Cayman Brac or Little Cayman?

[-hh]

I have dived many sites on Cayman Brac and have nothing against it.

Unfortunately, that avoids actually answering the question that was posed.

As much as I enjoy LC dive sites, the unfortunate reality is that it isn't anymore as great as its reputation. As caymaniac and I have said, the Bloody Bay reefs are getting "loved to death" and we've witnessed the decline firsthand from spending many years diving there.

This is not a competition over who has more dives. It is merely a recognition that the experience from '1000 dives in 2 years' will invariably be different than 1000 dives in 20 years.

For example, over 80% of the reef today is "weedy" spreading corals and not branching corals - - this ratio change didn't occur in a mere 2 years.

Similarly, the size of the typical "large" barracuda today is roughly half (50%) of what it was before the local Rotary Club started an annual fishing tournament. Again, its a change over time.

If you dive bloody bay wall, ask the crew of your boat, how many of the boats they see that morning that are from cayman brac.

Things have changed....what you're suggesting was true prior to 1993, and died out more than a decade ago.

Historically, this pattern went away due to a government rule imposed on the dive operations of "Max number of boats per day". This wasn't done to protect the reefs, but instead was to punish/reward select businesses (you can guess who). This is classical small town politics.

In 2006, there was the introduction of a "Max 20 Liveaboard" rule. Gosh golly, the Aggressor benefitted from having the operating costs of the Nekton increased, which did succeed in effectively driving them out of the Caymans market.

Unfortunately, due to Cayman work permit rules, most ExPats don't really stay around in the Caymans for all that many years and as such, the politics, history and long timescale perspective are often (although not always) lost.

So as caymaniac and I have said, the Bloody Bay reefs are getting "loved to death" and we've witnessed the decline firsthand from spending many years diving there.

BTW, the top exit from Marilyn's Cut is now larger than ever. Simply more evidence of divers loving the swimthrough, but knocking off live coral.

After you head back to cayman brac ask for Raymond and tell him Avi says hi. Belive me its that small that they will know him and his big truck.

Oh, I just saw Raymond last month, in the new Aunt Sha's. Apparently, I didn't make it sufficiently clear that I've spent just a tiny bit of time in the area.

FWIW, I didn't catch up with Lenny this time...you might have known (or of) him as being an occasional morning coffee visitor to the Aggressor while it was in BBay; he would kayak out from shore; IIRC, this was back when Robert was Captain...the two of them used to work together at Divi. Instead, I spent some time with Tenson, and did a shore dive with Nina at a spot off most maps. See, I can name-drop too!

Whatever you post on scuba board someone else will tell you that you are wrong.

Apologies if you interpreted my comments that way.

My point is merely that LC is good diving, but not as good as its "marketing" reputation. Similarly, the Brac's diving is better than its "badmouthing".

It still comes down to the discerning dive customer to decide what he wants to do, based on his personal preferences. As such, its our responsibility as peers to cut through the BS and hype and tell it like it is.


-hh

 

[-hh]

The first time I dove LC was 20 years ago, 1989. In 1989 LC was just getting electricity...

And while the Brac had central power by then, "city" water came later...and there's still a lot of residents with cisterns to this day.

Diving the wall on the north side of the Brac is a lot deeper than it is on north side of LC. The diving in general starts on LC walls at 20 to 30 ft, whereas on the Brac it's more like 60 to 90 which limits your bottom time. LC is still really great but compared to what it was 20yrs ago...not so hot.

There's roughly only a dozen LC moorings which start so extraordinarily shallow, out of their ~65 named sites. For example, the western half of the Bloody Bay Marine Park is actually not Bloody Bay, but the Jackson's Bight area, and it is typically 45fsw-65fsw to the inside sand, with some sites (eg, Cascades) being deeper.

Nevertheless, the Bloody Bay section is disproportionately visited more often than other LC sites. Without getting too philisophical on "Quality vs Quantity", it isn't unheard of people commonly associating a longer bottom time ('Quantity') with automatically being a "better" dive, and the facts are that their topology does permit a long multi-level dive by hanging out in a hardpan based soft coral garden for the last 15-20 minutes of their dive, for a diver of any skill level.

So many divers have dove Randy's Gazebo that now much of the coral is all busted off, there used to be a sea horse living right at the top. There are other areas on Bloody Bay wall that have been busted up, this may or may not be the result of divers as there have been some hurricanes but I tend to agree that the reef is being over loved.

