Diving From Your Doorstep - Sportdiver.com

Grand Cayman's oldest hotel has been transformed into the island's newest diving resort. Long before condominiums and mega-resorts began to crop up along Seven Mile Beach, the Seaview Hotel was a favorite with visiting divers. Now, with a new management team in place and a renovation program well under way, this historic property has once again become a prime choice for visiting divers - especially those seeking value and convenience at a moderate price. The Seaview is a cozy 15-room diver's hotel with its own restaurant, bar, pool and dive center. The rooms are simple and reasonably priced, with air conditioning and telephones, and the bar and restaurant are comfortable and casual rather than elegant. What makes Seaview a favorite with divers is not so much the facility as the location of this facility. It sits at the water's edge, on the protected west side of the island, just south of George Town Harbour. Located close to the airport and within easy walking distance of town, Seaview is perched on the very doorstep of great diving.Shore DivingFrom a diver's point of view, Seaview is a great value for the price. You can get more dives per day, and more dives per dollar, than at most any other resort. Why? Because of the shore diving access and convenience. Your boat diving package is significantly supplemented by the opportunity of unlimited shore diving. You can easily make four or five dives per day on the excellent coral reef system that lies just a few fin strokes from shore. With depths ranging from 30 to 60 feet, these sites offer a series of meandering coral ridges cut with swim-throughs, valleys and channels just waiting for exploration. A few more fin strokes beyond the shallow coral brings you to a lovely drop-off - a steep coral slope that descends into the Caribbean deep. The visibility on the drop-over is typically exquisite. This particular wall is covered with giant sponge formations - basket sponges 5 feet wide, barrel sponges 6 feet tall and fluted sponges 4 feet wide. They are so beautiful and so prolific that you could easily name it Valley of the Sponges. Still want more? No problem. Bob Soto's can bus you over to the dock at the Lobster Pot, allowing you shore diving access to Bob Soto Reef - another shallow reef system that offers cavern diving and close encounters with giant tarpon. Boat DivingSeaview guests are by no means limited to shore diving. They have the best of both worlds, and they don't have far to carry their gear as the dive boats pull right up to the hotel pier. You might expect a small hotel like the Seaview to have a small dive boat. Not so. Since Seaview is part of Bob Soto's Diving network, guests have access to their fleet of seven dive boats. When diving Grand Cayman's North Wall, guests are picked up by Bob Soto's bus and transported to the North Sound Yacht Club for a short ride to the wall, reef or Stingray City. Dive CenterLocated in its own building near the ocean and next to the parking lot, the Seaview Dive Center is configured in a way that allows customers to drive a rental car right up to the door to load or unload dive gear. Adjacent to the dive center is a shower, freshwater rinse tank and gear drying area. Walking across the parking lot brings you to the ocean's edge for either shore diving or boarding the dive boat. The entire facility is compact and convenient.

	Paul Humann; he'd help me ID fish
	Cathy Church; she'd help me set up the perfect shot
	Alan Rebbe; we'd have the wildest dive adventures
	Teddy Tucker; I want to find treasure!
	Richie Kohler; wrecks are where it's at.

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