New Diving TV Show Featuring Grand Cayman
Diving in the Crystal Waters of the Cayman Islands
A scuba diving show that highlights Cayman’s undersea magic is now being networked across more than 20 million homes throughout the United States and Canada.
Into The Drink is described as ‘a drinking show with a diving problem’ by host Nick Lucey, who was part of the team filming the half-hour special in September last year.
“We’ve completed building season one of the show, thirteen half-hour episodes. Destinations from season one include Cayman Islands, Honduras, Turks & Caicos, Guadaloupe Island off the coast of Mexico, which is known for its Great White sharks, Indonesia, Fiji, US Virgin Islands and Costa Rica.
“Typically we feature a local beverage, visit a local brewery, distillery or vine-yard, because divers go on vacation and do more than just dive,” said Mr. Lacey.
While on Grand Cayman, the Into The Drink team visited both the Tortuga Rum Cake factory and Seven Fathoms Rum.
“We’d heard a little about their process and were especially interested in the fact that they age their rum in barrels under the sea. So we were fortunate enough to be blindfolded and brought to the bat cave, so to speak, to see where the rum ages in caves underwater, which is pretty cool,” the new host said.
The team stayed in Sunset House, he said, and in their ten days on island they also met up with Guy Harvey, ate at his restaurant and visited other places, including Cobalt Coast and East End locations. Memorably, the show also includes season one’s host, Aaron Faulls, playing rugby with a Cayman women’s team, something that Lacey said caused great mirth.
Hall of fame
Nick Lacey was editor of Scuba Diving magazine for 15 years during which time he visited Cayman on many occasions.
“Grand Cayman is one of the places that if there were a hall of fame for scuba diving, it would obviously be in there. It’s just a well-established dive destination. If a diver hasn’t been there, they’ve certainly heard about it and it’s on their wish list.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get over to the Sister Islands, but hopefully we’ll do that in an-other episode,” noted Mr. Lacey.
He added that the diving in Grand Cayman was consistently good and although it may be more expensive than other destinations, he felt you get what you pay for with a quality experience.
“The diving infrastructure is well-established; the level of
you get in Grand Cayman [is great]. You go to some destinations and you feel you may be the first diver they’ve ever had to deal with, but in Grand Cayman they’re very well used to dealing with divers and know how to treat a diver.
“It’s a safe destination, a consistent experience and well worth it,” said the presenter.
There are 13 half-hour episodes in season one of the show, including dive destinations in Fiji, Costa Rica and the Caribbean. The show is syndicated on four major networks, including HD Net, which includes Dish Network and Direct TV among others. The episodes may be available online later in the year, according to the show’s producers, Liquid Assets TV.
