SeaHorses Trip to Sunset House, Grand Cayman
November 15th – 22nd, 2025
The SeaHorse Dive Club journeyed once again to Sunset House on Grand Cayman, for a week of diving and, well… mostly diving, and the camaraderie of being with your fellow club members and friends. We also had some intrepid non-divers who explored the things the island has to offer above the water.
Our travelers were: Jeff Greene (trip leader), Jay Greene, Joe Sharp, Kaitlin Sharp, David Wakeley, Dane Dormedy, Dauzy Dauzenroth, Judy Dauzenroth, David Delgado, Randy Pedersen, Jake Jurmain and Grace Li, Joyce Hoffman and Chris Turner.
If you want to see what it was like, Randy Pedersen put together a fantastic video of our trip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnkxBZkVLJU
The Journey to Sunset House
The trip to Sunset House is long. It’s a 6-hour flight from Seattle to Miami, which is the hub for most flights to Grand Cayman, and a 1-hour hop from Miami to the island. Throw in getting to the airport your TSA recommended 3 hours ahead of time, plus a nearly 3-hour layover in Miami and it’s a very long day, or night for those of us who opted for the overnight itinerary. Like previous trips, a few people added an extra day at the beginning and arrived on Friday, with most of our group coming in on Saturday.
What’s Sunset House Like?
Just like their ad says, Sunset House is a resort made especially for divers. It’s nice but not fancy or pretentious. The rooms are spacious and clean, the staff is friendly and helpful, and everything you need is right there. The restaurant, bar, dive shop, and dock for the dive boat are all right on-site. And there’s a pool and “hot” tub (same temperature as the pool) for those who aren’t wet enough already. Dive lockers, weights and gear bags are provided. Nitrox was included in our package for both boat dives and shore dives. And they have everything you need if you need to rent some gear. Sunset House also comes equipped with two resident resort cats, Oreo (a boy cat, white with dark markings, kind of like a cow, very friendly to humans but a bit of a jerk to their other cat) and Midnight (a petit black girl cat).
They also have an excellent house reef and offer unlimited shore diving. Shore diving is very hard to find in a dive resort. That’s what brought us back for the second time in three years. Our group likes to dive. A lot. For many, the 2-tank boat dive in the morning was just getting the day started.
Diving at Sunset House
From trip leader Jeff Greene: “The dive portion of the Sunset House is a very organized well-run operation. When we arrived, I expected a few questions regarding certs, etc. for the group. In my initial discussion with Mel, the manager Sunset Divers, she confirmed they had already verified everyone’s certs, paperwork and the group was good to go following a dive brief which was delivered as everyone arrived. The one main rule was no “solo diving” since it’s a Grand Cayman law. They were great at having tanks ready to go for shore diving as long as we planned ahead and picked them up before they closed at 5pm and were really good at verifying the O2 amount for the Nitrox tanks.”
The Boat Diving
The boat diving from Sunset House is about as easy as it gets, except for having to get up in time for breakfast at 6:45 AM, with “lines off” on the boat at 7:45. All you have to do is have your cooked to order breakfast at the restaurant, put on your scuba suit, go to your locker and grab your gear bag, and meet at the dock. Then the boat comes in, the crew passes your gear onto the boat, you get on board AND SIT DOWN! And you’re off.
Note: Sitting down immediately was important. The space around the dock it tight, with sharp, threatening rocks close on the starboard side, and if it’s a little rough, like it was on our first, and especially on our second day, it goes kind of like a NASCAR pit stop: They bring the boat in and the staff springs into action like an expert pit crew. As the boat reaches the dock, they tie it off quickly. With engines still running, they efficiently snatch up and sling the gear bags onboard while the divers are (safely) hustled aboard and asked to sit IMMEDIATELY, so they can cast the lines off and the captain can reverse the hell out of there. I didn’t time it, but I’d guess the whole thing took less than two minutes.
When the water quieted down on subsequent days, the process was a far more relaxed, but still highly efficient.
