|
Sunset House -
Grand Cayman - February 2011
6 days of diving at Sunset House, Grand Cayman
Scroll down to see a description or
To see slideshow, click on right arrow below.
|
 |
We had been to Grand Cayman back in April
of 2008 and when I was looking for a place to go diving this winter,
Grand Cayman quickly rose to the short-list. In 2008 there was a direct flight from
Boston to GC, but no such luck this time. However, a trip time of 6
1/2 hours felt like nothing compared to our 37 hour return trip from
Borneo last October.
Back in 2008 we stayed for a week at Cobalt
Coast. We enjoyed it but were disappointed that we were only able to
shore dive 2 of the days we were there due to waves at Cobalt Coast.
We checked out Sunset House back then for dinner one evening at
their popular bar called "My Bar". While sitting there we scoped out
the dive operation and noticed that the seas were calm, while over
at Cobalt Coast, shore diving (even with a pier) was not recommended
that day. I decided
then that our next trip to CG would be to Sunset House.
It turned out to be a good decision.
Sunset House is located about a 10 to 15
minute walk west of downtown Georgetown and a stroll downtown for
dinner was convenient. However, do note that there are no sidewalks
for most of that walk and you need to be careful. I would recommend
bringing a dive light for the walk if in the dark. |
 |
The diving
at Sunset House and Grand Cayman in general is some of better diving
in the Caribbean for certain things. The Cayman Islands are right
next to the deepest trenches in the Caribbean and that seems to
contribute to a general higher visibility than some other islands.
GC is a pretty good place to
see turtles, Southern Stingrays and Eagle Rays. If you want a
guarantee of seeing stingrays then go to Sting Ray City, where you
will get your fill of them. We went there in 2008, so skipped it
this time. Some of the folks that did go this year brought back
stories of Manta Rays being seen there. I can't verify that.
GC has lots of dive sites
that have great swim-throughs. The aquascape near the drop-off can
be breathtaking with the good viz and there are plenty of sandy
areas where you can find garden eels, rays and plenty of free
roaming conch.
Not all Caribbean islands
have good shore diving
options. GC is one of the lucky ones. Good shore diving can be found
around the island, but only those on the sheltered west side can be
counted on for access. The two shore sites we dove this trip were
Sunset House (of course) and Turtle Reef.
Turtle reef is a fantastic
dive with a resident
school of pretty large tarpon. You can rent a tank from Sun Divers
right there, then walk through the Cracked Conch, an open air
restaurant/bar, to get to the stairs down to the water.
|
Accommodations:
We got the regular courtyard room as part of a dive package. There
were reports that the rooms were dated, etc and this was true, but
they met our needs just fine with one exception. There was no table
or chair in the room and for someone who needs to charge batteries,
change lenses, and look at pictures this was a problem. I ended up
improvising with the bureau and using the laptop while sitting on
the bed, but it is a major shortcoming of the rooms.
The rooms at Cobalt Coast are
definitely nicer, but we came to dive, not hang out in the room.
The food at Sunset House's
restaurants was pretty good and you could tell that they got a lot
of local folks coming in for a drink and dinner as well as the
divers that were staying there.
 |
Shore diving at Sunset House
was enjoyable. There were plenty of small creatures that demand you
to slow down to find them. There was a resident octopus in the sea
pool that was fun to follow as he hunted.
And of course there is the mermaid statue, of which, according to
Jessica, I was taking too many pictures.
 |
|
Dive operation: Sunset Divers
is the dive operation at Sunset House and they are a professionally
run organization, but were also fun to be with. After an initial
'scope you out' dive you were pretty free to do your own dives as
long as you stayed out of deco and were back to the boat within an
hour. Perhaps due to the make-up of the divers on the boat while we
were there (older and for the most part, overweight), they would
often leave a site to go find another one if there was any current.
No drift dives here. On more than one occasion we went to a third
site before they were OK with us jumping in.
Only one boat per site in GC.
We never ran into another group of divers on any sites.
Kittiwake. Over the last
few months, they towed the Kittiwake down from Norfolk, VA and sank
her just off of seven mile beach on January 5th. She is a fun wreck
to dive. Being so new you can still a see parts of her that are not
destroyed by salt water yet. One example of this is the mirrors.
which can't have more than a few weeks left as actual mirrors.
  |
When we dove the Kittiwake, we were fortunate
to have a large school of horse-eye jacks accompany us as well as a
graceful eagle ray.
 |
|
|
|
(all pictures and
videos on this trip taken with Olympus E-PL1 camera with 9-19mm and 14-42mm
lenses, Zen dome, INON s2000 strobes)
Other Dive Pages :
Roatan -
St Croix -
BC -
Key
Largo -
Bonaire -
Anacapa Island
-
Isle of Shoals
-
Catalina -
Australia -
Cozumel-
Curacao -
Turks & Caicos -
Roatan -
Sipadan
|
