therefore be far more flexible in both sites visited and time spent. They are all happy for experienced divers to dive using their computers to delimit their bottom time, which is not the case with some other operators who insist on the rigid time schedule. We had the enormous good fortune to find SeaView Divers who not only could offer us small party diving, but were also prepared to offer us the flexibility of a diving programme made up of two shallow dives per 1/2 day trip. Most days we had the boat to ourselves. SeaView Divers is based at the Seaview Hotel just outside of Georgetown and has just re-opened under new management. Tara Cunningham and Dan Hodgins, a Canadian couple, have 20 years of diving experience behind them and up until recently were part of the DiveTech family. They are both technical diving instructors (IANTD) and recreational diving instructors (PADI) and in addition they are accomplished free divers. Tara is part of the Canadian national team. Quite apart from that they are two genuinely nice people who go out of their way to help their customers enjoy their holiday experience. Seaview Divers offers both shore and boat diving. They have a 30' Wayward purpose built fast diving boat with a 220 HP engine on the back. It can get you around the island in no time. Average time from dock to dive mooring was an exciting 15 - 20 minutes! They dive south, west and north sides of the island. A two tank trip is USD 65 per person including tanks and weights, which is good value. Always ask for a discount especially if you are booking more than one day's diving. Dan and Tara are happy to dive with you or to let you dive and do your own thing as long as you surfaced with 50 bar in your cylinder. We generally stayed underwater for 50 - 60 minutes per dive. All of the operators charge between USD 65 and USD 85 for a two-tank trip but as I have pointed out, the value you get for that money in terms of underwater time is very variable. On Cayman, small is definitely better. We arranged for an afternoon two tank dive for six days. We met the boat at the Seaview dock at 1:30 pm and we returned to the dock at about 5:30. It was a good schedule because it meant that we could get up a bit late if we wanted, spend the morning on the beach or around the pool, have an early light lunch and then spend the afternoon diving. We would then get back to the hotel by about 6, have showers, change and be out for dinner at around 7:30. 
Most of the dive operators offer morning and afternoon one or two tank dives. Morning trips start at times from about 8 am to about 9:30 depending on the operator. I can see that if you were the only diver in your party and you didn't mind getting up a bit early and sloping off you could easily be back to the hotel for 11:30 almost before they'd missed you. That seems a pretty painless way for the diving parent with partner and family in tow to enjoy their diving but also enjoy a family holiday. Some of the sites (all in the 14 - 20m depth range) we dived were: The Wreck of the Oro Verde: Broken up but scenic wreck dive. Plenty of fossicking, some large grouper and barracuda. Peter's Reef: Very scenic patch reef adjacent to Oro Verde wreck. Fingers of coral to explore at different levels. Lobster. Lots of reef fish and turtles. Spanish Anchor: An isolated anchor dating back to the 15th century and overgrown with coral. Surrounded by a patch reef. Turtles and plenty of reef fish. 
Doc Poulson Wreck: An anchor barge sunk as an artificial reef in 1991 and named in honour of the Doctor's work at the recompression chamber. Plenty of openings in the wreck for exploration and has become quite well colonised with glassfish, grouper and barracuda. We enjoyed this wreck so much we visited it twice. The surrounding reef is also very good.Mitch Millers Reef: Superb, patch reef system that was literally bursting with fish life. I encountered the largest lobster here I have ever seen and this holiday in general was good for lobster encounters!! Large schools of snapper, grunts, parrotfish, wrasse. One dive is not enough. Fish Reef/Mesa A coral head shaped like a huge raised mushroom from the ocean floor. Large grouper in the shady overhang. Very fine corals. Barracuda, grunts, snappers, stingray, lobster and turtles on show. Very abundant marine life in a small area. Also of interest is that this is a site often visited by one of the tourist mini subs and it is fun to see it materialise and wave to the tourists inside. This is also a great night dive site. 
