Grand Cayman - Scuba Diving the East End with Ocean Frontiers part 1

A compilation of footage taken during the first three days of diving on the East End of Grand Cayman.
Shot with GoPro Hero 10 at 2.7K/60fps and (2) Backscatter Macro Wide 4300 video lights. The underwater footage has minor color correction. I wasn’t happy with the new Backscatter Flip 11 red filters which made a lot of my footage too dark. I had to rethink my approach on the fly during the week and ultimately required some work in post. The speed of certain clips has been slightly altered for dramatic effect. A year later and I’m still trying to figure all this out!
Ocean Frontiers is the dive operation we used. They are located on site at the Compass Point dive resort. We enjoyed diving with them and the resort overall. It was comfortable, modern and clean. The staff was helpful and the boats were big with plenty of elbow room between divers. The diving was very diverse with excellent wall and reef topography, healthy corals everywhere including many large elk horns, plenty of curious Caribbean reef sharks who spent plenty of time investigating us without the trepidation they normally exhibit elsewhere in the Caribbean, Nassau groupers, Silverside swarms in the caves of Ironshore Gardens, dramatic swim throughs and much more.
www.oceanfrontiers.com
Music by Mammatus. I don't own any of the rights, nor do I profess to. This account is not monetized. Go buy their albums.
Mammatus - “Sparkling Waters Part Two” from the album Sparkling Waters (2015)
Mammatus - “Sparkling Waters Part One” from the album Sparkling Waters (2015)

[@lostininnerspace8687]

I love diving with tarpon…especially at night 😊

[@joshhart4652]

They sure do have a way of sneaking up on you at night and then dashing through your lights while hunting, like a silver missile!

[@lostininnerspace8687]

100% It’s amazing!

[@Divetech2]

I like diving Tarpon Ally East & West canyons on the North Wall. The tarpon are amazing…

[@Juscz]

Surprised that the Staghorn Corals are still relatively abundant for 2023 on a Caribbean coral reef. There are also some healthy stands of Elkhorn Coral. This is good to know as these two species have been largely wiped out throughout much of the Caribbean. And now with the massive bleaching of 2023 that had affected Cuba's Jardines de la Reina, there are perhaps no relatively pristine Caribbean coral reefs remaining. Thanks for sharing this Grand Cayman dive video.

[@joshhart4652]

Sadly, what you see in this video and the second part are all the Staghorn we saw in an entire week of diving. It's very isolated and we saw more Elkhorn overall. This was filmed in May just before the rising water temperatures of this summer (2023) and I've been told the damage is catastrophic.

[@Juscz]

@@joshhart4652 , wow... say it ain't so..... Very sad, indeed.

[@Divetech2]

⁠@@joshhart4652The west coast of Grand Cayman dive sites also have alot of Staghorn corals. Especially dive site Ghost Mountain. The shore dive at Cobalt Coast (now called Nova) also has many stag horns corals on the mini wall.

[@Divetech2]

@@joshhart4652I have lived and been diving in Grand Cayman for 41 years. There has always been coral bleaching in late summers heat and the reefs always recover by early December.