The Day I Swam With Stingrays and Dove a 6,000-Foot Wall in Grand Cayman
The boat left the dock at Seven Mile Beach at 7:30 AM. Six of us, a captain named Derek, and a cooler of water bottles. The sun was already aggressive — SPF 50 applied, reapplied, and I'd still burn through it before noon.
The North Sound opened up after we cleared the channel markers. Flat, turquoise, shallow enough to see the sandy bottom from the boat. Derek cut the engine about 25 minutes out and pointed at the water.
"They know we're here."
Stingray City
I've been skeptical of "swim with wildlife" experiences since a disappointing dolphin encounter in Mexico that involved a pool, a trainer, and a vague sense of guilt. Stingray City is different. The stingrays are wild. Nobody trained them. They've simply learned over decades that boats stop here and boats bring squid.
Derek handed each of us a piece of squid and we slipped over the side into waist-deep water. The bottom was sandy and firm. The water was warm. And within thirty seconds, a southern stingray — about a meter across, wings undulating like a silk sheet in slow motion — glided directly into my legs.
The sensation is hard to describe. Their skin is smooth on the underside, slightly rough on top. They're incredibly gentle. They'll brush against your legs, loop around your body, and hover near your hand if you're holding food. Derek positioned one in my arms for a photo — a stingray the size of a coffee table, perfectly calm, its eyes like black marbles.
We stayed at the sandbar for about 90 minutes. At no point were there more than 20 people in the water — Derek had specifically chosen a weekday with no cruise ships docked. (When cruise ships are in, he told me, there can be 200+ people at the sandbar. "It's still the same stingrays," he said, "but you're sharing them with the population of a small village.")
The tip nobody gives you: book a morning trip on a non-cruise-ship day. Check caymanport.com for the schedule. The experience with 15 people vs. 200 people is not the same experience.
Cost: US$65 for the half-day trip.
Back on Land
We returned to the dock around 11:30 AM. I had two hours before my afternoon dive, so I walked to a lunch truck on Shedden Road in George Town — jerk chicken plate for CI$10 (US$12.50). These trucks are the budget savior of Grand Cayman. Everything else in George Town's tourist zone charges double for inferior food.
Ate on a bench overlooking the harbor. Two cruise ships were docked at the terminal, their passengers streaming through duty-free shops on Cardinal Avenue. George Town on a cruise-ship day has the energy of a shopping mall on Black Friday — if the shopping mall was 85°F and sold rum cake.
The Wall
At 1:30 PM I was at a dive shop on the west coast, getting briefed for a two-tank wall dive on Grand Cayman's North Wall.
The North Wall is where Grand Cayman's underwater geography gets dramatic. The island's shallow reef shelf extends about a quarter-mile offshore at a depth of 40-60 feet. And then it just... ends. The wall drops vertically to over 6,000 feet.
Our first dive was at a site called Trinity Caves. We dropped to 60 feet, swam through a series of tunnels and swim-throughs carved into the reef, and emerged at the wall's edge.
Nothing prepares you for looking over a wall dive for the first time. Below your fins is a vertical face of sponges, sea fans, and coral extending down into deep blue that becomes deep black. The scale is impossible to fully comprehend. Your depth gauge says 80 feet. The bottom is at 6,000.
A six-foot Caribbean reef shark cruised along the wall about 30 feet below us, completely indifferent to our presence. Eagle rays. A massive barrel sponge the size of a bathtub. Visibility was easily 100 feet.
The second dive was shallower — 40-50 feet along the mini-wall, which is a smaller step before the main drop. More swim-throughs, a friendly green moray eel, and a school of horse-eye jacks that circled us for five minutes.
The Bloody Bay Wall Debate
My dive master — a guy named James who'd been diving Grand Cayman for 12 years — told me the Bloody Bay Wall on Little Cayman makes the North Wall look like a speed bump.
"The wall starts at 20 feet. Twenty feet. And drops to 6,000. The transition from reef flat to infinite blue happens in the space of a single fin kick."
Little Cayman is a 30-minute flight from Grand Cayman on a tiny prop plane. Two-tank dives run US$120-150. James said the visibility regularly exceeds 150 feet.
I didn't make it to Little Cayman on this trip. Next time.
Evening
Sunset from Seven Mile Beach. I sat on the sand near Cemetery Beach (the quiet northern end) with a Cayman Mudslide from a beach bar — the unofficial cocktail of the island, a frozen mix of Kahlua, Baileys, vodka, and ice cream that tastes like dessert and hits like a freight train.
The sun dropped into the Caribbean. The sky went orange, then pink, then deep purple. A couple walked past with a Tortuga Rum Cake box, probably headed to a flight.
In the space of a single day, I'd held a wild stingray, eaten jerk chicken from a truck for $12, and hovered over a wall that drops into the abyss. Grand Cayman is only 22 miles long. It packs a lot into a small footprint.
If you're exploring more of the Caribbean, Bonaire offers a completely different experience worth considering.
If you're exploring more of the Caribbean, Cozumel offers a completely different experience worth considering.
If you're exploring more of the Caribbean, Jamaica offers a completely different experience worth considering.
If you're exploring more of the Caribbean, Bahamas offers a completely different experience worth considering.
The Numbers
Item
Cost
Stingray City half-day
US$65
Lunch truck
US$12.50
Two-tank wall dive
US$120
Beach bar mudslide
US$12
Sunset
Free
Total for the day: about US$210. Not cheap. But for what you get — one of the most unique wildlife encounters in the Caribbean and world-class wall diving — it's money well spent.
