New country souvenir, Cayman Islands, with Geocache of the Week: Kittiwake
Today, we released a new country/regional souvenir for the Cayman Islands. If you have found a geocache in the Cayman Islands, you automatically receive the souvenir on your profile.
The Cayman Islands are a group of three islands in the western Caribbean Sea. The islands are actually the peaks of an underwater mountain range, with steep sides that are completely vertical in some places.
Photos by kribnkrew, Sarah_Beara, Andi_26, LibLabLady, and aogagent1
The smallest island, Little Cayman, has a population of less than 200 with secluded beaches and the largest colony of red-footed boobies in the Western Hemisphere. Bloody Bay Marine Park offers a spectacular diving experience, with a sea wall that drops 6,500 feet (2,000 m) into the abyss!
Cayman Brac is the next largest island, named for its limestone cliff that runs the length of the island. The limestone contains caves and sinkholes, and the inland part of the island is a bird watcher’s paradise with lush forests and plenty of hiking trails. The Brac Parrot Reserve is home to the endangered Cayman Brac parrot, which lives only on this one island.
The biggest island, Grand Cayman, is a popular cruise ship stop, home to tropical beaches, rum distilleries, stingrays, sea turtles, and beautiful critically endangered Blue Iguanas.
Photo by freefaller2004
The Cayman Islands’ most popular features by far are shipwrecks. There are hundreds of them! Ships have been crashing into the Cayman Islands’ coral reefs and sinking for nearly as long as ships have been sailing in the Caribbean. The oldest is the Spanish galleon Santiago which sank in 1522, only 30 years after the first arrival of ships to the Caribbean in 1492.
One of the more recent shipwrecks is our Geocache of the Week. The USS Kittiwake, best known previously for being the ship that recovered the black box from the Space Shuttle Challenger, was deliberately sunk on the west side of Grand Cayman in 2011 to become an artificial reef. It is now one of the world’s top diving attractions and home to an epic geocache, GC4BAC0 Kittiwake.
Unless you’re a very accomplished free diver, you will need S.C.U.B.A. gear and training to find this cache. The ship has 5 decks to explore, though you need special certification to go beyond the first 3 decks.
Your adventure will usually begin on a dive boat, with everyone aboard excited to see the wreck for themselves. You can see the ship from the boat before you get there, 40 feet (12 m) below the clear and impossibly blue Caribbean water surface. The anticipation doubles, even triples, with the first sighting! The dive boat lets down its anchor, you check your equipment one last time, and into the warm water you go. After a short swim, you are there, and the wreck is teeming with fish. You are a guest in their home now.
Photos by greenytwit, NoBucksRanch, and rolofant
Once there, make a beeline for the diving bell. It may not be the most exciting feature of the wreck, but you are a geocacher. You’ll want to find the cache first, and use the remainder of your dive time to leisurely explore the rest of the ship. Into the diving bell you go, and there is your prize – a big yellow dive box. Make sure you bring a pencil or a pen that works underwater. Sea water is not kind to pens left inside the container, and you won’t want to miss signing your name in this log book!
Photo by Hindl.com
Mission accomplished! Now you can explore the rest of the ship at your own pace. The fish come and go – you never know what you will see. All too soon, it’s time to return to the boat. You’ve had a diving experience you’ll never forget, and an epic geocache to mark your accomplishment!
Photo by bitbrain
We know geocachers love country and regional souvenirs and we do too! We are releasing at least one new country/regional souvenir per month starting in January 2019. These new souvenirs will be featured alongside Geocaches of the Week in each region and shared on the third Wednesday of each month. Check out all of the Geocaching souvenirs here.
Continue to explore some of the most amazing geocaches around the world. Check out all of the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog. If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, fill out this form.
