A couple of weeks ago an email popped into my inbox advertising a day trip to Little Cayman. A day of diving the world famous Bloody Bay Wall.
Now normally there are only two ways to get to Little Cayman.
The first, by plane would get you there OK but after diving you should not fly for 18 to 24 hours. Being at high altitude after diving can cause the residual nitrogen in your blood to give you the bends and this can cause all sorts of serious problems like muscle aches, embolism and death.
The second is on the Cayman Aggressor. A live aboard dive boat that offers a week long cruise around all three islands. Now it is on my list of things to do but it is hardly a day trip.
This, therefore was something new.
The proposal was to set out from Ocean Frontiers on their 46ft Newton speedboat and cross the 70 miles of open water between Grand and Little, undertake three dives and then head back the same day.
Three dives in rapid succession with tight surface intervals. Air would not cut it only Nitrox, or enriched air would do.
Enriched air or Nitrox has 10% more oxygen than our atmosphere, that’s a third more than normal, it helps prevent nitrogen build up and reduces the risk of getting bent.
Air =21% oxygen, Nitrox=32% oxygen. This is the normal mix ratio in recreational diving. You can get higher mixes buts real specialist diving so for this explanation 32% works.
Divers had to be Nitrox certified.
Well I am, I did the course two weeks ago!
Serendipity.
I didn’t even think about it. I hit reply and applied for a place. Bang to flash, about 15 seconds. I then emailed a few of my friends to make sure they knew about it.
Two tense but busy days of waiting later I got an email to say I had a place. The email went on to say that demand had been so high that space in the boat had gone in under an hour. They had laid on a second boat. It also filled the same day.
The communications with Ocean Frontiers made it clear that the trip was not for the faint hearted. We would be a long way from help if anything went wrong and plenty could. It is after all Hurricane Season and we have been experiencing wicked little flash storms arriving out of clear skies for weeks. For this trip to happen a lot of things had to go right.
4:30am Sunday morning arrived. My kit had been packed the night before so grabbing this I headed out and met a Toby, my dive buddy, and we set out for the East End and adventure.
As we drove along by he sea we could not help but note as the sky lightened how calm the sea was. It was like glass in the dim dawn light. Not a single wave not a breath of wind.
We arrived at 6am to be greeted by fresh brewed Colombian Coffee and jumped aboard our designated boat. We set up our kit and then sat back to watch he sunrise.
At 6:30am we pushed away from the dock and got under way. The crew served more coffee and mini pastries and we sat and watched the sea roll by.
Cayman fell away behind us shrinking to a black line on the horizon and then disappeared. We were out of sight of land racing over some of the deepest water in the world in two small boats under an endless sky.
About an hour and a half into our crossing we were joined by a pod of bottle nose dolphins who played in the boat’s wake and swam alongside us for a while but our 20 knots speed meant they could not match us for long and soon they fell behind and once again we had the world to ourselves.
At half nine a cloud appeared on the horizon and below it a line on the horizon. We could see Little Cayman. On both boats we crowed onto the top deck to watch our destination draw closer.
The crossing had been better than hoped for, the conditions ideal. We had our first dive briefings as we crossed so as not to waste time when we reached our destination.
Ahead of us we could see the Central Caribbean Marine Institute dive boat and the Cayman Aggressor making preparations for their first dive of the day. Into this idilic scene came racing our boats. Two marauding dive boats charging at full pelt into their blissful morning.
I think the only way we could have made more of a spectacle of our arrival was if we had been blasting out Ride if Valkyries as we hurtled in.
We had all begun putting on our gear ready for a quick start while still a couple of miles out while the boat was still going at full tilt. Buddy checks done we were ready.
The captain killed the engine and we literally piled off the back of the boats and into the crystal sea and straight over the wall.
It was stunning.
I thought diving in Grand Cayman was beautiful, and it is, but it pales in comparison to the pristine reef and waters that surround its little sister.
Vivid colours, far greater coral coverage, far bigger corals and sponges that were huge.
On Grand whip corals are about as thick as your arm, here they are as thick as you torso.
And the fish! Teaming, the waters are alive. Hundreds and hundreds of conch, the ubiquitous giant sea snails, meandered sedately over the sea bed at the top of the wall.
Our first dive was Randy’s Gazebo. We dropped vertically down through a chimney, narrow, tight and dark emerging 80ft down on the bloody bay wall. We swam through a coral arch and along the face of the wall before returning, reluctantly, to the boat.
While we were underwater the crew deployed shade sails turning the boat into the perfect spot to relax on a sunny day.
A 45 minute surface interval ensued more coffee and the boat manoeuvred to our next site. Nancy’s Cup of Tea (no I don’t know who thinks of these names).
We dropped into 13ft of water and slipped over the wall. We were immediately caught by a very strong current a and swept along the reef face.
We were joined by a Caribbean Reef Shark, a huge black barracuda. The latter a monster of a fish who gave us all pause as these buggers can be aggressive, unlike the sharks. However I chased him away when he was getting too close.
We bobbed along like balloons for a while just enjoying the scenery before once again shallowing up and then making our way back against the current to the boat. It was like fighting a gale!
Once back on deck we readied for dive three and as a group revised our dive plan, instead of heading to the eastern end of the wall we would go west and drop back into the current and do a drift dive letting the current do all the work.
Normally, the boat moors up and you do a circular swim that brings you back to the boat, in a drift dive you drop into the current and let it carry you. The boat follows on the surface and picks you up at the end wherever you surface.
We dropped off the boat and onto the face of the wall. We hovered at 60ft down over 6000ft of water and off we went!
Five world class sites in one dive! Three sharks it was stunning.
We were picked up by the boat, elated and with the last diver on board we set off back to Grand tired but very happy.
What an adventure, we were looked after from start to finish. The team on the boat really took customer care to the next level. The diving at Little Cayman and on The Bloody Bay Wall was world class. The trip to Little Cayman was amazing. A fantastic day.
Can I sum it up in two pictures?
https://www.oceanfrontiers.com/
Ocean Frontiers explores Little Cayman’s Bloody Bay Wall
Under an Endless Sky 