Re: Trip Report - Little Cayman Beach Resort

Dan Bracuk wrote:

> The Diving
> The diving was very nice. The best diving is on the north side of the
> island and we did every dive except one on that side. On the west

Was the north side wall diving as well?

A question, since you've been to all 3 islands. If you were to return
to any of the Cayman Islands and had to repeat a vacation, where would
it be?

> side is Bloody Bay Wall where the top of the wall is somewhere between
> 20 and 40 feet deep, with a nice reef on top. Further to the east is
> Jackson's Point where the top of the wall is 40 to
> 60 feet deep, with a sandbar on top leading to a mini wall closer to
> shore. Both areas are very nice. The water is clear, but, since we
> went in mid-December, if you went down the wall on the first dive, it
> was kinda dark.


> If You Go, You Should Know
> The aircraft that fly between the three Cayman Islands can only lift
> so much weight. So there are luggage issues. There is a 55 lb weight
> limit, including hand luggage. Plus, if you are travelling on a
> weekend, on the way in, your luggage might arrive the following day

We've experienced the same issues when flying on other small planes. Not
only will you get charged any extra weight (and the allowance has shrunk
even on large carriers), but they won't guarantee the luggage will be on
the same flight you are. Passengers must sometimes declare their own
weight as well, but it has no bearing on their luggage allotment.

> (it happened to the lady in the room next to ours). On the way back,
> everyone was asked to send their luggage ahead to Grand Cayman a day
> early. Most people, including us did so. The big issue was drying
> the wetsuits after the morning dives, but it was a nice sunny day and
> mine got dry enough to send. My Plan B would have been to send my
> parka to Grand Cayman, give the suit more time to dry, and switch it
> around the following day.

I take Sink The Stink and a plastic bag. I soak the wetsuits and
booties after the last dive. If they're still damp when I need to pack,
they go in the plastic bag and into the luggage. Even after nearly 24
hours in the bag, they weren't funky.

Thanks for the report and the pics.

Dan Bracuk wrote:
>
> We did every dive but one on the north shore of the island.
> When I'm referring to the west end, that's the west end of the north shore.

Was this then a southside site (true southside, or in the SW pocket),
or merely a "western end" dive on the northside? If you can remember
its name, I can probably place it.

If it was a "western end of Northside", while most people consider
Great Wall West to be the end of Bloody Bay, the moored sites of
LeaLea's Lookout, Coconut Walk, Baracuda Bight and Joy's Joy are all
considered to be within BB, whereas sites even further to the west
(Fisheye Fantasy, Bubble House, etc) are not considered to be part of
BB.


> The island itself is 1 mile north to south and 10 miles east to west.
> There really is no west shore to speak of.

True, there's not much "west" to speak of, but with the protrusion of
South Hole Sound, this effectively provides westerly-like shelter to
the southside for when the winter winds blow "down the slot" from the
ENE. There's some nice sites in here like Grundy's Gardens and
Pirate's Reef. The alternative is to buck the weather to get up inside
of Jackson's Point (extreme east end before going around the point),
although when there's a N-NNW-NW swell coming in, this will kick up the
sand and trash water visibility to 20ft or less.

> If I were going to go back to a Cayman Island, it would not be Cayman
> Brac. Little Cayman is nicer and has better diving.

Everyone has their preferences. For example, I noticed that you didn't
like how dark Little Cayman's walls are. That's because they're
north-facing, and while they're darkest in the winter, there's really
no time of year that they are sun-lit. The only way to really get a
well-lit wall is to get one that faces the sun, which preculdes Little
Cayman's northside Bloody Bay & Jackson's Bight areas.

While there are some diveable southern walls on Little Cayman, these
are generally to windward and not dived too frequently, but more
significantly, unless you're there with your own group whose explicit
purpose is to go where the tourists don't go, the 'majority rule'
customs for diveboat destination will go past these sites and take you
to the north side. In any event, I've dived some of these and IMO, the
Brac's southside wall are significantly better...and while people often
complain about the depths to the Brac's southside walls, the southside
walls on Little Cayman aren't any shallower than the Brac's.

FWIW, there's also some northside sites beyond (east of )Jackson's
Point, but the odds are that you'll similarly never get to them from
most Little Cayman operations ("too far"), unless an organized group
makes a concerted effort to request them.


-hh

Back from the Pacific ~1.5 weeks early, as the Spirit of Oceana was
damaged in a full Gale en route from Vancouver. Dang. Good news was
that no one was hurt and the damage to the ship wasn't critical.

greatviz asks:

> A question, since you've been to all 3 islands. If you were to return
> to any of the Cayman Islands and had to repeat a vacation, where would
> it be?

I've dived all the Caribbean hot spots including all 3 Cayman Islands on
several vacations, and IMHO, Little Cayman is as good as it gets,....in
the Caribbean.

Different people have different tastes and there are other very good
places ( you would not be disappointed with the Brac or GC), but the
walls and reef life are really something to see.

Dive safe,

/Don