Paradise Found in the Cayman Islands

According to Tripadvisor’s 2014 Traveller’s Choice awards which were published this week, the Cayman Islands was voted as the 3rd best Island in the Caribbean to visit! WOW, we here at Sail Cayman are pretty stoked! Boasting our own 2013 Certificate of Excellence Award from TripAdvisor Sail Cayman would like to believe that we were an integral part of the Cayman Islands attaining this outstanding accolade.

Now let’s take a look at Paradise right here in Cayman and how Sail Cayman can help you realize our awesome paradise!

Our Captains, Orneil, Neil and Antonio have collectively shared some fabulous lifestyle images on our Facebook page this week. Neil Galway helped out with the TRIO International Kite Boarding Event, he used our beautiful and bright yellow RIB as a safety boat and then took the participants on an unforgettable snorkel charter to Stingray City with Splendour In The Wind and Lazy Daz.

Neil took TRIO participants to Stingray City on Splendour In The Wind and Lazy Daz

Orneil did what he loves to do best on his day off. He took his lovely wife and 2  adorable girls to Starfish Beach on The RIB. The 2 girls had a fabulous time meeting the Starfish!

Orneil’s wife and two girls at Starfish Beach

Orneils’ two girls make friends with a starfish

Proud Dad Orneil

Nicolas took these awesome pics of NautiGal and Splendour In The Wind as they were anchored side by side in the North Sound on a snorkel charter. The clear blue water, the sunny skies, and the stunning boats literally makes for a picture perfect moment that so many dream of.

Huge thanks to all our wonderful clients and friends who have sailed and chartered with Sail Cayman, but above all thank you to all the visitors to Cayman who put our islands in 3rd place!

As the saying goes: “Y’all come back now you hear”

Want to get to your boat and snorkel charter destination faster? No problem!

Yes our company name is Sail Cayman and yes we have two beautifully kept and cared for yachts and yes the word sailing certainly invokes a dreamy vision of cruising clear blue waters with fresh ocean breezes in your hair.

But what if you like speed, what if you like to get where you are going fast? No problem, once again Sail Cayman steps up to the plate, this time with two power boats ideal for charters to Stingray City, Coral Gardens snorkeling, Starfish Beach, the Mini Sandbar, Rum Point or Kaibo. Lazy Daz offers shade, speed and space and the very yellow and very bright RIB offers speed, adventure and a lot of fun. Sail Cayman even offers reef fishing sessions on Lazy Daz where we provide tackle and bait.

Now we’ve reached your destination of choice super fast on Lazy Daz or the RIB, your Captain hand out complimentary masks and fins and before you enter our beautiful clear water remember to please not touch or kick the reef as we’d like it to be here and healthy when your grand children comes to visit and go on a charter with our grand children!

Now let’s take a look at what can you expect to see

Purple Seafans, always grow perpendicular to the current and prefers quite shallow water where they get lots of sunlight. Please please please resist the temptation to take one home! We love our seafans and we think they add just the right amount of purple to our Caribbean Seas!

A pair of butterfly fish, they mate for life and always cruise the reef as a couple searching for the next meal. Here Orneil captured them above a healthy head of star coral.

Sea Urchins, lovely to look at, in fact fascinating to look at but NOT to hold and also preferred on the reef and not a sushi roll please! Now if you ever end up with some urchin in your foot or hand, don’t panic, simply immerse the affected area in hot water, as hot s you can handle it. The heat will relieve the pain and speed up the process of the broken spines coming back out.

 A Flounder and two butterfly fish cruise the sandy flats. Perfectly camouflaged the flounder is the underwater version of a chameleon.

 Nice shot Orneil! Pink tipped anemone…we challenge you to say that fast 10 times over! Look closely inside these anemones for the golden crowned blenny, a tiny little fish with a gorgeous crown of gold on it’s head and a symbiotic relationship with their host anemones.

We hope you enjoyed our Sail Cayman underwater trip! And as they say here in Cayman; “More soon come!”

Snorkeling in Grand Cayman opens up a whole new world

We were trying to decide what the next topic of our Sail Cayman Blog would be and lo and behold we received an email from Orneil Galbraith, one of our Sail Cayman Captains from a wonderful snorkeling charter he had with some of our Sail Cayman guests this week. And just like that we had the perfect topic to blog about because snorkeling in Cayman is inevitably and always a great time.

Orneil happens to be an excellent free diver and snorkeler so let’s take a look at his photos and tell you some more about these really cool ocean creatures;

Spotted Drums as you can sea are very unique looking fish. The Juveniles are born with pea sized bodies, and long flag-like tails. As they mature the tail fins become smaller and the stripes become more noticeable.  Quite rare and very hard to spot as they like to hid under coral heads.

Staghorn Coral, one of the fastest growing corals at approx 2 inches a year, but sadly also the most delicate. So please be careful with your fins when approaching this species!

A beautiful juvenile Green Sea Turtle.

Stunning Caribbean Reef Squid. They change colours continuously, truly brilliant little creatures that have their own jet propulsion that allows them to swim forwards and backwards and shoot out of harm’s way super fast.

A male Stoplight Parrot fish. It may be one of the most common sighting on Cayman’s reefs, but is still one of the most beautiful!

Back at the boat Orneil was greeted by a Remore, also knows as a suckerfish as they have ‘sucker pads’ on their heads. Commonly seen on sharks and rays, these fish hang on for any morsel of food and a fast ride.

A grey angel fish cruising the reef. They love approaching snorkelers and are super inquisitive especially if you have a morsel of food to share.

We love seeing big fish like this Dog Snapper on our reefs. Slow cruisers, they make for great photos.

Stingrays! We love them as we mentioned in our previous post. This one was cruising the reef just next to Stingray City.

Here’s a rare little Yellow Spotted Ray cruising the sandy flats. You can also find them hiding out under coral heads on the deeper reefs.

Well done on this pic Orneil! An Caribbean Reef Octopus in broad daylight. Truly magnificent creatures and one of the most intelligent in the ocean.

Until next week and our next blog we will leave you with this parting shot of a Green Moray Eel.

We hope you enjoyed our blog this week on our Snorkeling Charter in Cayman and we hope that, when you do make it down to Grand Cayman we can show you our awesome underwater world!