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by Scott D. Jones
December 4,
2000
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| Cayman
Islands Dept. of Tourism
| The Cayman Islands, popular
with the financial community for its generous tax laws,
is equally well-known in the scuba diving community. For
most divers, a vacation in the Caymans is an aquatic
pilgrimage to scuba diving's Mecca.
Crystal-clear waters, breathtaking vertical walls,
brilliant colors and abundant marine life put this
destination on every diver's "must visit" list.
The Cayman Islands comprises three islands. Grand
Cayman is the largest of the trio, joined by sister
islands Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. More than 1.5
million visitors come to the Cayman Islands each year,
and nearly half of them choose to enjoy the islands'
myriad underwater treasures, either through scuba diving
or snorkeling. This diver's paradise offers more than
200 different dive sites.
Living Large in Little
Cayman
While many visitors choose to stay and
dive on Grand Cayman, serious divers looking for new
challenges (and less
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| Cayman
Islands Dept. of Tourism
| crowded dive sites) are
starting to discover unspoiled underwater sites in the
waters near the sister islands. Chris McCoy, owner of
McCoy's Diving Lodge on the north shore of Little
Cayman, has seen firsthand the increase in the number of
divers on his island.
Divers are learning that, compared with Grand Cayman,
"Little Cayman offers...more abundant and larger marine
life and fewer divers," McCoy says.
A native who grew up on the island (which has fewer
than a hundred residents most of the year), he's very
passionate about the island's diving resources. "We're
blessed to have these reefs," he says, "but if you dive
the same reefs day in and day out, the corals can suffer
because you aren't giving them enough time to recover."
Off the Beaten
Path
McCoy's Dive Lodge was established by
Chris's father in 1983. It is the only dive operation on
the northern side of Little Cayman, which is 11 miles
long and only a mile wide at its fattest point. Although
his lodge is located just a few hundred yards from the
island's most popular dive site, Bloody Bay Wall, McCoy
sometimes prefers to take people to more distant sites
that offer bigger marine life and more exciting
opportunities.
"We have something special to offer here and while we
want to protect and preserve it, we also want to share
it. It is possible to do both," he says. McCoy did just
that when I last visited Little Cayman. Read on for more
about the sites we dove.
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