Northern Lights
Body of Water:
Caribbean Sea
Max Depth: 30m
GPS Coordinates
Lat: 19.354917
Lon: -81.162
This site is named after the condo development directly onshore and also because it is found on the island's northern shore. Ignore any yarns spun by the crew about seeing the Aurora Borealis – we are too far south for that down here in Cayman!
A gently sloping bottom leads from the pin to the drop-off, which starts around 55 – 60 ft. The slope is composed of alternating channels of sand and fingers of coral and sponge-encrusted rock. Divers make their way down this slope at the beginning of the dive and back up again at the end, looking for a free-swimming Green Moray Eel that frequents this area. Careful, though; he's a curious one!
Divers should look far below them while swimming along the drop-off; you can make out the faint outline of a shelf around 200 feet deep. This vertigo-inducing experience gives you a dizzying sense of scale; Grand Cayman may lack above-water terrain, but it certainly makes up for it underwater!
Take advantage of the narrow channels and overhangs along the wall with abundant sponge growth. The long and stringy Rope Sponges are particularly distinctive, growing together in such numbers as to appear as a tangled mess of shapes and colors. Some glow neon green which is incredibly alien! Northern Lights is a site where a dive light comes in handy. Due to light absorption by the water, we lose color the deeper we go. Replacing this lost light is the key to appreciating the vividness of the sponges and algae.