Swimming with the Lobster

Learning from our Jamaica experience, we wanted to book a diving excursion for our second port in the Grand Cayman. Since I wasn't able to dive and the ship wasn't sure if I could just tag along, we were told to speak to the dive company when we get to shore.

Our ship had to anchor in the bay due to shallow water. We took a "tender" or ferry boat to shore.


When we got to shore, the diving company told us we had to buy the excursion on the ship due to a none compete contract clause and the ship was unable to sell it to us on shore due to being a non-Cayman Island company. Our best bet was to go to another dive company down the road before it was too late. Crap! We didn't want a repeat of Jamaica.

We were in luck, Greg got on a two tank deep dive trip that was leaving in 40 minutes and I got to come along for a ride.





The first dive was 100 feet at a site called Knife. The site got the name because the topography looked like someone took a knife and chopped it up. Greg got to see plenty of marine activity. He's no fish connoisseur so he wasn't able to identify what he saw but he could recognize the lobster a mile away. Apparently it looked to be of the "tasty looking" variety.


As Greg was coming up from his first dive, he caught some jelly fish in the neck area and left these nasty stings. The dive master had to douse him with vinegar. I didn't stay downwind from him for the rest of the afternoon.


The second dive was a shallower dive at 60 feet at a site call Angelfish's Reef. It got its name due to schools and schools of angelfishes. I noticed both sites were very close to the city shores. All the other dives we have been on involved at least one hour boat ride out to the middle of the ocean or somewhere pretty remote. Greg saw a lot more colourful coral and tonnes more unidentifiable fish. No lobster this time.

I even got to snorkel here. I didn't see a lot, but the water was perfect. After the second dive was done, we were dropped off at the 7 Mile Beach, a beautiful white sand beach, but we had to grab lunch first. By the recommendation of our dive boat captain, we checked out Eats Cafe across the street from the Governor's mansion. We ordered an island specialty to start, conch fritters.


For main, I ordered a Jerk Chicken burger. The chicken came twice as big as the bun.


After lunch, we headed back to the beach, right in front of the Governor's Mansion. The beach was so hot that I kept running back to ocean to cool off.





When it was time to head back, we caught a mini van taxi off the street for $2.50 USD per person. This was a really good day. We did everything we wanted to do and no street hustlers were involved. It even ended with a rainbow.


Is there an elephant in my room?


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Location:Grand Cayman Island