Grand Cayman Activities

Stingray City

Stingray City is soooo much fun!!! You take a catamaran out to the barge and get in and there’s literally thousands of stingrays swimming all around you. They give you chunked-up squid meat to feed them! It’s truly amazing! My husband even got in and he’s petrified of water! He didn’t feed the stingrays though.

Here’s a little history of Stingray City. For many years fisherman returning from their day at sea anchored behind a reef into the sound, and cleaned their fish in the calm water of the shallows and sandbar area. The fish guts and squid were thrown overboard and the stingrays eventually congregated to feast on the discarded guts. Soon the stingrays associated the sound of a boat engine with food. As this practice turned into a tradition, divers realized that the stingrays could be fed by hand. The beautiful, pure, white sand made for an easy anchorage, and a few conchs would also have been taken for the family following the daily fish cleaning.

“It was as if they knew we were coming” said one fisherman. Indeed, every day, late in the afternoon, all the Stingrays would gather beneath their sailboats to enjoy all the fish parts their friends above would drop in the water. This ritual continued for many many, years until two Dive Instructors finally decided to pay the Stingrays a personal underwater visit.

Turtle Farm

The Turtle Farm is another great place to visit while in Grand Cayman. You get there on a tour, there are many tour outfits that can take you there. There are dozens of turtle pools each with different size turtles in them. My husband went over to a pool which had 100 pound turtles in it and as he was about to pick one up,I said don’t you see the sign on the wall that says Do Not Touch the Turtles. They snap! We laughed at that one for a while.

Very informative and interesting. Great guides! We saw the mating pool where there was lots going on 🙂 We learned how to tell the difference between a male and female turtle (length of their tail); learned how the eggs hatch. We even held baby turtles, and found that by rubbing their necks it keeps them calm. There’s a fun swimming area – perfect for families.

Hell

Hell was interesting to visit. It’s a group of short, black, limestone formations located in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Located in West Bay, it is roughly the size of half a soccer field. Visitors are not permitted to walk on the limestone formations but viewing platforms are provided.

It got its name from the idea “This is what Hell must look like.” It is also claimed that the name “Hell” is derived from the fact that if a pebble is thrown out into the formation, it echoes amongst the limestone peaks and valleys and sounds as if the pebble is falling all the way down to “Hell.” Regardless of how it first came to be called Hell, the name stuck and the area has become a tourist attraction, featuring a fire-engine red hell-themed post office from which you can send “postcards from hell”, and a gift shop with “Satan” passing out souvenirs while greeting people with phrases like “How the hell are you?” and “Where the hell are you from?”

Mastic Trail

If you’re a nature lover, you should definitely add the Mastic Trail to your list of Cayman Island must-dos. The trail is a 200-year-old gravelly path that winds through a native mangrove swamp and a two million-year-old woodland area, surrounded by some of the island’s most colorful and rare plant life. The trail is preserved as a flat, beginning hike by the Cayman Islands National Trust, which also sponsors guided tours. You’ll need at least two or three hours to enjoy the Mastic Trail, either on a guided tour (held Wednesdays and Saturdays) or on your own (Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at a discounted rate).

Eden Rock & Devil’s Grotto

Cayman has some of the best diving in the world, with easy access to great reefs close to shore. The west side of the island is usually very calm making it ideal for boat or shore diving. The boat trips are short to the famous Cayman wall and the entry to the shallow shore diving sites is very easy.

Eden Rock Diving Center is the gateway to the main shore diving attraction situated only a short swim from two of the world’s best shallow reefs Eden Rock and Devil’s Grotto ideal for Scuba diving and snorkeling. Follow the gently sloping bottom out until you see the coral reefs rise to within a few feet of the surface then drop 40 feet vertically to a sandy bottom. Both Eden Rock and Devil’s Grotto are honey combed with caves, tunnels and Grottos inhabited by many tropical fish, coral and sponges including Silversides and Tarpon. They are approximately 46-feet below the surface, Eden Rock and Devil’s Grotto are boggling, wonderful mazes filled with tarpon, silversides, parrotfish and barracuda, and they should be enjoyable swims for both beginner and intermediate snorkelers. The Eden Rock Diving Center, located on South Church Street in Grand Cayman, offers sponsored shore and boat dives as well as rental equipment to use.