Trifter

Grand Cayman in the Caribbean is a vacation place and an international off-shore banking center, which makes it prosperous and consequently a good place for a vacation or retirement. The island is sub-tropical dry savannah, no rain forests here, and it’s part of the British West Indies (BWI). George Town, the capital, is in the West End of the island, which is where the banks are headquartered, the major resorts are located (on Seven Mile Beach) and where the cruise ships dock. Despite all those dry-as-dust bankers, the West End is the party place of the Cayman Islands.

The diving community regularly votes Grand Cayman as a top dive site. What makes it so good is a reef that almost entirely encircles the island. Inside the reef, the water is shallow, sandy bottomed and protected from the ocean waves – perfect for snorkeling or children to paddle. However, on the ocean side the seabed plunges down thousands of feet into the Cayman Trench (or Trough or Bartlett Deep) running between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. That wall of rock is a divers’ paradise.

Diving and snorkeling may be the absolutely number one way to enjoy Grand Cayman’s ocean world but what if you don’t dive? Don’t worry! There are a number of ways to get round the undersea world without even getting wet. And one of those ways, possibly the best way, is Atlantis Adventures’ submarine. It’s bright and friendly, seats 48 in relative comfort, and, depending on your tolerance for confined spaces, can be a the coolest trip of your holiday.

Atlantis Adventures offers day and night time trips. I don’t know if it makes a big difference to the fish you’ll see — our guide said the bigger predators are more active at night and the wild life underwater did seem more alive away from the light and heat of the day but we seemed to do all right with both.

Sergeant Majors [Authors original image]

The submarine leaves the Atlantis dock, on Hog Sty Bay, in George Town and cruises a reef just outside the harbor. Fish we saw nearer the surface included Parrotfish, Sergeant Majors, Damsel fish, and too many others to remember. Deeper down, we saw tarpon and snapper hunting their prey and, to the delight of many, a tarpon catching and killing a smaller fish. We also saw lobster, stingray, and an octopus.

[Authors original image]

One additional bonus of the night dive is they turn out the lights so you can appreciate darkness at 100 ft below and then, as the sub rises to the surface, you also get a chance to experience bioluminescence from millions of tiny sea creature that produce their own light — an idea for our scientists to follow up on in their efforts to reduce everyone’s carbon footprints.

Submarine and tender leaving the dock — without us! [Authors original image]

Getting on the submarine is interesting. First you line up at the dock and watch the crew getting the tender and submarine ready. Then, as the time gets closer, passengers begin jockeying for position to get the best seats. Here’s where you can show your superior knowledge by not joining in the ever-so-polite maneuvering because the boats, locked together, leave without the mystified would-be passengers. Passengers now start checking their tickets to see they have the right date and time. I know I’d have found it funny — if I hadn’t been thinking I was being set up for dispute to get our money back.

Some way out to sea, the tender unhitches the submarine, leaving it anchored above the reef, and then returns for the passengers. Apparently, the submarine goes up and down, and cruises about below the water, but needs assistance to go far on the surface. After boarding the tender, it’s a short voyage out to the waiting submarine. By day and on your outward trip at night, you have a great view of George Town, the harbor and surrounding suburbs.

Entrances to the submarine [Authors original images]

Transferring from the tender to the submarine is simple and safe; the attached photos (above) give a good idea of the way in. Night time makes the transfer from boat to submarine a little more exciting and the steps down into its spacious cabin are quite steep but the elderly visitors on our trips managed them easily. Once down the steps, you file along two sides of the central seating, which looks out of the portholes on either side. (The lower of the two pictures above shows two portholes through the hatch) There’s no good or bad side. What you see is pretty well what is out of your, or the very near neighboring, window because there’s no room to walk around. Something to consider also is the windows are necessarily smaller than on the company’s other boat, a semi-submersible, because the vessel goes down a hundred feet and at that depth there’s a lot of pressure on the hull and windows. You may get a better view from the glass-bottom boat but it doesn’t get close to the bigger fish like the submarine does.

Submerging [Authors original image]

The transfer from the sub to the tender is also easy and then it’s another short voyage back to the dock. The return trip at night is in many ways better than the outbound one. The lights of the town reflected on the sea, the clear sky with its thousands of stars and that faint luminosity of the Caribbean water make for a magical scene. The attached image (below) doesn’t do it justice but you get the idea. Forget the Jacques Cousteau stuff; this is the way to dive.

George Town harbor lights [Authors original image]

All images are the author’s originals. Grand Cayman Wanderer (two of the text links) is the author’s own website.