Re: Grand Cayman Trip Report

Dan Bracuk wrote:

> This was a pleasant trip, even with the Friday shenanigans. Also,
> despite the Friday thing, I think we were still better off with our
> dive shop than we would have been with Red Sail. They are way too
> expensive. And, while we are unlikely to return, we have no regrets
> about going.

I think you would have been still better off with any number of small
independent shops like Dive N' Stuff. You know, the six-pac types that
don't have "Sports" in their names.

Greg Mossman wrote:
> Dan Bracuk wrote:
>
> > This was a pleasant trip, even with the Friday shenanigans. Also,
> > despite the Friday thing, I think we were still better off with our
> > dive shop than we would have been with Red Sail. They are way too
> > expensive. And, while we are unlikely to return, we have no regrets
> > about going.
>
> I think you would have been still better off with any number of small
> independent shops like Dive N' Stuff. You know, the six-pac types that
> don't have "Sports" in their names.

The only time I ever dived (one day) with a dive shop before I went on
the Aggressor was with the shop that was next door to the Georgetown
Pier, with its small hotel operation at the same place. I described it
in
a post about diving from the cruiseship in Grand Cayman:

RF> Had I known the (tender) location, I could have dived with
Parrot's Landing,
which is only a 5 minute walk from the Georgetown Pier. I did two
dives with them back in 1991, the day before boarding the Aggressor.
Sue and I were the only 2 divers, and the DM said he would take
us to any site on the SW side, so we did the Big Tunnel and a new
site (then), the Rapsody Reef. Would rate it an excellent operation
then. Don't have any idea how they are now.

Dan, in your detailed report, you never mentioned the DIVE SITES
you did. What were they? Any of the good ones besides those
few on the SW side of the island?

-- Reef Fish Bob.

Dan Bracuk wrote:
> "Reef Fish" <large_nassua_grouper@yahoo.com> pounded away at his
> keyboard resulting in:
>
> :Could they have possibly called the Big Tunnel the Deep Tunnels?
> :The swim through hole actually (not a tunnel) was at 90 feet and below,
> :so that's "deep" by Grand Cayman standards. I don't know of any
> :tunnel in GCM that's deeper than that.
>
> Ya never know. It was up in the Bonnie's Arch area and my depth on
> that dive was 97 feet.

Then that's definitely the Big Tunnel. That's why I said it's at 90
feet
and BELOW. So, you were not even at the bottom of the tunnel hole.

I usually went a bit deeper, along the chute, to maybe 130 or 140.
That
is close to the Tarpon's Alley also. You can do two sites in one dive,
or even three in that bunch of sites.

That's why I chose the Big Tunnel when I was given the choice of ANY
site within 10 miles of Parrot's Landing the year I did the boat dive
that was not the Aggressor. Did that dive from the Aggressor at least
half a dozen times, and still thinks it's possibly the best site on the
SW
side of the island.

-- Reef Fish Bob.

Dan Bracuk wrote:
> "Reef Fish" <large_nassua_grouper@yahoo.com> pounded away at his
> keyboard resulting in:
>
> :I usually went a bit deeper, along the chute, to maybe 130 or 140.
> :That
> :is close to the Tarpon's Alley also. You can do two sites in one dive,
> :or even three in that bunch of sites.

http://www.divecayman.ky/flashmap/default.asp

If you ZOOM in on this map, you'll see a clutter of about six sites
around
the Big Tunnel. They are all within a short distance swim from the
Big
Tunnel. I am sure I saw tarpons on an adjacent site and mistakenly
thought that was Tarpon's Alley.

http://www.skin-diver.com/caymanislands/gc_main.stm

This is a much more readable map. It placed Tarpon's Alley at "3"
near the Stingray City, while the Big Tunnel is at "38" nowhere close
to that Tarpon's Alley. So, the adjacent site in which I saw quite a
few tarpons swimming between an alley wall could have been any
one of the named ones in "38" of this map, or the sites Easy Street,
Sentinel, or Dragon's Hole on the first map.

>
> I thought Tarpon Alley was on the North Wall. This site was on the
> west.

You're correct. There are actually more than one site that's called
Tarpon's Alley on the North side. But the Big Tunnel site is
unmistakable. It is sometimes called just "The Tunnel" as in the
Grand Cayman Island book (1988) by my former boss at the Yale
Computer Center, Carl Roessler, who was fired by Yale in the late
1960s and became a world class UW photographer, and also
diving travel agent. Call calls the Tarpon's Alley outside of
Stingray City the "New Tarpon's Alley" without naming the old
Tarpon's Alley.

There are not many DEFINITIVE dive sites that are called the same
by everyone because so many DMs make up names for the
approximate sites (so that divers think they are somewhere no one
else dived. <G>), but the Big Tunnel is a site whose location and
characteristic are so distinct that I don't think it can ever be
mistaken
for any other site or location on GCM. Just your description of
"near Bonnie's Arch" pinointed it.

-- Reef Fish Bob.