bruce-r Caymans question

[VTSnorkler]

bruce-r,

 

My wife and I cruising the Valor in Jan and are considering another resort course dive in GC (we did one in St Lucia last year and loved it)

 

From the research I've done it looks like the best discover choice might be DiveTech out at Turtle Reef. Would you agree that we'd like this more than Eden Rock? I am wondering if the transportation aspect might be a bit of snag, since we were hoping to do the course sometime in the morning and then laze around SMB for the rest of the day. What do you think?

 

A lot of this depends also on where in Mexico the Valor is going in Jan. Carnival hasn't released the Jan sched yet, but Valor is headed to Costa Maya until Dec 31 at least. If Valor ends up going to Coz, and the shallow reefs are still diveable we might do Coz instead and beach it on GCM.

 

Any info that you could give me to help me make this choice (ER vs DiveTech) from a "discover" pont of view would be great. I am making the assumption that the discover dives would be at Eden Rock and Turtle reef respectively.

 

Thanks!

[bruce-r]

If I was choosing a shore dive in GCM, I would probably pick the turtle farm site over eden rock for the following reasons. Eden rock will likely have most people there. I also think that the turtle rock site will be in better condition because fewer novice divers/snorkeler dive there than eden rock. I don't have anything against beginner divers, but I know for a fact that they are a little harder on a dive site, and eden rock gets used many more divers per day than turtle farm.

 

I have also read positive things about Divetech but little about either edenrockdivers or abanksdivers.

 

Even if your cruise ends up going to Cozumel, my thinking at the moment is that the near shore diving would be better in GCM. I'll have a more informed opinion at the end of December after a week there.

 

Another option to consider would be Sunset House They are located in Georgetown a fairly short way passed eden rock. They have an on-site dive shop and a shore dive site. Their discover scuba is $95 and you can walk there, so no taxi cost.

 

If you want to do a dive in the morning then hang at SMB for a couple of hours after lunch, I think divetech would be my choice. According to the Turtle Farm website, you can take a bus there for $1.50C (I think the price has gone up a bit). Then you can easily taxi back to SMB, then at the end of the day, back to Georgetown. Be sure to allow plenty of time to return to Georgetown as the traffic can be nasty in the afternoon if there are more than a couple of ships visiting.

 

Second choice would be Sunset House because it would likely be less crowded.

 

Hope this helps.

[VTSnorkler]

bruce-r,

 

Thanks for the info. I think we'll contact divetech and book a discover thru them.

 

It doesn't look good for the shallow discover dive sites in Coz. There is an excellent narrative posted on Scuba with allison's webpage. I think you'll find it an interesting read. If you don't care to read here hurricane diary, you can skip down to the bottom of the page, for her dive site cleanup entries. http://www.scubawithalison.com/divelog.htm

[cruisinaz]

We are also interested in GC and looking for the best spot...

I checked out the turtle farm site and didn't see any mention of diving there... am I missing something?

[bruce-r]

We are also interested in GC and looking for the best spot...

I checked out the turtle farm site and didn't see any mention of diving there... am I missing something?

That is because, while the dive site is known as "turtle farm", it doesn't have anything to do with the actual farm other than it's close location. http://www.divetech.com is the dive operator that is located by the turtle farm dive site. Divetech would be the place to look for information.