Japanese GardenThis is a boat dive on the south side of the island and the underwater topography here is quite different from the west side. Many caves and tunnels to explore and fine examples of both hard and soft coral. Encountered some very large barracuda. You could spend lots of time exploring here. Bow-winkle Another south side site. Even more impressive caves and tunnels to explore. Large examples of stag horn and elk horn coral. Jacks, chubb tarpon, barracuda and grouper to be seen. This was one of our favourite sites. Stingray City The one dive on the North side that we absolutely had to do. Commonly reckoned to be one of the best 4m dives in the world!!! This world famous site allows divers to interact with large numbers of Southern Stingrays who have been conditioned to stay on the sand flats there to be fed their favourite food - squid. It is an incredible experience to find yourself surrounded by these gentle creatures - if a little intense at first for some people. The stingrays will sit on your head like a sombrero if that's what it takes to get at your squid!! They seem to like to have their soft underbellies gently stroked too. Well, don't we all...! This dive is not to be missed whatever your age or experience. There are some absolutely wonderful wall dives along the north and north west shores of Grand Cayman where the wall plummets away in a sheer cliff, or underwater mountains rise out of the deep blue water. We have dived these sites in previous years, but they were out of reach to us this time. To find out more about them, see my sources section at the end. Killer Puffer Not sure why its called this, but it is also known as Aquarium and this is a very apt name. Many different species of fish to be seen: morays, turtles, sergean majors, snapper, pufferfish, parrotfish, wrasse. Also excellent coral formations. 
Hammerhead HoleApparently named in jest by some divemasters!! No sharks present but a variety of marine life visible amongst the fingers of coral. Stingray, moray eels and lobsters present. These are just some of the possible shallow dive sites that were accessible to us. I can honestly say that we had a great week's diving with Seaview and gave proof to the claim that great diving does not have to be deep diving. It was fantastic to be able to all dive together without having to split up. These dive sites would also suit photographers as they give a great selection of subjects with optimal light conditions. Obviously, Seaview also run boat diving on a more normal pattern of deep/shallow and deep technical diving to suit the normal adult market. What else is there to do? There are any number of water sports available along the beaches: waterskiing, banana boat, jet skis, laser yachts. You can horse ride both in the interior and along deserted beaches. There are lots of charter yachts to take you on a variety of cruises ranging from all day rum picnics to sunset dinner cruises. You can even go on a pirate ship cruise complete with cannon firing. A popular tourist trip is to literally go to Hell! Hell is a small hamlet in the west of the island and you can buy postcards there and get them postmarked to send home. It is also near the Cayman Turtle Farm where thousands of turtles are bred and raised each year. Most of them find their way into the turtle products traditional to the islands, but many hundreds are released into the wild too. Our favourite trip was to the Tortuga Rum Company, which involved many samples of the various flavours, not to mention the utterly satanic rum cakes. Lucky we weren't trying to squeeze into our wetsuits this trip... 
There are also various submarine trips available on Cayman ranging from a large tourist sub, to a two-man tourist sub and a two man deep submersible craft that will take you 1000 feet down the Cayman Trench to see the wreck of the KirkPride. If you can afford to go, don't miss it. I went about 12 years ago and three moments stick clearly in my mind:
How About Eating? There is a vast range of eateries available on Cayman and you can suit your own budget. Meals tend to be on the expensive side. I would describe it as American style with English prices. You can easily spend £25 per head in more or less any restaurant you enter. Not bad if there's just one of you, but pricey multiplied by four. There are ways of keeping the costs low. For a start, all of the well-known chain restaurants are on the island, some in several locations: McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Dominos Pizza, Pizza Hut. All are good for a cheap feed. Many of the restaurants have "special" nights or "early bird dinners" and these are often worth looking out for. For instance on Tuesdays and Thursdays the Texas Lone Star Bar and Grill offers an "all you can eat Fajita special" for around $13 per head. Its good value. It is also worth picking up copies of the tourist magazines you will find displayed in your hotel lobby. They often contain vouchers you can use for a discount or a free drink. Here are some of the restaurants we found: Chicken Chicken: Small restaurant that specialises in