THIS BODES POORLY FOR CAYMAN: Cayman dive business setting up shop in Turks and Caicos.

Next month, the bulk of the remaining staff and crew of Cayman’s Reef Divers will load up four boats and make the 520 nautical mile, 34-hour ocean crossing to set up shop in Turks and Caicos.

After 16 months without any overseas guests in Cayman, eight staff will join the “Reef Divers armada”, refuelling from portable totes, as they travel to a new outpost.

“We have to go where the tourists are,” said Michael Tibbetts, owner of the business, which is expanding its horizons beyond the Cayman Islands as a survival strategy amid the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and the border closure.

The tourists aren’t on Cayman because the Caymanian government refuses to reopen, and shows no sign of doing so anytime soon.