Shallow and Easy Devil’s Grotto / Eden Rock is a quick boat ride from local dive resorts. In fact, Eden Rock is an easy shore for all divers who can splash directly in front of the Eden Rock Diving Center (full service including rentals) or swim from the Paradise Restaurant. Devil’s Grotto is a quick swim to the south. Mooring buoys mark both locations. Here you’ll see beautiful coral cliffs and pinnacles rising some 40 feet (12m) off the sandy bottom. It’s an idyllic setting for underwater enthusiasts whatever their skill level. The Sunset House dive boat


took us out to the Devil’s Grotto, which is a regular stop on its roster of dive sites. And, well, boat diving is just so easy: quick ride out, step off the swim grid directly over the site, all under the watchful eyes of experienced dive masters. What’s not to like? The reef here is shallow, the


sandy cave bottom at 35 feet (10- 11m) or so and in places, just 10 feet (3m) to the reef top. In these shallows divers can explore this maze of tunnels and sun filled caves at leisure. The grottos are home to a large variety of reef fish, including several species of groupers and parrotfish, and other marine life that includes octopus and lobster. You can expect to see many of these critters exploring the Devil’s Grotto caves at any time of year. In the surrounding open water, jacks and tarpon are commonly seen year round too. As mentioned, silversides show


up late June or July and remain through early August and quickly gather in the grottos in a futile effort to elude the tarpon, which remain vigilant and… well fed. Until there’s nothing left to eat. But it’s not always so


predictable. Sometimes the schools of silversides appear later


in the year, or not at all. The last time we came to dive here there was no sign of the silversides. Still, the caves were beautiful. Some open up to large caverns, their walls adorned with red, brown and yellow sponges, often vibrant in shafts of sunlight streaking down from overhead cracks in the rock. And larger openings in the rock play the aquamarine of the Caribbean against the dark substrate. A photographer needs only to turn his or her head to find subjects at this dive site.


Silversides Schedule On this dive we weren’t expecting anything but a leisurely exploration of the caves and surrounding reef. We’d finned the length of a swim- through, and then spent some time working our way around a large coral outcropping. Heading back toward the largest opening in the cave system we hit a wall. Literally. A wall of silversides! They’d finally arrived. There had been no sign of them in July and now in mid October they’d made an appearance... and our dive! The large tunnel entrance we faced was completely blocked by this porous wall of inch-long minnows constantly shifting to evade predators as they charged through the moveable feast. We were thrilled and ready to start shooting but as a moving target the silversides don’t make it easy. In their millions they dive and dodge and dart, as one, in an impressive display of pulling together to survive another day. Photographing such action is a


challenge and a delicate balance of exposure factors. A moderately fast shutter speed helps to capture the action, but a high ISO setting is necessary because of the low light in the caves. Strobes help to freeze the action and light up the cave walls, but if not angled


Cayman Islands photographer Courtney


Platt shoots silversides


properly the light can turn the sheets of tiny fish into one huge gleaming mirror. We looked for opportunities to use the movement of the silversides as an image element such as when they shift to avoid something in their way, like a diver, and in the process frame the subject so that, to illustrate, a diver’s face might appear to be looking through a porthole size opening created ever so fleetingly by the moving mass. On one occasion the silversides


were all around when abruptly the pattern was broken by a large tarpon in the lead of several others, all heading our way. A rush of jacks exploding through the baitfish startled the tarpon, which banged right into the camera housing, almost knocking it to the sandy floor. This Cayman Islands dive


Underwater imaging specialist Jim Hellemn with custom-built gear for large scale, high resolution images


site is a special place. You can’t always count on the silversides aggregating at Devil’s Grotto or Eden Rock on schedule, as we discovered, but even without the rush of schooling baitfish and the tarpon feeding frenzy, these spectacular sites will not disappoint.


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Photo Below : © Jason Belport


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