Did I mention it was a dive trip? Grand Cayman is not really someplace to visit unless you are interested in diving, or perhaps lazing on the beach. There is little more to it. However, we had a great time swimming with the fishes and eating really fresh seafood (It only seemed a little hypocritical).

Located due south of Cuba, Grand Cayman is about 25 miles long and 7 miles wide. It's a "West Coast" place -- most of the population is on the west coast of the island which makes it hard for East-Coasters to keep the directions straight. That's my excuse anyway: I'm too used to the ocean being east, when it's west I often swap north and south.

We asked our first waitress which way was north and she had a wonderful mnemonic for remembing the points of the compass (no doubt brought down from her native Canada): "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" (North East South West). That only helped when she remembered which way the sun set.

Speaking of the setting sun, we saw a very beautiful sunset at a spot called the "Blowholes." It's where the porous coral which makes up most of the island has tunnels from the waterline a bit further inland. When the waves come in and hit the tunnel, water shoots out of the holes 15 or 20 feet inland from the edge.

But it was a dive trip; that is what we spent most of our time doing. The most amazing thing to me was to realize there was such nice diving within a stone's throw of the shore. Our first set of dives were at "Sunset Reef," just south of Georgetown, the capital. We drove up with our scuba cards, mask, snorkle and fins and rented the rest of the gear and stepped off the jetty. The first dive we did was very shallow, staying pretty close to the shore and never getting deeper than about 25 feet.

After that deeper dive, we spent a longer time out of the water, had lunch and then rented one more tank of air to go out again. Going left instead of right we found the wreck of the David Nicolson, a WWII landing craft.

The next day we went out with Aquanauts on a two tank boat dive. Sarah and I made up the diving party and our captain and dive guide Alajandro took us to a deep dive to start with called "Blue Pinnacle" before taking us to "Stringray City." More on Stingray City later.

The Blue Pinnacle dive was enlightening as it proved correct the atlas we'd consulted and which I though might be incorrect about the depths just off the coast of Grand Cayman. We dropped down to about sixty feet then wandered down and around a coral wall, through an archway and popped out at about 120 feet underwater on the outside of the coral wall supporting the island. Looking down, it just got dark but no sign of the bottom. Back on the boat Sarah asked Alajandro how deep it was there. "There it drops down really deep. About 6000 feet," he replied.

We were accompanied on our boat dive by "Vecina." (That's what our Honduran captian and dive guide called the neighborhood dog who liked to go out on the boats.) She knew all the boats and didn't mind swimming between them to visit while we were diving.

I guess I forgot to mention that the water was beautiful! And the visibility even down at 120 feet by the Blue Pinnacle was excellent.

There's not much more to say about the trip. It was lovely and we both had a great time.

Sarah and I both think the most entertaining part was the visit with Alejandro and Vecina to Stingray City. I think the reason for the name will be obvious from the photos below. It was only about 15 feet deep and we saw lots of folks snorkling there, but it was really cool to be able to hang out with the 'rays, play with them, have them play with you and not worry about going up to the surface to catch your breath.

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