Our third trip to Little Cayman and our third stay at Pirates Point Resort.
See here for the 2016 report. This report is only an update.
As related last year, the resort encourages guests to leave a little something behind and has an annual contest. Val's painting was our focus and we won Honorable Mention!
When we arrived the weather was just coming off a very rainy and windy period so we went from rough and a little rain to beautifully sunny and calm.
It was a very congenial group with Rich and Jessica, Katherine (all the way from the UK), Dave and Carol, and Kim and Darren.
We had dinner twice with Susan, owner and daughter of the renowned Gladys Howard who founded the resort and has sadly passed. Susan told stories of what it was like from Day One - including rats chewing on clothing, irregular electricity, no AC, etc. Quite a change from today. One night a resident couple joined us for dinner - he's a model railroader building a layout in their home - imagine doing so with no Home Depot or even lumber or hardware available on the island!
Here's a map of the dive sites off Little Cayman with the resort's location shown. The most famous dive sites are on Bloody Bay Wall and Jackson's Bight; fortunately we could get to those sites every day.
The resort is beautifully balanced between hard core diving, great food and a very very relaxed pace. The two dives are done in a leisurely style, with no demands to keep the dives short. Breakfast is at 8:00, departure for the boat at 9:00 and we would get back to the resort around 2:30 pm with lunch waiting for us; hors d'oeuvres were at 6:30 and dinner at 7:30. On Friday evenings there's a reception in Susan's home; they even made special no-onions sushi for Val.
Eat, Dive, Dive, Eat, Eat, Sleep.
Thanks to Rich, here's what I look like underwater (you can see why only crazies take UW photos).
Bottom line:
- As relaxing a dive trip as 2016.
- Andy's 13 hours 43 minutes were spread over 12 dives bottoming out at 99 feet and Val's 11 hours 43 minutes over 10 dives bottoming out at 100 feet.
My underwater photos are linked here, but here are a few of my favorites.
A 7-8 foot nurse shark (video in the slide show)
Cherub Fish - a member of the Angelfish family. Not terribly rare but beautiful and elusive to photograph as they are very shy.
Why you need a good dive guide - see the Pipehorse?
Arrow Blenny has been on my list. We saw two but this is the best photo.
Wire Coral Shrimp. We've seen these in Indonesia but didn't even know they existed in the Caribbean. The wire coral is the thickness of a pencil.
A favorite photo. I knew there was supposed to be a Clingfish here somewhere (never have seen one) but couldn't really locate it so took a photo focusing on the little knobby bit to right center which is just part of the coral. There is a half a Clingfish in the photo though!
This one took me the longest to ID since there is no similar fish in the bible .
On to the photos!