Cayman Brac dive profiles

[AtomicWalrus]

Hi,

I'm going to be at Brac Reef in a few weeks, and I'm curious about what the dive profiles are like. I've noticed that most of the dives listed on the divecayman.ky website seem to start at ~50 ft, including the walls. These would seem to be the deeper dives that one would do for the first dive of the day. Since subsequent dives are supposed to be shallower, where are they typically done and what sort of depth range are they? It seems to me like the biggest drawback of diving off Cayman Brac is going to be restrictions on NDL relating to depth.

Anyway, I doubt I can seriously complain about this! Out here in BC I'm used to deep, cold dives in dubious vis and some unpleasant currents. This'll be only my 2nd time in warm water (warmer than 59°F, that is), and I'm really looking forward to it!

 

[SueMermaid]

The thing I loved about CB so much was the variety of the sites.
I would not call this a place with mostly deep diving. We did do a couple of deep ones, but most of the diving was in the 60 ft range, (many shallower sites, also) as I recall, (I don't have my logs here at work, so I am getting this from memory). I would not say that this is a drawback of CB in particular. You won't have to worry about exceeding your NDL any more than other places, if that is what you mean.

 

[MechDiver]

The top of the reef around CB is generally 50' as you said, the walls drop from there to 3 or 4 thousand if memory serves. Your first dive will be a wall to 100 or so, with the top at 50. I believe max depth in the Caymans is 110' or thereabouts, which was a local limit at least the last time I was there.

The second dive is just on top of the reef to 50' or so depending on the site. Little Cayman is actually where the primo diving is (Bloody Bay) so go there any chance you get

Have fun.

MD

 

[zf2nt]

The top of the reef around CB is generally 50' as you said, the walls drop from there to 3 or 4 thousand if memory serves. Your first dive will be a wall to 100 or so, with the top at 50. I believe max depth in the Caymans is 110' or thereabouts, which was a local limit at least the last time I was there.
MD

Everybody who goes diving with any legitimate operator in the Cayman Islands is required to sign a statement that they understand the limit is 100', that they promise not to go below 100', and that they understand exceeding 100' may result in their diving privileges being cancelled with that operator without any refund. In practice, I've never seen anybody thrown out in the cold this way. However, you're sure to hear about it from the divemasters if you do go down below 100'.

The reason this is a universal requirement in CI is because of the Cayman Islands Tourism Assocation--CITA.

By the way, if you're concerned about running out of NDL before you run out of air you might take an Enriched Air course before you go, or even there at the Brac Reef Resort. You can go as deep as 110' on Nitrox 32, and your NDL is 50% greater than if you're using air (30 minutes instead of 20). There are some dives on Little Cayman (e.g. Cascades) where there's almost nothing of interest above 90'. Nitrox comes in real handy for spots like that. But for most of the sites, you can cruise the wall in one direction at ~100', then come back at 60'. The wall looks totally different at different depths, and doing a multi-level dive like this extends your bottom time. (Of course, you will need a computer. And no...I'm not going to push the wheel for this!)

Bruce

 

[caymaniac]

Allot of the dives close to shore around the Brac are at the 30-35 ft., and yet you can easily follow the reef out to 50ft. The evidence on this would be at dive sites like "Tarpon", "end of island", "Greenhouse", "Sergeant Major", "Plymouth Rock", "Butterfly Reef", ect. ect. I can keep going. And there are plenty of areas to reach the 100 ft. level, if you want to see the Flying Gunards they are usually found at "School Bus Wall" at which the reef starts at 90ft. but at 65 in the large sandy areas you'll find the Gunards. Or how about East Chute where the wreck is at 60 but on the wall you can start at 110ft. There is plenty variation in depth...and one must be a responsible diver as you might be asked how deep you went, they don't check your computer.
I hope you have a blast!!

Dive Safe,
Caymaniac

 

[-hh]

I'm going to be at Brac Reef in a few weeks, and I'm curious about what the dive profiles are like...It seems to me like the biggest drawback of diving off Cayman Brac is going to be restrictions on NDL relating to depth.

