Little Cayman or Cayman Brac

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I love Little Cayman - I think it has some of the best dives in the Caribbean. Have done a lot of diving on the sister islands and love them all but Little Cayman diving is the best (in my opinion).
We had one of the worst meals ever our first night at the now branded Clearly Cayman Brac resort. Also had an extremely unpleasant trip at the Brac resort - we were there when their big renovation was set to be complete - it was not close to being done and the experience we had was just horrible. The management did not make any effort to acknowledge the mess or offer anything to make up for our vacation in an active, dirty, messy construction zone. Must add that the dive staff were great.
I was at CBBR October 2017, resort was good, food was good, operator was good, diving was good Cayman Brac Beach Resort/Reef Divers Oct 23-30, 2017 I have been to Little Cayman twice, 2010 and 2014, perhaps a little advantage in quality of diving. I also like Compass Point and Ocean Frontiers on Grand Cayman, where I have been twice. I have not been to Cobalt Coast since 2007 and 2008, well before being taken over by the Tibbetts.
 
Its warm, but the seas are a bit rough still...and a good amount surge below too.
 
Sunrise and sunset
IMG_20190130_205857_438.jpg
20190129_180806.jpg
 
I was at the Cayman Brac Beach Resort first week of January. The weather was perfect and the diving was great! The staff was extremely friendly and helpful. Reef Divers staff gave the best pre dive briefs ever and the dive masters know their reefs like the back of their hands.! I will definitely go back.
 
Oh boy! Ten foot swells made recovery on the Newton’s rather wild, but all 21 accounted for.dove the Tibbetts and nearby reef....I’m passing on the afternoon Dive :).....I need a few tequilas.

Interesting. Was 10 foot your estimation, the boat crew's estimation, or that of someone who actually knows what 10 foor seas look like. It would be extremely unusual for Reef Divers boats to attempt to dive in even true 6 foot seas.
 
Since I didn't have a ruler, it's a guess but a damn good one at that :wink:
 
I am skeptical as well. 10 foot seas would trigger small craft warnings. Can't imagine reef divers out in that kind of weather. I've been on their Newtons in maybe 4-5 foot seas; there was significant surge down to 30-40 feet, and diver recovery was very difficult as some of the clients are old, out of shape, obese, or all three.

If you are on a boat at the bottom of a trough looking at a wave crest, it often looks worse than it actually is. The marine weather forecast from that date will give you the true wave heights.
 
Which is better LC or Brac? Well which do you like better, ice cream or chocolate? It is kind of the same type of question. Both are great, and you will get a variety of answers just based on personal preferences. Three things sway me more towards LC...1) I am a bit of an air hog...so the shallower dive profiles give me more bottom time on LC; 2) I LOOOOOVE diving sandy areas with coral mounds and miniwalls around them. It is my favorite kind of diving and LC has a ton of it!; and 3) When we typically go diving during August/September, the place is empty and we have the island almost to ourselves other than the guests at LCBR. The other resorts are closed and many of the locals leave the island...so it just feels empty and desolate and that is what I want out of a vacation spot.

On the other hand, there are some terrific dives on Brac, and if they weren't so deep, I might actually prefer Brac because of the variety of underwater terrain and the wider variety of healthy coral growth. The resort there has been updated more recently and reportedly has better food and a really nice pool, but I haven't put my own eyes on it yet.

All that said, you really can't go wrong with either one. So pick one, and if you are diving with Reef Divers, you will likely get the chance to see the other island at least once during the week.
 
Just came back this weekend from a week at CBBR. Here are my thoughts.

My Diving Experience:
Started in the 70's as a kid, dove for 6 years. Re-certified at 50 8 years ago when my wife decided she did want to dive after all.
6 trips to Bonaire, I to CocoView in Roatan, and 8 in the past 3 years to Cozumel and going back there in April.

What I like to see:
Visibility, color, healthy reefs, lots of fish large and small, photography.

CBBR Resort:
Spectacular. We just loved everyone there. From the house staff to the bartenders to the chef. The dive staff is superb. Our DMs, BJ and Tom, just awesome people, enthusiastic about their island and their work. They know the dive sites like the back of their hand and give the best dive prep I've seen (not knocking CocoView in any way or Pedro Pablo in Coz). These folks understand how the service they provide is tied to their business and personal success better just about any place we've visited in our travels. And it's genuine, not faked. If you go, don't skip Mr Mossy's taxi trip around the island as well. He's a hoot.

The Diving:
It was windy all week. We were able to dive the south side the first two days only and the rest of the dives were around the west end and headed north-north-east. We had one nice calm day to make the LC trip, but we were on a boat with a group that had dove with CBBR many times and the idea was immediately rejected. Sad how people can sometimes be, but so goes our first world 'problems'.

Visibility was pretty good on most dives with many up to 100' even when a bit murky due to wind.

Color, meh. Everything seemed covered in brownish-green algae. Clearly, our number of trips there show a preference for Cozumel. I missed the colors of Coz.

Reef health was quite good. Encourage by the stands of elk horn. Lots of giant vases. Walls were reminiscent of Coz but for the color. Lots of variation to the structure from pristine sand to rubble to knobs both shallow and deep.

Fish levels were disappointing with Bonaire and Coz being our reference points on this.
Each dive started with a prep of what to expect to see that ended up feeling like a list of what one would hope to see instead by EOW.
Did see one elusive flying gurnard which was cool as hell. No green morays but did see a couple brown spotted on the last day. On three dives we saw small spotted eagle rays. Props to BJ for teaching us to lay low when they're sited. During the week there were some green moray sightings and 3 octopus sightings we missed out on including one octopus out swimming while munching a lobster.
Overall, fish, meh.

Photography, a few cools shots of the gurnard running with its wings spread were great. BJ pointed out a blue lettuce leaf slug. I suck at photo and sightings at this point and am always blown away by how the DMs can spot things like that. Left the camera behind the last two days as I was just bored and decided to spend some time diving.

Overall:
Like most of us, we talk to people on trips about the places they've been and what they would suggest. The Caymans were on a lot of peoples lists. Many claiming the best diving in the Caribbean so it piqued our interest.

We read up a lot before going including here on SB. Our original choice was LC based on research, but couldn't get in even though we were booking in August for a February trip.

Given that we only have so much time and money to spend on dive trips, the dive experiences get the most weight in our conclusions and future decisions. We spoke with other more seasoned dive travelers than us on the trip regarding their impressions and most all were in agreement: good trip, glad we tried it, fantastic accommodations and staff, diving so-so.

There aren't any plans in our future to go back to the Caymans at present.
 
Although this recommendation goes against my own self interest (i.e., more competition for a scarce resource), I'd recommend giving Little Cayman its own shot before closing the book on the Caymans. Especially since it sounds like you enjoyed the above-water elements of CBBR.

Our travel map is basically identical to yours (2x Coz [and going next week!!!], 3x Little, 2x CoCoView, 1x Grand, 1x Bonaire, and liveboards for Belize and St. Kitts/Saba). I think it makes a ton of sense to put the most weight on the diving since that's ultimately why we all take these trips, but it's also the aspect of a trip that is subject to the most variation from week to week.

Because of that, when we're figuring where to go next, we actually start with what general vibe we want with the trip. Eat/sleep/dive? Then it's a liveaboard. Want more lounging time and room to spread out? Then it's a dive resort like LCBR or CCV. Wanting to be a bit more active and better food prospects? Then Cozumel or Bonaire. We know that it's all ultimately Caribbean diving/critters and so we'll take our random draw from the distribution and see what happens.

My 2¢.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom