Dive Review of Ocean Frontiers/Royal Reef Resort in
Cayman Islands

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Ocean Frontiers/Royal Reef Resort, May, 2003, by Bradley Bowen, UT, USA . Report 620.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	May 3 to May 10, 2003 Number of Dives: 343. Our third trip to Grand Cayman, and second trip with Ocean Frontiers. Consistent, outstanding service. We will be diving with Ocean Frontiers again. Be sure to book and pay for all dives you plan to do in advance as this operator often does not have any open spaces on its dive boats. We did four dives per day on 32% Nitrox, paying for all dives in advance, and never encountered any problems. Other divers were not able to dive as often as they had hoped. Crew is great at accommodating experienced divers entering the water first and exiting last who want an hour of bottom time, but you should alert them of your desire at the time of booking and discretely remind both crew members when you board the boat. Absent such a request, dive times are typically no more than 45 minutes on the first dive and 35 minutes on the second dive. Don’t be shy about telling the crew what you want to see. They will dive the South East end of the island every dive if weather permits because the sites are much closer to their dock and these are the dive sites where you will see Carribean Reef Sharks and Spotted Eagle Rays, as well as great walls with swim throughs. Shallow sites are a bit hammered, but are still a lot of fun to dive because many of the sites consist of tunnels and caves with huge schools of glassy sweepers and other bait fish, with Tarpon, grouper and parrot fish lurking about. If the weather is bad, they dive the North East end of the island, which has great walls and where you are more likely to see turtles. Wall dives are comparable to Little Cayman, but with fewer huge barrel sponges. Never saw any Pelagics at Little Cayman. Had bad weather the first three days and dove the North side. No pelagics, but wonderful walls, pinnacles and turtles. Weather improved the middle of the weeks and we spent the next three days on the South side. Reef Sharks on half of the South side dives, both this trip and our trip two years ago. Had nine Spotted Eagle Rays on one dive with a large female Carribean Reef Shark following three of the rays. Had glimpses of Spotted Eagle Rays on several other dives. We knew from our prior trip that Ocean Frontiers night dive spots are not good. The staff was great at providing us with a map and instructions on locating the Babylon dive site from shore. We left a strobe on the shore about fifteen feet up the bank. The dive site is about four blocks from the shore and takes around 15 minutes or so to swim to at a leisurely pace. Don’t use the air in your tank swimming out until you are at a depth of around 20 feet, or you won’t have any air left to dive the pinnacle, which is just to your left as you come out onto the wall. We discovered that the cut through the reef out onto the wall was several hundred feet down the shore from where we had entered the dive site. Having a strobe high on the shore is critical to navigating back to the shore entry point as it is impossible to distinguish between the street lights at night. The swell, even on a calm night, makes the strobe difficult to see above the water, so place it high on the shore. We found this site safe and fun to dive on a calm night with these precautions and careful attention to navigation. Although our group of four experienced divers on Nitrox and computers was allowed to dive its own profiles with no interference, we suspect that Ocean Frontiers persuaded one of its former dive masters to come along to do the first dive of the afternoon on a deep tunnel with an entrance at 110' on the wall. This diver said he didn’t have a buddy and asked to join our group. He stayed deep the entire time, looking for the entrance to the tunnel, which was tough to find due to the thick coral growth. At the end of the dive he discretely pushed on the back of my wife’s tank as she was swimming against the current returning to the boat. During the surface interval, we learned that this diver had formerly worked for Ocean Frontiers as a dive master for several years. When we suited up for the second dive he made excuses not to go. Just one example of the courtesy and professionalism we have encountered diving with Ocean Frontiers. Although Stingray City may seem a little cliche for experienced divers, we decided to do the trip with Ocean Frontiers and found it much better than our prior experiences. In addition to the stingrays, we got numerous closeup photos of several Chain Moray’s and Goldentail Moray’s. The twelve foot Green Moray is like a puppy dog that followed us around, and allowed everyone in the group to pet and “hold” it as it slipped through their arms. An event I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t been present. Ocean Frontiers does not encourage tipping and changes the boat crews around so that it is difficult to keep track of who you should tip. Of all the live aboards and dive operators with whom we’ve dove, none were more deserving of a tip than the people at Ocean Frontiers. We kept track of all the people we dove with and left tips for each of them in about a dozen of the small envelopes that Ocean Frontiers provided upon request.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	All over the pacific, carribean and California.
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	choppy, surge, currents
Water Temp	78-82°F / 26-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	0
Water Visibility	0-0 Ft/ 0-0 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Only a small camera table for underwater photographers, and on some dives it was filled to the limit.

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Dive Review of Ocean Frontiers/Royal Reef Resort in Cayman Islands

Ocean Frontiers/Royal Reef Resort, May, 2003,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Ocean Frontiers/Royal Reef Resort in
Cayman Islands