Sunset House, Grand Cayman I'm quite sure I gave more than a few people a good laugh when I arrived in Grand Cayman. It was my first trip to the Caribbean and I was toting more Pelican cases than a single person should be allowed to carry. And I was wearing a turtleneck. I needed to get all my bags across the street to the rental agency to pick up my car. Since I was by myself, the only way to do this was to put the heap on a cart and push, and sweat — hence the chuckling. But the people of Cayman always seem to take things in stride, and their mellow mood is contagious. I was quickly in my car and off to the famous diver-dedicated Sunset House in time to watch the burning sun dip beneath the waves and drink a cold beer at My Bar, which brightened my mood instantly. As the last shimmer of daylight disappeared, I turned back to the bar to find it had filled with divers and diver talk. One was an instructor from the on-site dive shop, PADI Gold Palm Sunset Divers. Trying to disguise the fact that I had never even seen water this shade of blue was futile. My diving career up until this point had consisted of a whopping 12 dives — mostly in lakes on the East Coast of the United States. But I'd been bitten hard with dive fever, and despite not being able to convince any of my friends to accompany me to paradise, I couldn't shovel snow off the driveway once more until I'd seen the fabled dive world off Grand Cayman. The instructor listened to my tale and merely smiled. He knew.

That night, I sat out on my terrace overlooking the endless summer sea. Many of the rooms at Sunset House face the ocean, which at that moment seemed calm enough to walk on. I tried to imagine what predator and prey action was going on beneath the dark surface. Under a buoy in the distance, I could see dive lights knifing through the water. I couldn't wait to see what was there myself.

The next morning I was on the spacious dive boat Manta with several other Cayman neophytes and headed to Orange Canyon. Underwater, my buddy (a guy from Canada, who'd heeded the same winter escape call of the Caribbean) and I quickly discovered the obvious source of this site's name. Gigantic orange elephant ear sponges seemed to cover huge swaths of reef. It was dizzying — definitely not what I was used to. There were gorgonians and brilliantly colored tube sponges crawling with sharpnose gobies, crabs and other denizens. With so much to look at I forgot to keep an eye on the blue. There was enough life at this one site to keep me occupied for my entire stay. I exited the water smiling so wide I could hardly keep my lips around the regulator. My new instructor friend nodded. He'd seen the look before. The next few days I dived more incredible sites. I glided through the water with French angels, eagle rays and sea turtles at Trinity Caves. I explored the Oro Verde, and even danced with a mermaid right in front of the resort — albeit she was a 9-foot-tall bronze statue named Amphitrite. I even had a chance to indulge in the most famous dive in the world, Stingray City. The rays arrive in packs and completely surround you. It is an experience you won't soon forget. Still reeling from the week's spectacles, I sat down at My Bar on my last evening to relive my week through the photographs I had developed at Cathy Church's on-site photo center. I had just ordered a drink when I felt a tap on my shoulder. "So?" he asked as he pulled up a stool next to me. "I'm trying to think of a way to quit my job, sell my house and stay forever," I replied. "Oh, I'll see you again. You can't come to the Cayman Islands only once. Look around you. It's like an addiction."