Dive in… Grand Cayman

After eight years living in Grand Cayman and numerous visits since moving to Europe, I finally decided to take the plunge and get certified as a PADI Open Water Diver. Hooray!! I’m still feeling pretty smug… mainly because diving just didn’t come naturally to me. Previously, I’d always steered clear of diving for various reasons; the thought of having to revise for a theory exam, not wanting to do the course on my own and – oh yeh the fear that my ears might explode underwater. So, I focussed on being a really avid snorkeler…don’t laugh – it’s possible – I’ve seen some really awkward snorkelers.

Anyway, I finally decided to go for it solo and signed up for the online theory course to complete in London before my trip. Late night cramming before the trip  allowed me to pass the theory test with flying colours. For the practical course on the island I had signed up with Tortuga Divers at Moritt’s, which was fairly close to where we were staying. They were great – I arrived the first morning to meet my enthusiastic diving instructor and a family of five who would be taking the course with me. My classmates comprised of two hunky 40-something-year-old men who were like clones of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Incidentally they were from LA or more specifically Manhattan Beach! They were brothers, or so I presume, and were with their superhuman teenagers, two boys and one girl.

I knew it was a course of three full days but I didn’t realise that it would actually be hard… We started with a day of pool demonstrations, learning how to get comfortable breathing underwater – already a concept that took some time – and a whole set of underwater skills that you need to master before proceeding to the ocean dives. Of course, the ninja teens and the Schwarzenegger dads nailed every skill in the first go while I struggled and swallowed gallons of water the entire time!! The bane of my life became the “mask skill”. You had to remove your mask while underwater, obviously while breathing through your regulator, then after a minute or so, put the mask back on and clear it by breathing out through your nose….. it is NOT an easy task… I had complete sense of humour failure here, as the second you remove your mask your instinct is to breath through your nose so it was a disaster for me. I had to keep shooting up to the pool surface choking on water! The petrifying thing was that I knew I’d have to do this the following day in our “shallow dives” of 30ft… and then again on the last day at 60ft kneeling on the ocean floor. I was not convinced!

After our pool dives we were off to the boat! A full day of shallow dives were followed by the most exciting and scary part – a two tank dive to The Wall on our last day of training. This is Cayman’s most famous and spectacular dive site. It’s literally a vertical drop-off that reaches 6000ft!!

While I was still on the boat being strapped into my hideously heavy tank, weights, BCD etc (nothing comfortable), our friends already in the sea were signalling a shark swimming by… ahhhh noooo way, I’m expected to do all these skills, that are already tricky enough in a pool, but now with the added stress of having a shark within close range? I didn’t see it in the end, and I was actually a lot more concerned about all the requirements I had to pass; everything from navigation, emergency exits, buddy breathing….and although I’d managed to do the mask skill (not that successfully) at 30ft the previous day, I was dreading having to do it again at 60ft because at this depth you can’t simply come up if you choke or swallow any water, so it has to work out. Fortunately it did! That was my moment of relief and from there on I could enjoy the incredible surroundings, crystal clear visibility that felt to go on for miles, and most of all – knowing that I’d certified! Phew! By the end of that dive, I was completely relaxed, my ears had more or less equalised, and I was almost hoping to spot that shark after all before coming back up to the surface, I mean all this hassle for what? A few fish and some coral? Bring on the shark, make this utterly worth it! OK in all seriousness, the aquatic life I saw over those couple of days was so impressive and so much more abundant than everything I’ve seen in my previous snorkelling life… stunning brain corals, huge groupers, colourful parrotfish, stingrays and more. Getting your PADI in Cayman has really got to be one of the best places in the world to do this.