I got back yesterday from my spring break dive trip to Grand Cayman. We were there a week and stayed at Sunset House, which is a resort right on the water built for divers. The diving was amazing, but still doesn't quite match what we saw at the sister island Little Cayman last year. Dad says that compared to how the reef looked when he was there 30 years ago, it looks completely dead now. I wouldn't know about that, but I was very impressed with several of the dive sites. Several of the dive sites had long swimthroughs to explore under the reef.
Despite the coral being less than what Dad remembered, there was no shortage of marine life. Every species of caribbean fish was there, as well as turtles, octopi, lobster, anemones, eels, etc. You name it, we saw it. Unfortunately, we also saw a bunch of lionfish all over the place. They're native to the Indian Ocean, but made their way to this part of the world several years ago. Since then they've multiplied unchecked because they eat anything smaller than themselves and nothing here can eat them because of their array of poisonous spines. Hopefully they won't have too much of an effect on the fish population on the reef in the coming years.
There were also several interesting things to see topside, including a very well maintained botanic garden. I've included a separate album on the photo page of stuff we saw in the brief intervals when we weren't underwater.
