What happens when Facebook fans plan a trip to one of the Caribbean's most popular scuba diving destinations, Grand Cayman?

At first, the elements conspire against me. Easterly winds rake across Grand Cayman's coasts, whipping the water into a meringue of tiny whitecaps. Swells transform ordinary boat boarding into a dance demanding perfect timing. Standing on the dock, I fret. I need to grab my laptop and post an update on Facebook: Bad weather. What now?

This visit, I came packing the ultimate divers' cheat sheet to Grand Cayman. Weeks ago over drinks, Sport Diver's editors and I wondered aloud what would happen if we asked the magazine's readers and Facebook fans to plan my trip. Many of you are among the 1.5 million who visit the island annually: You've been here; you've done the wall; you've eaten the rum cake. I asked and you answered, dishing about the island's best secret spots, from the top shore dives to the best happy hour bars.

Since many of us share only sunny days and proud moments on social media, I pictured conditions straight off any Seven Mile Beach postcard — which meant I failed to ask about rainy-day plans. (Because Grand Cayman almost never loses a dive day to bad weather.)

"Look at the waves," Aaron Hunt, a captain with PADI Five Star Instructor Development Center Sunset Divers, says when I share my list of cherry-picked dive sites from Facebook. "Run times to the sites would be so long that you'd miss lunch. Maybe even happy hour."

We can't have that — this island is known as much for cuisine and cocktails as wall diving. We improvise.

After a deeper first dip at Eagle's Nest, we end up at Devil's Grotto, hailed by the Facebook majority as one of the best shore — and overall — sites on island. That's because it's less exposed to rough conditions, due in part to a path snaking through caverns. Here, count on a couple of sure things: silversides come summer and tarpon year-round, stalking cavern exits, and skirting diver collisions with tiny, almost imperceptible — but powerful — movements. Fix your eyes on them, and it's like sitting on a train at a station when the cars next to you start moving, tricking the senses instantly.

During my initial dive there, from the Sunset House boat, I had been so transfixed by the cavern dwellers that I hadn't given a lick of thought to navigation — so I welcomed the invite from locals Ellen Cuylaerts and Michael Maes to revisit the site later that afternoon for a proper shore dive. The wedded pair first connected with me via Facebook — where else? — and offered to show me around while capturing it on camera.

PADI Five Star Resort Eden Rock Diving Center, much like Sunset House Hotel, offers ideal conditions for shore diving, even on less-than-postcard-perfect days. It seems dreamed up by the minds like those that created indoor ski slopes in Dubai. Here you'll find limestone beaches; no sand affects visibility. Ladders ease the descent — nothing to jar O-rings. It's an easy swim to the site's buoy-marked start, and if you do it underwater, you'll likely spot Nassau grouper, schoolmasters and loads of tiny stuff, like spiny-head and roughhead blennies. They're easy to pinpoint if you tote along the greatest aid to shore diving: a local.

Ellen credits her eye for the Lilliputian to an injury that sidelined her to the shallows for a few months. She picks out several more blennies and cleaner shrimp be- fore heading to the caverns. Even as afternoon clouds collect, light floods in, making the occasional overhead environment entirely inviting.

Three dives stir the appetite — especially for the typically desk-bound like me. The night I arrived, I couldn't resist the smells and scene at Sunset House's My Bar, the spot to clink sundowners with fellow lovers of the deep. Mainlanders and locals alike pack the place, taking advantage of cheap (for Grand Cayman) drinks and easy conversation. My go-to tipple is chardonnay, but your Facebook comments had urged me to order a couple of White Tips, a locally made Corona-like lager sharing profits with a Cayman conservation organization. After a few sips, I fall into talking to a couple of local guys about sharks in Cayman waters but call it an early night.

Just after dawn, I roll up to PADI Five Star Instructor Development Center Ocean Frontiers, again toting my guide: For East End diving, the crowd says I've got to check out Ironshore Gardens, Lighthouse Wall or Omega Reef. I'm told the winds don't favor a trip south to Ironshore Gardens and Lighthouse Wall, so underwater photographer Elly Wray and I drop in at Babylon just as a hammerhead passes. Despite rough waves at the surface, no current stirs the water at 75 feet. The hue of the abyss here is bluer than Cayman's west coast — cobalt the color of Earth seen from space. A slight schism separates the wall from a leaning pinnacle, creating a narrow passageway curtained by wire corals.

If only all second choices in life were this rewarding.