wood smoked rotisserie chickens backed up by lots of side dishes like unbelievably delicious garlic and butter mashed potato. A full chicken with two large side orders, 4 pieces of corn bread and 4 drinks costs CD 23. It's a good dinner for four or a blow-out for two. You can also take it away. Fidel Murphys Irish Pub: Unbelievably huge portions of delicious food at cheap prices served in the atmosphere of a traditional Irish pub. They even have Guinness on draft. Typical dishes are Shepherds Pie (CD 8.95), Roast Beef Dinner (CD 9.95), Irish Stew (CD 8.95) etc etc. There aren't many meals that I walk away from without a clear place (!!) but the roast beef dinner beat me. Really excellent. Texas Lone Star Bar and Grill: An island institution with the divemasters. Nightly specials and a kicking atmosphere. They serve great margaritas by the jug. An average entrée is around CD 14 and the portions are good. I don't think it's as good as it used to be, but that may just be me getting older. The Outback Steak House: Humungous portions of meat based dishes in an Australian ambience. Included in the price of your entrée is either soup or salad and accompanying warm bread. We couldn't resist the prime rib dinner where you get a 12 oz slab of butter soft beef with potato of choice et al for CD 14.95. They also serve pasta, ribs, chicken, steaks and fish. There are some evil puddings, but we never managed to get to them. Ragazzi: Fantastic Italian restaurant with a modern, casual but stylish atmosphere. Wonderful pizzas start at CD 10.95 and there are good pasta dishes and meat and fish entrees all priced very reasonably. Portions are large and they give you free bruschettas and warm bread, so you can afford to skip a starter. Hook: A strange restaurant that incorporates a Greek taverna, a Japanese sushi bar and a Caymanian Grill all under one roof. It takes you ages to get through the three menus, but I suppose if you wanted sushi and souvlaki, it would be ideal. Mains run in at about CD 14.95 and it wasn't one of the restaurants that we revisited. It was OK but nothing special. Eats Crocodile Rock: You hear a lot of raves about this restaurant but we were disappointed. It was ok but the service was poor and I thought it was overpriced for the food quality. Maybe we caught them on a bad night but I wouldn't return. Sunset House Sunset Bar: Great location for a sundowner and a snack - right on the dock looking west. They have put on a big thatched roof now and its got a sort of Polynesian feeling, without being kitsch. We tried the Conch Fritters (CD 4.95) - fantastic - and the burgers (CD 6.95) also very good. Drinking alcohol is horrifically expensive. A glass of wine (large I admit) was universally CD 5.75, which is around £4.00. A bottle of wine that you would buy for around £4 at home was around CD 30 i.e. over £20. My liver was very grateful for the rest.... Here are some other eating tips that worked for us: Firstly, most hotels will supply a refrigerator to your room, particularly if you have children. We had ours free of charge, which I think is the norm if you are staying more than a couple of days. The fridge meant that we could go to the supermarket (Fosters Food Hall - wonderful selection) and stock up on cokes, milk, juice, beers etc - all the things that really add up when you are constantly raiding the mini bar or room service. We also took with us a load of those breakfast snack bars and we always catered our own breakfast from them with some fruit and juice. Breakfast can run up very expensive in the hotels and it is almost never included in the room rate. Obviously this is an advantage of self-catering because you can really stock up. Portions are large. Often for lunch we would all order from the kid's menu and I swear to you that the meals were of a size you would be served at home as a grown up. There was absolutely no problem in doing this and no one raised an eyebrow. The kid's meals were around $4.95 including a drink. Some bar restaurants have special nights where they extend the Happy Hour till 8 or 9 and serve free hors d'oevres throughout. Frankly, the food served was a meal in itself and provided you had eaten lunch, would easily see you through. If you feel like a splurge and have a good appetite, several of the big hotels do an incredible Sunday Brunch Buffet and BBQ. They are huge all you can eat affairs with a vast array of dishes on offer and various entertainments too i.e. fire dancers, and bands. They tend to be priced at about CD 35 per person for a four or five hour stuff-fest. I have it on good authority that the ones at the Hyatt and the Westin are the best, with the Westin edging just ahead at the moment. One brilliant idea that helps you decide where to eat and avoids the embarrassment of sitting down and realising that you can just about afford to eat a starter, is that they publish a magazine which is freely available in all hotel and condominium properties which contains the menu of most restaurants on the island. So, you can browse through to see which restaurant is serving something tempting and whether you