The largest of the three Cayman islands, Grand Cayman is a hopping cruise ship port and the Caribbean's undisputed scuba mecca.
Grand Cayman welcomes visitors with a range of accommodations – from budget to five-star – plus a bustling local culture and one of the longest, most beautiful stretches of beach in all the world – famed Seven Mile Beach.
HISTORY
In 1503, Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands and named them Las Tortugas for the giant sea turtles lumbering the shores. Eventually, the islands were renamed Caymanas, after the Carib word for crocodiles. (Inhabitants possibly mistook the five-foot-long rock iguanas for crocodiles.) In the late 1600s, Spain gave the islands to Britain along with nearby Jamaica. During the 17th and 18th centuries, buccaneers hid themselves and, rumor has it, their treasures on the islands. When Jamaica was awarded independence in 1962, the Caymans chose to remain a British Crown Colony.
DIVING AND WATER SPORTS
The fabled West Wall off Grand Cayman's Seven Mile Beach yields descriptively named sites such as Bonnie's Arch, Big Tunnels, Orange Canyon and Tarpon Alley (where six-foot tarpon lazily eye divers from a few feet away). Stingray City, a site just 10-12 feet deep in North Sound, is where snorkelers and divers mingle with, feed and pet rays with five-foot wingspans. The North Wall and especially East End offer sites that are less frequently visited; new dives are added to the menu constantly.
DINING AND NIGHTLIFE
Apres dive, there are continental restaurants for dining and relaxing. And while the night life doesn't meet the standards set by Cancun's discos, divers and dive masters congregate at the Lone Star or the Holiday Inn bar to swap grouper stories.
ECO-ADVENTURE
A topside tour is in order, even if you plan to spend most of your time submerged. The Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park has a nearly mile-long trail that takes visitors through wetlands and woods where they can view endangered blue iguanas and Cayman parrots. Pedro Castle, a former plantation greathouse, is garnished with a visitors' center and theater. The world's only commercial turtle farm is on Northwest Point Road. Turtles are raised here both for food (served in the local restaurants) and to replenish the turtle population in the wild. Turtle shells and shell jewelry are sold here, but it's against U.S. law to import them. And no trip to Grand Cayman would be complete without a going to Hell, a fun if not tacky little crossroads where you can send a postcard home with cancellation mark that says "Hell."
DON'T MISS
– Diving, diving, diving
– Shelling out a few buck to tour the Turtle Farm
– Ferrying to Rum Point for a day of beaching and umbrella drinks