The next dive of the day allows me to check Omega Reef off my Facebook list. Online it was touted as a secret site flush with blennies. But before we ready our eyes to comb the corals, a female hawksbill approaches, nosing up to Elly's dome port. Once satisfied, it eases one eye toward me, curious. With a few fin strokes, it glides my way and pauses. Of course I've forgotten my camera on this dive. But Elly is at my side. She fires off a dozen shots, and still the turtle stays. Twenty minutes later, just as I'm wondering if perhaps this turtle was once in captivity and suspects our pockets hide lettuce, it climbs shallower. For five minutes, we pause. Elly shrugs at me, suggesting we move on. But I sense otherwise. Call me naive, but I suspect the turtle has bonded with us.

It will return — I'm confident of that. OK, fairly sure. OK, maybe just hopeful.

Just as we start to fin back to the drop-off, guess who's back? During the next photo session, which lasts about 15 minutes, I wonder if perhaps this dear was indeed released from the Cayman Turtle Farm. Maybe it wanted to thank us as proxies for its freedom. When it comes to the sea, anything can happen.

I'm tempted to spend another evening mere steps from my oceanfront room, but tonight I want to explore the finds you all listed as favorites. I had posted a query about cheap eats — something as common on Cayman as camels, given the exchange rate, which favors their dollar by 20 percent, and prices that reflect the island's posh rep. When "Judy G Diver" raved about affordable and "fabulous fish tacos" at Sunshine Grill, I had to hunt it down.

Easier said than done. After misinterpreting the one sign designating the turn-in, I flip a couple of U-turns until I find the joint. Kristy the bartender sets me up with wine as I slide against the back wall, stalking a bar stool. I nurse my drink, and 20 minutes and two inches of chardonnay later, I'm happily seated, with an order placed for the fish tacos — a narrow winner against the snapper Reuben recommended by my neighbors on both sides. When Kristy returns to refresh my wine, I ask about the best time to avoid wait times.

She laughs. "Hon, if I tell you 5:15, there would be a rush at 4:30."

It's easy to see why: There's so much laughing, cheering at the football game on TV, and boisterous conversing that it feels warm and welcoming. It's like an episode of Cheers. I end the night playing a conversation-themed board game with the couple seated next to me. As much as I'm tempted to stand my ground that Adrien Brody would make a better Jacques Cousteau than John Mahoney, the dad on Frasier, I have an early dive boat to catch the next morning.

The next day, I meet up with Helen Artal — instructor at PADI Five Star Instructor Development Center Divetech — for a zip around the reef on scooters. After a succinct briefing, we cruise out to Lighthouse Reef, another of the sites on your Facebook list.

The scooter has three speed settings. Of course I abuse the fastest one until I recall Helen's warnings about draining the battery. So I promise myself I'll slow down — later. For now, I'm loving the CliffsNotes version of diving. The divemaster scuttlebutt is that it's eel mating season (that's a moray!). I'm no scientist, but I do find it odd to count four free-swimming eels during our first 15 minutes loping along the reefs. It stands to reason that these determined swimmers are hunting more than just fairy damsels.

Famished, I head back to PADI Five Star Resort Cobalt Coast and my laptop. I log in with a mission. Lionfish have become Godzillas to every tiny Caribbean coral city. Here on Grand Cayman, aggressive efforts to eradicate them seem to be working. This might sound violent, but it tastes delicious. You all recommended a handful of vigilante restaurants dishing up the killer. Pappagallo serves lionfish as ceviche, but several posts warned me to call ahead. I do, thankfully, and find that they won't have more until tomorrow. I settle on Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in Camana Bay. I call ahead and confirm twice that they will indeed have lionfish on the menu, and the hostess just laughs warmly.

Sure enough, the smoked lionfish croquettes with scotch bonnet aioli are a fixture on the menu — good for reefs but perhaps a pain for servers.

"At least once a day I have to assure diners that they won't bite into spines," my server tells me. "It's mostly the bar crowd asking, getting brave after a few drinks."

She also informs me that Michael's Genuine will substitute lionfish for any whitefish on the menu. I save one wahoo from the pan, asking instead for the enemy atop whipped cauliflower, radish salsa and salsa negra — my most delicious act of altruism yet.

That night, I dream of another fish: goliath grouper. Apparently vain, they reputedly stake out the mirrors in the head of ex-USS Kittiwake, slated as Divetech's afternoon boat dive destination.

Come morning, I take a leisurely breakfast at Cobalt Coast, knowing that my shore dive starts whenever I stride down the resort dock. Sea Fan Reef proves surprising — especially as instructor Ondrej Hindl and I stumble upon a pod of 100 squid — but all day my mind is on metal. I am trying to keep anticipation in check, but then I think of the 63 Facebook comments: You all love everything about Kittiwake.