Our Crew
We had a boat just for us, and our crew for the first part of the week was Tyler as captain, and divemasters Jay and Jess. Later in the week, our first crew got some well-earned time off (after dealing with us), and Alex took over as captain, with divemasters Beck and Cam.
See all of their smiling faces below in the Acknowledgements.
The Boat Dives
There were two boat dives every morning, a deep one followed by a less deep one. The diving rules for Sunset House were pretty straightforward: no solo diving (as Jeff said, this is a Cayman Islands law), no decompression diving, stay above 100 ft., obey your computer and perform all mandatory stops, come back with 750 psi in your tank, be back on the boat (not under the boat) in 60 minutes, and don’t touch, tease, or in any way harass the wildlife. The average deep dive went to 85 ft. or so, but on a couple got as deep as 95 ft. Okay, a couple of us might have lost track on a dive or two and exceeded the 100 ft. rule, but in our defense, for most dives in Puget Sound you have dirt under you the whole time; you can get deep, but the bottom slopes away so it’s harder to accidentally get too deep, whereas Grand Cayman is known for its dramatic, near vertical walls that drop straight down into the abyss. If you’re not used to it, it’s easy to be a little negative and sink a bit until you feel that ominous ear pop.
| Sunset House Boat Dives | |||
| Date | Dive 1 | Dive 2 | Dive 3 |
| Nov. 16th | Round Rock | Caribbean Club Sand Chute | |
| Nov. 17th | Easy Street | Killer Puffer | |
| Nov. 18th | Orange Canyon | La Mesa | Kittiwake Wreck |
| Nov. 19th | Portabella | Doc Poulson Wreck | |
| Nov. 20th | Dragon’s Hole | Devil’s Grotto | |
Former Crew Member Returns to the Kittiwake
During the dive briefing for our dive on the Kittiwake, our captain, Tyler, told us it was his honor in 2019 to help take a former crew member of the Kittiwake, Pete Larson, who was stricken with terminal cancer, on a dive through his former ship. There’s a great article in the Cayman Compass, with a video. This dive was a last request from Pete. The dive took place in April of 2019. Pete passed away in June. Be sure and watch the video. I’m not crying you’re crying!
(and Dave)
The Doc Poulson
The Doc Poulson is an 80 ft. former Japanese underwater cable laying ship, and dredge, sunk in 1982 as a tourist attraction. It is named after Dr. James Poulson, the first physician to introduce hyperbaric medicine to the Cayman Islands, and apparently a real character. The dive is beautiful. The wreck sits in a sand patch in 60 ft. of water, right next to a beautiful coral reef. There’s lots of life on it, and it’s open and safe to swim through it.
Doc Poulson
Shore Diving
Again, from Jeff: “The reef at The Sunset House was really interesting starting with a nice ocean pool along with a few spots along the rocks to jump in to start your dive, leading to a short swim to the nearshore reef. Heading out from the pool, at the bottom of the nearshore reef, you find the world-famous mermaid statue, Amphitrite. In Greek mythology, Amphitrite was the wife of Poseidon. She was also considered the personification of the sea as a whole, and the mother of seals and dolphins. The reef stays relatively shallow around 40′ and is where we typically find angelfish, small crabs, lobsters (daytime), octopuses and tarpon (at night). The shallow reef, and the area around the statue was nice to explore on a night dive for people that did not want to get too far from the pool entrance in the dark.
Beyond this reef it typically drops to a large sandy area around 60′ with a few coral heads and lots of garden eels and some really large lobsters at night. Out in the sand, you could head straight out to an old sunken WWII landing craft, the Nicholson, that often had a large Nassau grouper that liked to check us out, or head left across the sand out to a huge old anchor. Out beyond the anchor and landing craft there was an outer reef at about 55′ where we found barracudas, groupers, lionfish and the occasional stonefish. Beyond the outer reef in one of the sand chutes, is where you would find a freediving buoy around 50′ below the surface anchored at around 165′ right on the edge of the Cayman wall. A few of us were out there multiple times and were planning a nighttime blackwater dive, but never had the right current conditions to go hang out over the wall in the total darkness to see what pelagic animals show up.”
