La Aventura became a live-aboard Dive Boat whilst we explored the underwater world of Grand Cayman. We are able to be totally independent divers with all our gear and a specific dive compressor for James to fill our air tanks.

The famous Grand Cayman wall runs around the entire island, with dive sites on all four sides. We did not visit the Sister islands of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac – but met other sailor/divers who did - they raved about the diverse diving they did there.
The water everywhere was crystal clear. Diving is a big deal here with over 300 named dive sights – all with permanent moorings.

The West Wall offers lots of options for intricate swim through's, tunnels, chutes, caverns and topography. The west wall is also famous for much of the photography seen in "The Firm" the film adaption of the John Grishman novel starring Tom Cruise.
Some of the most famous wall dive sites on Grand Cayman are along the west side and we chose Bonnie's Arch. Very enjoyable dive and I enjoyed taking lots of photos.

Corals on the west side reefs of Grand Cayman are some of the most prolific anywhere in the Caribbean. Thriving on the rich nutrients of the deep surrounding waters, corals, fans, rods and thousands of species of fish and corals populate the relatively shallow reefs system on the western side of Grand Cayman. We chose Spanish Anchor for our reef dive and also did loads of shallow water snorkelling every other day.

Wreck diving is always very interesting for us– and we chose to dive on Kittiwake and also snorkel the Cali Shipwreck and the wreck of The Gamma.

Kittiwake is a busy dive and snorkeling site so we chose an early morning dive before all the tour boats arrived. The Kittiwake, a former WW2 US navy submarine rescue ship from 1945 to 1994 was sunk in 20m of water off the northern end of Seven Mile Beach in 2011. Its most memorable duty was the taking part in the recovery efforts of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. It is now having a second life as a tourist attraction for divers and snorkelers as an artificial reef. It was an easy and enjoyable dive. Exploring the 77m vessel – all five levels including the mess hall, hospital station, propulsion rooms and ammunition lockers was very eerily. James had his own Titanic moment at the bridge. By the time we had finished we had snorkelers everywhere overhead.

Cali was a 220 foot, 4 masted steel schooner that sank off the coast of George Town in 1944. The Cali ran aground and began taking on water during a winter storm near Grand Cayman. Carrying a cargo of grain, the water absorbed into the grain and expanded through the hull, causing it to take on more water than it was able to pump out. As the grain continued to absorb water the hull continued to expand and leak. The Cali wreckage now rests at approximately 20 to 30 feet deep, less than 40 yards from shore and we were able to snorkel from the boat to it. It is a very popular day activity for the many cruise ship passengers – so we chose to explore in the late afternoon after all the cruise ships had departed for the day.

The Gamma wreck is resting very close to the shore and amongst the designated yachts moorings – so snorkelling directly from the boat was very easy indeed. The spine and huge props and engine from Gamma were very easy to identify in the clear shallow water.

Smiths Cove – just south of George Town was also a very enjoyable snorkelling spot for us one Sunday afternoon.