In broadest brush:

AM Dive #1: a wall dive
AM Dive #2: a reef dive
PM Dive: a reef dive
Night Dive: a reef dive

For wall dives,

On the Brac's northside, its generally ~50fsw to the top.

On the Brac's southside, its generally a bit deeper; I'd call it ~65fsw to the top.

Do note that several of the Brac's southside walls are what are called "double" (or "insde-out") wall formations: the easiest way to think of these is as a normal wall in which someone has drained the sand on the inside of the wall formation, creating a giant "Jersey Barrier" that from the sand side must either be swum over ... or through ... before you reach the drop-off. For reference, some of these double wall formations are 30ft in vertical height on the inside.

Overall when looking at the southside, the real difference is that you lack water shallower than ~60fsw to let yourself be "chased up to" as your NDL approaches, so you're forced to choose between going into Deco or coming up with extra air. This condition is excentuated when you have an overly conservative dive computer.

The general appeal of these sites are the presence of swim-thru canyons/tunnels which penetrate through the wall to the drop-off, plus they generally have more hard corals (less soft) and are less frequently dived since they're on the windward side of the island.




For the reef dives, they're generally either spur-and-groove formations or spot reef formations. The typical depth are roughly 20fsw to the top of the coralheads at/near the boat's mooring, sometimes less. Swimming towards shore, it gets shallower, with the reef formations tending to end in hardpan at around 15fsw. Swimmiing towards the wall, the reef gets deeper, tending to become low profile in 50-60fsw. Between the two, you can generally expect 10-25ft of vertical relief, and your dive durations are generally limited by air and what time the operation wants to have you back for lunch (an hour of BT is pretty common).


-hh

 

[AtomicWalrus]

Thanks -hh,

I do lots of wall diving out here, but I guess I'm spoiled by being able to wind all the way up to the surface while staying within my NDL. I usually get to poke around in the shallows at 10-20 ft towards the end of my dives in BC.

I think I'll probably avail myself of 32% nitrox on this trip to pad out my bottom time and/or buffer myself a bit. Guess I'll finally get some good use out of my O2 analyzer!

 

[Vic McAlister]

My wife and I are looking forward to being at CB in mid August. Great to hear all the info and reviews.

Regards,

Vic

 

[AggieDiver]

The one nice thing about the Brac is that you rarely will be in a drift dive situation where you have to follow the group or risk losing the boat. Most dives are moored and you are free to head for the shallows near the end, although you will have to do your stop over deeper water to be near the boat. Howver, many of the dive sites have steep enough shallows that you can do a fair amount of time in 20-30 feet of water if you want to without straying very far from the boat. Some of the shallower "inner walls" in my experience get less attention and tend to have more varied types of marine life than the main wall crest. One that comes to mind specifically is East Chute. Up in the sand towards shore, beyond the Cayman Mariner is a large sandy area with an inner spur of coral that runs roughly parallel to the shore line. In and around the spur, my wife and I have found peacock flounder, many jawfish and blennies, rays, trumpetfish, and several other interesting critters. The interesting part is that most of the other divers stayed out closer to the wall and missed most of it.

As for overall profiles, the crew gives a standard profile like 80' for 45 mins for the first dive and 60 feet for 50 minuts for the next two (based on typical table profiles I think). These are nice guidelines, but I never saw them get after anybody for stretching bottom time as long as nobody abused it and made everybody wait on them. My wife and I were routinely first or second in the water, and we regularly put in 60-70 minutes of bottom time and were usually not the last on the boat. So as long as you get to the dock and ready to go early in the morning and encourage your boatmates to do the same, they won't have alot of pressure to get you back in time for lunch and will let you expand your profiles a bit (provided you are diving with a computer).

Good luck and let us know how you like it. Try to get them to do a bluff run if weather conditions permit. It is a nice trip, but they are usually reluctant to do it due to the gas it consumes.

Aggiediver