Coming up!
The Bird family heads to Grand Cayman Island in search of Reefs, turtles and Stingrays!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
In the world of scuba diving, there is one legendary place known to all divers: the Cayman
Islands.
Located just south of Cuba, these three islands—a British Oversea Territory—have become famous
for some of the best underwater conditions in the world.
Between the great visibility, warm water, healthy reefs and easy accessibility from
the U.S. and Europe, the Cayman Islands are on every diver’s bucket list.
Because so many divers visit the Cayman Islands, they are home to the International Scuba Diving
Hall of Fame, which includes such luminaries as Jacques Cousteau, Lloyd Bridges, Zale Parry,
Stan Waterman, David Doubilet, Howard and Michele Hall, and many other famous scuba
divers who made important contributions to the sport.
It’s a chilly April morning in Boston, and it’s school vacation week, so that means
it’s time for a family dive adventure to the…
…Cayman Islands!
It’s a few hours from cold weather to the tropics and soon we land on Grand Cayman.
Jay Ehrhart from the Cayman Tourism board meets us at the airport with the VIP treatment!
As usual, we rent a van to carry all our dive gear.
We are here, 85 degrees and sunny, yes!
And this van has the steering wheel on the right, because in the Cayman Islands, they
drive on the left!
It’s a quick drive over to Sunset House, on the southwest corner of Grand Cayman Island.
Sunset House is one of the most popular hotels for divers in the world.
The entire property is built around scuba diving, with a fantastic shore dive right
off the dock.
There’s a restaurant overlooking the ocean, a pool for relaxing and of course, dive training.
But most importantly, the dive shop, called Sunset Divers.
And yes, you can dive at sunset.
We head over to fill out our paperwork while the crew prepares a boat for our first day
of diving.
Our first dive will be a perfect introduction to the classic Cayman diving experience.
Along the way, we have some time to set up our gear.
This is great, I’ve got the kids setting up my dive gear for me!
Jasmine Fox grabs the mooring line… while Philip Liu sets up a scale model of the dive
site using a towel and some paper cups.
The dive briefing is easy to understand with a 3D model!
Finally, time to get wet!
With all the diving we have been doing recently, the kids are really comfortable in the water.
They take the lead as we follow Phil towards some of the cool formations.
This site is known for cavern-like swim-throughs in the reef, giving divers a little taste
of the cave diving experience but in a totally safe way.
And the reefs are covered in colorful sponges and coral.
We pop up through a chimney and head towards the drop-off.
Here the water plunges down thousands of feet.
Diving on the edge of the abyss like this is known as wall diving, and this is the kids’
first wall diving experience.
Of course we stay at the top where the most life is found, and soon discover a sea turtle
searching for breakfast.
Hawksbill sea turtles are one of the only animals that can digest sponges, and this
orange sponge will make a great snack.
Once she heads up for a breath of air, we realize our air is getting low too, so it’s
time to start back to the boat.
On our safety stop, Phil demonstrates his technique for blowing air bubble rings.
The kids need more practice.
That was one of the coolest things that I have ever seen in my entire life.
Those swim-throughs were amazing dude, and the sea turtles, we saw sea turtles.
The kids can’t get on a dive boat and not do at least a few jumps into the water.
After two awesome dives, we head back to the resort.
It’s only a short walk with our gear to our dive lockers, where we get re-suited for
a shore dive!
Getting suited up on a curb!
We can’t get enough of this great diving!
We head down to the dock and hop into the water.
It’s not long before we are greeted by a school of small barracuda known as Sennet.
They zoom around us a few times without fear.
They must be used to divers.
As we venture further from shore, we reach a sandy section containing a large colony
of Garden eels.
These pencil-sized eels live in burrows in the sand, and retract into their burrows as
we approach.
But hunting them (and other sand-dwellers) is an Eagle ray--uniquely adapted to shovel
through the sand for prey.
As we continue across the sand, we find the tracks of something.
Following them, we come across a pair of conchs engaged in a high speed chase.
A male is trying to catch up with a female.
Conchs are just big snails, peeking out from under the shell with eyes on stalks.
She gives him the cold shell treatment.
You can’t blame a guy for trying.
Soon we pass over the sand and reach a large section of reef, filled with colorful coral
and fish.
There are stands of tube sponges.
And we find the mermaid statue.
Then we turn and start swimming back to shore.
Just in front of the ladders we meet a school of Reef squid hanging out only a stone’s
throw from the shore.
And we’re out of the water just in time for a famous Cayman sunset.
Don’t go away!
When we come back, it’s time for Stingray City!
The next day, we load the van, for a road trip to the other side of the island.
This boat is kept at another marina, closer to the dive sites on the north side of the
island.
Soon we’re on our way to meet the famous stingrays of Stingray City.
Captain Melissa Hart does the dive briefing with some stuffed animals, explaining the
proper way to interact with the stingrays and how we will feed them small pieces of
fish.
Then its time to suit up and hit the water.
It’s low tide, so the visibility in North sound is a little murky, but the stingrays
are here!
Stingrays are flattened fish, closely related to sharks, with a mouth underneath, used to
feed on the bottom.
They get their name from the stinger sticking up off the tail, which is a powerful defensive
weapon.
But these stingrays are like puppies, they are completely comfortable around divers.
When the food comes out, they all come over to be fed.
But you need to be careful handling the food, because the fish are aggressive.
Elise gives this small male stingray a treat and feels how much suction they create when
they inhale food.
Even Zach gets in on the action.
It’s only his second dive, and already feeding the stingrays.
Christine is being swarmed because she refuses to hand over the food too easily!
She’s making them work for it.
Now Elise is getting the hang of it, doing a ballet with a stingray.
But then its my turn to show them how its done.
By keeping the food just in front of the stingrays mouth, I can lead her around like she is on
a leash.
After a few twirls, I give her the food.
Now everyone is getting the hang of it.
Zach has a stingray hat.
The fish are fast.
They steal a lot of food.
Once we run out of food, the stingrays settle down and begin to wander off.
We head back to the boat.
That dive was great, there were so many stingrays around.
That was amazing.
My finger did get chomped by a fish though.
And finally it’s time to head back to the dock.
Grand Cayman is a stunning place to visit and to dive.
There is no question why it has become one of the top dive destinations in the world.
The water is warm and calm, the visibility is consistently excellent, and the marine
environment is extremely healthy.
Every dive has something cool to see.
The Cayman Islands truly are a wonder of the Blue World.
Hey everyone!
Check out our second channel, BlueWorld_plus, where we have some great extras and behind
the scenes including a video of Zach’s first scuba dive!