The Cayman Islands travel guide

A passport or birth certificate and photo ID (but not voter registration card) are required for citizens of Canada, UK and British Dependent Territories; visas are not required. Passports are required for visitors of all other countries including the USA. Everyone needs a return or onward airline ticket. Visas are not required for citizens of Commonwealth countries, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Iceland, Irish Republic, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, Portugal, San Merino, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela. If you are from any of these countries you may be admitted to the Cayman Islands for a period of up to six months. Resident aliens of the USA who show a valid US Alien Registration Card (Green Card) may enter and remain in the Cayman Islands for 30 days. Visas are required by all countries not included in the above list and should be applied for at the nearest British Consulate or High Commission Office. Temporary work permits are available for business people on a short visit; these can be obtained in advance from the Department of Immigration, PO Box 1098 GT, Grand Cayman, T9498052. If you want to work in the country you may not accept a job unless you have a government-issued work permit.

Canada, 234 Eglinton Av East, Suite 306, Toronto, Ontario, M4P IK5, T416-4851550, info-canada@caymanislands.ky.

UK, 6 Arlington St, London, SW1A 1RE, T020-74917771, http://www.caymanislands.co.uk.

USA, 8300 NW 53rd St, Suite 103, Miami, FL 33166, T305-5999033; One Lincoln Centre, 18W140 Butterfield Rd, Suite 920, Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181, T 630-7050650; 2 Memorial City Plaza, 820 Gessner, Suite 170, Houston, Texas 77024, T713-4611317; 3 Park Av, 39th Floor, New York, NY 10016, T212-8899009, info-usa@caymanislands.ky.

Cayman Airways Express provide inter-island services from Grand Cayman to Cayman Brac and Little Cayman and return . There are several flights a day from Grand Cayman to Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. You can have a full day on either sister island. Fares are US$132.60 day trip Grand Cayman to Little Cayman or Cayman Brac (US$50.30 day trip Cayman Brac to Little Cayman).

Cayman Airways, T9492311 on Grand Cayman, T9481221 on Cayman Brac, http://www.camanairways.com. Island Air, T9490241 (charters), T9495252 (reservations), F9497044, online reservations can be made at http://.islandair.ky. Air Jamaica, T9492300. American Airlines, T9490666. Northwest Airlines, T9492955/6. US Air, T9497488.

Air communications are good and there are two international airports, the Owen Roberts International Airport on Grand Cayman and the Gerrard Smith Airport on Cayman Brac. Owen Roberts International Airport is situated less than 2 miles from the centre of George Town and only 10 minutes’ drive from most of the hotels on Seven Mile Beach. In a plaza outside the terminal there are car hire companies and a café, open 0600-1800.

The islands are not served by scheduled passenger ships but they are a popular port of call for cruise ships and there are cargo services between the islands, Kingston in Jamaica, Honduras and Costa Rica and Miami and Tampa in the USA. There are three cruise ship terminals in George Town. The port at Creek, Cayman Brac, can handle the same vessels but Little Cayman only has a small facility.

Post The Philatelic Bureau releases six stamp issues a year. Stamps are sold separately or as a First Day Cover from CI$0.10 to 2.00. Airmail postal rates are divided into three groups. Group A: the Caribbean, USA, Canada, Central America and Venezuela, first class CI$0.75, second class, post cards, airletters CI$0.20. Group B: Europe, Scandinavia, West Africa, South America, first class CI$1. Group C: East Africa, the Arabian sub-continent, Asia and the Far East, first class CI$1.

Telephone and internet IDD code: +345. The Cayman Islands have a modern automatic telephone system. Public international telephone booths are at Cable & Wireless (Anderson Sq, Mon-Thu 0815-1700, Fri 0815-1600, Sat 0815-1300) . Communication Station (Fort St, George Town, Mon-Sat 0830-1700) there are 32 telephones, five internet kiosks, a photocopier, fax machine and phone cards for sale. Many hotels offer internet access for guests. The international code is followed by a 7-digit local number. For overseas credit card calls (Visa and Mastercard) dial 0 for operator and follow instructions.

The Caymanian Compass, http://www.caycompass.com, is published Monday-Friday with a circulation of 25,000. For news and information visit Cayman Net News at http://www.caymannetnews.com.

Since 1986, a Marine Parks plan has been implemented to preserve the beauty and marine life of the islands. Even before then, however, a moorings project was in place. This has been highly successful in marine conservation and critical in protecting Cayman’s fragile coral reefs and marine life from destruction by boat anchors. Permanent moorings have been installed along the west coast of Grand Cayman where there is concentrated diving, and also outside the marine parks in order to encourage diving boats to disperse and lessen anchor damage to the reefs. Make sure you check all rules and regulations as there have been several prosecutions and convictions for offences such as taking conch or lobsters. The import of spearguns or speargun parts and their use without a licence is banned. Divers and snorkellers must use a flag attached to a buoy when outside safe swimming areas. For further information call Natural Resources (Department of Environment) (T9498469) .

Although boats take snorkellers to many sites, you can snorkel quite happily from the shore. However, each island has a wall going down to extraordinary depths: the north wall of Cayman Brac drops from 60 to 14,000 ft, while the south wall drops to 18,000 ft. The deepest known point in the Caribbean is the Cayman Trench, 40 miles south of Cayman Brac, where soundings have indicated a depth of 24,724 ft. The Dive Sites of the Cayman Islands, by Lawson Wood (latest edition published by McGraw-Hill in 2001), describes 260 dive and snorkel sites around the islands, together with beautiful underwater photographs mostly taken by the author. One site is the Russian frigate (a Brigadier Type II Class), brought from Cuba and deliberately sunk in 1996 to provide good wreck diving off Cayman Brac. The 330-ft relic of the Cold War was sunk on a sloping bed of sand 27-72 ft deep and only 90 ft from the shore, good for snorkellers as well as divers. It has been renamed the MV Captain Keith Tibbetts, after a popular resident of Cayman Brac, and its sinking was supervised by Jean Michel Cousteau, who stood on the bridge and ‘went down with the ship’. Mounted underwater cameras will monitor the growth of coral, etc.

The dive-tourism market is highly developed in the Cayman Islands and there is plenty of choice, but it has been often described as a cattle market with dive boats taking very large parties. Many companies offer full services to certified divers as well as courses designed to introduce scuba diving to novices; there are many highly qualified instructor-guides. There is a firm limit of a depth of 100 ft for visiting divers, regardless of training and experience and the 69 member companies of the CIWOA will not allow you to exceed that. A complete selection of diving and fishing tackle, underwater cameras and video equipment is available for hire. The tourist office has a full price list for all operators. There is also the liveaboard Cayman Aggressor IV, which accommodates 18 divers and cruises around Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, depending on weather conditions. Contact Aggressor Fleet Limited (T9495551, http://www.aggressor.com) .

Information may be obtained from the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism (Leeward 2, Regatta Business Park, West Bay Rd, Grand Cayman, KY1-1102, BWI, T9490623, toll free 1800-3463313, http://www.caymanislands.ky, 0830-1700) . The Department of Tourism publishes a Travel Planner annually, giving hotel prices as well as other useful information. The Cayman Islands National Trust (Dart Park, 588 South Church St, http://www.nationaltrust.org.ky) has a lot of historical and environmental information.

The Cayman Islands Government Information Services (The Pavilion, Cricket Sq, Grand Cayman, T9498092, F9498487) publishes a series of booklets including Marine Parks Rules and Sea Code in The Cayman Islands and several on banking, captive insurance, company registration, residential status, work permits, living in the Cayman Islands, etc.