Some of our group took full advantage of the unlimited shore diving. They were only limited by time, hunger and Nitrogen exposure. Our package included 11 boat dives. Some of our group did 25 or 26 dives during the week over 5 full diving days. In other words, they averaged about 3 dives per day AFTER the morning 2-tank boat dives. Their gear was never dry the entire trip.
The Salt Water Pool
The salt water pool is a large, square pool, cut out of the limestone rock, about 6 to 8 ft. deep, with a gap that’s open to the ocean, that gives divers a great place to gear up and get comfortable in a protected space, before swimming out for a shore dive. There’s a path from the pool directly out to the Mermaid and the Nicholson.
But it’s not just an entry and exit for shore diving. The salt pool has a surprising amount of life in it. Kaitlin found a number of creatures in there that you just wouldn’t expect in such a confined space, including anemones, sea urchins, a mantis shrimp, and an octopus.
The Giant Stride Entry Points
The salt pool isn’t the only place to start and/or end your shore dives. There is no beach at Sunset House, it’s all what is called ironstone (which isn’t iron at all, it’s actually limestone that’s been made sharp and craggy by millennia of microbes gnawing on it) but the path along the shore has a couple of short walkways jutting out into the water, with ladders, and there are two designated giant stride entry points that resemble cliff diving more than your traditional giant stride entry, marked with arrows carved into the cement. Standing on the arrow looking down, you see a landing zone with sand at the bottom, surrounded on three sides by very sharp rocks. You can’t be timid. Your stride has to be truly “giant” to clear the rocks right beneath you. And the drop is substantial. You have time to think, “Did I stride far enough?” or “Why am I still falling?” before you (thankfully) plunge into the water.
Grand Cayman Underwater
Grand Cayman has great diving for all levels of diving skill and experience. There are shallow reefs full of life and dramatic walls and sand chutes that drop into the deep, swim throughs and wrecks, and big critters like sharks, stingrays, eagle rays and tarpon, to small stuff like Caribbean octopuses and blennies and the usual colorful reef fish; all easily accessible a short boat ride from the resort, or from shore.
Dry Land Adventures
From Chris Turner: “I love Grand Cayman. Joyce and I thought we should stay another week. LOL
Here is my two cents worth:
Grand Cayman was a great place to explore even for a non-diver like me. Thanks to Suzanne Delgado’s tips about cycling early before the day got hot, and the use of hotel’s complimentary single speed beach bicycles.
I visited beautiful beaches along the South Sound Road to Pedro St. James, along the West Bay Road including the Governor Beach, Seven Mile beach, Hell, stopped at Camana Bay farmers market and shopping center at Grand Harbour. I rode the bike every morning for exercise, Monday thru Friday.
Sunset House was an ideal place to stay. I love the salt water pool to go in and out for snorkeling. I went a couple times, and once with Judy. Once i tagged along with Joyce snorkeling at sunset, her light really helped seeing things in the dark.
Judy and I used the public bus to visit the Cayman Turtle Center. We visited the National Trust for Cayman Islands (a visitor center offers tours) and Smith’s Barcadere beach.
Joyce and I checked out Pure Art (local arts for souvenirs). These places are walking distance from the hotel.
We were treated to a drone show and fantastic fireworks in Georgetown harbour at the end of pirate week.”
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jeff Greene for leading this year’s trip and Dave Wakeley for handling all the money. We’d also like to thank Kim Pisano, the resort manager and Mel Hart, the dive shop manager, for taking such good care of us all week. Our boat crew were great; captains Tyler and Alex, and divemasters Jay, Jess, Cam and Beck.
Finally, thanks to our group for coming on this trip, and being such a blast to dive and hang out with. Hopefully, we’ll all be able to get together and do it again soon.
Where Are We Going Next?
Pieter Booth is leading a tip to the Philippines in May, but we don’t know where our next adventure might be. Is there someplace you’ve always wanted to go? Let us know at travel@seahorsediveclub.com and maybe we can make it happen.
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