can afford it. It also details the "special" nights, which you can then plan into your schedule!! The other service on offer, which might be of interest to people staying in self-catering accommodation, is that a large number of the Seven Mile Beach area restaurants subscribe to a home delivery service. Basically you ring the delivery service and order from the menus of the restaurants you have chosen and they will deliver the food to your door. You can order starters from one place and mains from another. Or you can have burgers and your partner can have Chinese. The charge is CD 5 per restaurant pickup. Anything Else? Car Hire: I would strongly recommend that you take a hire car for at least part of your trip particularly if you intend to shore dive or if you want to visit restaurants outside of your hotel. Being a British Crown Colony, Cayman drives on the left, which is familiar. Unfortunately, most of the rental cars are U.S. imports and left hand drive! In actual fact, this is not really a problem and we soon got used to it. You will need to show a driving licence (British is fine). There aren't a lot of roads on Cayman, mainly around Georgetown and one road that runs around the coastline. We used 1 tank of petrol during the two-week visit and the fill up cost us about £20. We rented our vehicle from Andy's Car Rentals which is the main local dealer and who advertises that they will not be beaten on price. We certainly couldn't beat them, and we did try. All standard sized saloon cars are available and Suzuki Jeeps are very popular. We hired a 4wheel drive Suzuki Grand Vitara because we knew that we would often have 4 bodies and two enormous dive bags and 4 cylinders on board and we needed to ensure that they were secure if we were diving from the shore. Including all the taxes, insurances etc it cost us USD 600 for the two weeks. We arranged everything by email and the service was spot on and the car excellent. We were delighted with it and it was perfect as a dive equipment carrier. If there are more than two of you, or if you have a group, I would really recommend taking one of these. Bugs and Nasties: We encountered no mosquitoes during the entire trip and there were no sand flies. This is in marked contrast to other Caribbean islands we have visited. There is a fair bit of fire coral on the reefs to beware of, and also some tiny jellyfish at certain times of the year. Time Zone: Cayman runs on Eastern Standard Time which is 5 hours behind British time. The only complication to this is that Cayman does not observe Daylight Savings Time so that when the rest of the world moves on 1 hour in the summer, Cayman does not. Therefore, in the summer time when we are observing BST, Cayman is 6 hours behind the UK. It is also 1 hour behind the rest of the EST zone which have moved on one hour!! So, if you visit Cayman in the winter, it will be on the same time as Nassau, New York or Miami. If you visit in the summer, it will be 1 hour behind those locations. 
In Summary:This was one of the best holidays we have ever had. The diving was superb and so easy to access that we just felt relaxed throughout. Certainly in comparison to other Caribbean islands I have visited, it was far superior. I was weaned on Red Sea diving and if like me you love wall diving, you must try Cayman. If you want a large variety of sites that will suit a multiplicity of diving experience, it fits the bill. If you're the only diver in your family and you want to dive in a place which the rest of your family will really love, it's the place for you!! Useful Numbers and References: Seaview Hotel Dive Center, 001 345 945 0558, email: divegirl@candw.ky website: www.seaviewdivers.com DiveTech: 001 345 9465658, email: divetech@candw.ky website: www.divetech.com Red Baron Divers 001 345 916 1293, website: www.redbarondivers.com Don Fosters Cayman Diver Ltd. 001 345 946 4386, email: dfoster@candw.ky Andy's Car Rental 001 345 949 8111, email: info@andys.ky, website: www.andys.ky . General Interest Websites: www.caymanislands.ky www.caymans.com www.divecayman.ky www.caymanrestaurants.com Most Useful Dive Guides
Diving Cayman Islands, Author: Jesse Cancelmo, Aqua Quest Publications ISBN 1 881652 10 6 The Cayman Islands Dive Guide, Author: Stephen Frink and William Harrigan , Abbeville Press, ISBN 0 7892 0609 9 Our details: Allie and Bob Boler are both BSAC National Instructors and SSI Advanced Open Water Instructors, Lucy Boler is an SSI Junior Advanced Open Water Diver with 29 logged dives and Daisy Boler is an SSI Junior Open Water Diver with 26 logged dives. Allie's email address is Alison.boler@btinternet.com September 2002. Return to reports list | ||||
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Grand Cayman is not the most scenic island in the Caribbean. It is fairly flat and covered for the main part in mangroves and scrubby greenery. The main tourist area, which is along Seven Mile Beach and the main road that backs it, resembles tourist areas of the U.S.A., notably Orlando. Imagine parts of southern Florida transported to the Caribbean and you have the picture.