Inside, the wreck is calming and yet exhilarating. Light spills in from countless openings; it's so bright, every room seems like a sun porch where a cat might curl up. Just as we start to settle into tranquility, my buddy Elly and I enter a hold electrified by pursuit. A tornado of silversides spins throughout the room, evading the jaws of a handful of jacks.

We'd forgotten about the current until we slip through one of the hatches; immediately, it tugs us from the wreck. Swarming the top deck, the resident school of horse-eye jacks, some 200 strong, cocoons us as we approach. There is no greater pleasure in life than swimming among so many waving fins and tails. Too soon the lot drifts too high for us to keep their company.

After paying respects to the propeller, we weave back through the holds, pausing at the mirrors. No barracuda or grouper greets us, but somehow I sense we're not alone. Nobody died aboard the ship — I'm not suggesting a haunting — but as I peer at my reflection in the corroded glass, I sense I'm not the only presence doing so.

I'm certain the Kittiwake dive will be the highlight of my trip, until I'm sitting in the dark in the middle of North Sound the next morning. It's cold and I'm soaked from the waves that washed overtop the Ocean Frontier boat that carried us here to Sandbar. According to your comments on Facebook, the Friday morning dawn stingray snorkel is absolutely not to be missed. Conditions are growing worse today, and ours is the only boat scheduled to make the trip. I'd been to a similar patch of sand a few days ago with PADI Five Star Dive Resort Red Sail. Capt. Mark Tarsh had detailed exactly what was and was not permitted during the encounter.

"Ever felt a wet portobello mushroom? That's exactly what a stingray's underbelly feels like," he says. "Be careful not to poke your fingers into their gill slits. They have to suck water over them to figure out what you taste like. And remove your snorkel so you're not the world's biggest slot machine."

I had visited this site three years ago and been so overwhelmed by the fervor of these wet mushrooms that my strategy then — the same as it was in high school — was to avoid hickeys at all costs. This time at Stingray City, I pay attention as Mark explains that you can use a flat palm, especially around the snout, to steer them.

"One more thing: We have a competition on this boat," he says. "It's the only free souvenir on island. Pull away from these guys, you'll get the hickey — and the biggest wins." Apparently, their mouths can attach remora-style on any surface. A nudge will keep them moving, but if they linger, everyone will soon know.

We had been on scuba with Red Sail in about 20 feet of water. I didn't accept any squid nuggets, figuring that it would be less intense if the rays didn't smell food on me. They moved slowly, making their way over my body like the whirling sponges in the drive-through car wash.

Ocean Frontiers anchors in about four feet of water. Soon the sun rises, draping us all in a rosy glow. We have this place to ourselves. Shadowy shapes appear before we toe the water.

I jump in. The sea is much warmer than the air, inviting us to duck-dive among the rays. Perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing, but I swear they seem curious. They repeatedly fly the same arcs around us; if you block their flight path, they limbo to escape contact by a mere inch. As we grow acclimated, so do they, brushing against us. At times, one will cruise right to my belly, investigating me thoroughly with its snout. I take this as my cue to pet it, then guide it with a flat palm. About 20 or so rays join us, including pancake-size babies and adults as wide as tabletops. Given the fact that these guys couldn't be better examples of Pavlovian training, this experience is as organic as it gets. At Sandbar, you're not allowed fins or shoes, so lungs and legs determine how long you can keep up with each passing ray.

I'm breathless. Laughing has tired my cheeks, and my quads are spent. Despite all this, I would happily stay, but our 90 minutes are up.

Back at Cobalt Coast, I hop online. I want to thank those who suggested the Ocean Frontiers dawn snorkel. Truthfully, I also want to brag a bit about this week and these animal encounters, so I post. Part of me expects the floodgates to open, releasing a deluge of comments.

I stare at the white space, waiting, thinking about how Sport Diver's many Facebook fans inspired this trip and helped me plan a week hyperscheduled with the best of Grand Cayman. I should feel thankful, serene. Instead, I feel restless.

Then the ping of a lone e-mail hitting my inbox sounds. A friend I haven't seen in two years has just logged onto Facebook. He read that I was on island, and he just arrived for a project. He has just checked into room No. 5 at Cobalt Coast and wants to meet for dinner.

I laugh. I'd grown so obsessed with my link to 23,000 that I lost sight of one small fact: The kindness of e-strangers is amazingly powerful, but so is the connection to one familiar face to share the joy in real time.

Special thanks to Cayman Islands Tourism, Sunset House, Cobalt Coast Dive Resort, Divetech, Ocean Frontiers Dive Shop and Red Sail Sports Cayman.