Cayman Islands Holidays 2012

Cayman Islands Holidays

While on Grand Cayman, the largest of the Cayman Islands, you must visit Seven Mile Beach for some of the best scuba diving around. Cayman Marine Lab offers 23 years of experience in diving along Seven Mile Beach.

Diving off Cayman Brac allows you to visit two well-known shipwrecks, including MV Keith Tibbetts. Little Cayman offers you the chance to dive the Bloody Bay Wall, but you can also visit the Booby Pond Nature Reserve.

Things to do

On Grand Cayman, Stingray City needs to rank high on your list of things to do, even though it is a sandbar and not an actual city. Here you will get the chance to interact with stingrays in their natural habitat; you can even find tour boats for a guided and informative tour.

Mastic Trail in Grand Cayman is an old nature trail that takes nature lovers through a variety of the islands ecosystems. In West Bay, there is the Dolphin Cove, where you can watch dolphins perform a variety of routines with and without the trainers, but the best part is the ability to swim with the dolphins yourself.

Tourists often visit Little Cayman and Cayman Brac for the numerous diving opportunities they present. Among the most famous on Little Cayman is the Bloody Bay Wall, but Jackson Point and the Soto Trader wreck will not leave you disappointed.

On Cayman Brac, you can dive down to the different shipwrecks that lie on the bottom of the ocean, including MV Keith Tibbetts. Peter’s cave and Cemetery Wall are also amazing dive spots on Cayman Brac.

Local Cuisine

Most Cayman dishes are deemed simple because of how few ingredients are required, but once you taste some dishes you will be amazed at how delicious they are.

Even though Cayman dishes only use a few ingredients it can take hours to prepare and cook everything. Most Cayman dishes consist of a meat and bread, with coconut milk and other seasonings added to it for taste.

No matter what the meal is it is slow cooked over a fire in an iron pot. The most famous local dishes are turtle stew (turtle meat comes in limited supply from the Cayman Turtle Farm), conch stew, fish and fritters, and coconut dinner.

Wildlife

Like many other island destinations the Cayman Islands are not teeming with wildlife, but what they do have is quite interesting to see.

If you go to the Cayman Turtle Farm on Grand Cayman, you can see a family of agoutis, native to the islands but very hard to spot in the wild. A freshwater turtle known as a hickatee can be found in a variety of freshwater ponds throughout the islands. Don’t forget about the blue iguana, to see a large male simply visit the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Gardens.

Birds are everywhere on the islands, so birdwatchers will find themselves with plenty of action to stay busy. The Cayman parrot with its green feathers is easy to spot in the early mornings and late afternoons.

Best Time to Visit

Like other islands destinations the best time to visit the Cayman Islands is going to depend on the weather. With June through November being hurricane season many people choose not to visit during this time, but if you do make sure you take out travel insurance.

The rainy season usually starts in May, which also means the temperatures increase and so does the humidity levels. Despite the rain many people visit during the month of May because it is less crowded, prices are more reasonable, and the weather hasn’t gotten unbearable yet.

Weather-wise the best time to visit is from December through April, temperatures range from 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity levels can be dealt with, but the prices for hotels and such are not as easily dealt with.