The downturn in the economy can in some ways be considered a blessing, in that fewer diveboats are visiting right now. I also noticed that there's a lot of moorings that are out, which is ironically contrary to Cayman's newest marketing campaign for which they want to expand the number of named sites to 365 between all three islands.

True, nothing is what it used to be "except" if you go to out of the way places it is pretty close to what it used to be. Take for instance New Britain in PNG, only 500 Americans visit per year and not all of them are diving. Diving off New Britain is virtually what it used to be. Go to Australias west side near Exmouth and I'm sure you can find diving the way it used to be.

Bonaire is definitely not what it used to be as that last hurricane surge really took out the coral on the shallow dives and especially trashed Klein Bonaire. Can you say "cruise ship", as they have been coming in more often now than ever.

Time will tell if the Scott Development dock gets extended on the Brac, and the Kissammee wreck dive site finally obliterated for good. The scuttlebutt last month was that they're actually trying to figure out if it would be better to put the new pier in the sand, or literally on the reef.

The moral of the story is to try and find a place that has great diving and is hard to get is where you'll find the reefs "the way they used to be" and this all also depends on the locals who fish for sustenance.

Well said. In addition to the usual issues, the big new challenge for the Caymans is going to be the impact by the invasive Pacific Lionfish, and how it changes what critters live on the reef. I can't say that I saw any obvious change this year, but I expect that within a few more, I probably will realize that some previously common fish or another will have had gone missing.

BTW, Robert filled me in on the governmental procedure by which one can become licensed as a legal Lionfish "collector" in the Caymans. Ping me at work for details if you're interested.


-hh

 

[Rhone Man]

Nobody mentions the Captain Keith Tibbetts much. I would have thought it would be a major diving attraction and/or reason to favour Cayman Brac.

Presumably that is not the case?

 

[chibracdiver]

Nobody mentions the Captain Keith Tibbetts much. I would have thought it would be a major diving attraction and/or reason to favour Cayman Brac.

Presumably that is not the case?

Not necessarily. The wreck is still a very good dive site with plenty of opportunities to get inside her. I have dove both LC and the Brac over the last five years and for my money the Brac offers comparable diving with a little more to do while top side. The wall diving on the southeast end is fantastic. I don't understand why so many are infatuated with LC, which I love, but won't give the Brac any props. Not only is the diving on the Brac first rate, but the snorkeling, all over the island, is incredible. HH could shed more light on the dive sites of the Brac as could Craig over at Indepth.

PS Love the Rhone. My daughter and I dove it the week of our check out dives down on St. Thomas. We chartered a boat from Chris Sawyer Dive Center with another family from NY, as they were not planning on diving it that week. I was concerned that she might not be comfortable going inside but she did. I was a very proud father that day.

 

[Rhone Man]

PS Love the Rhone. My daughter and I dove it the week of our check out dives down on St. Thomas. We chartered a boat from Chris Sawyer Dive Center with another family from NY, as they were not planning on diving it that week. I was concerned that she might not be comfortable going inside but she did. I was a very proud father that day.

She's a nice wreck. We all fret that after 150 years, one day the superstructure will collapse. I am quietly hoping that enough coral has grown around her now that it will never happen.

 

[tkaelin]

On a separate but related note, what is the ride typically like on the Cayman Aggressor between GC and LC and is there a time of year you are more likely to have the trip canceled because of weather? Thanks. TK

 

[Drew Sailbum]

The Cayman Agressor is more likely to not make the crossing to the Sister Islands during the winter months. This is the time of year when Nor'Westers can bring particularly rough seas.

 

[-hh]

Not necessarily. The wreck is still a very good dive site with plenty of opportunities to get inside her.

The wreck is doing fine...although there was a minor collapse in the stern radar room that I got stuck for 10 seconds trying to duck under it to get around

In general, it seems that more and more divers these days are not "wreck" dive interested, or for that matter any other type of minor (ie, recreational) overhead penetration. For example, I also got over to LC's Marilyn's Cut (aka 'Hole in the Wall') this last time too, and of the dozen or so onboard, maybe only one other buddy team chose to go in. As such, a dive site that offers "only" a wreck doesn't seem to have much appeal to today's customers.

Of course, there is a very nice deep reef formation ("Margo's Corner") a short swim across the sand to the west of the 356, for those who want to skip the wreck...but the dive staff often doesn't mention it, since its pretty pristine...and prevailingly down-current.

I have dove both LC and the Brac over the last five years and for my money the Brac offers comparable diving with a little more to do while top side. The wall diving on the southeast end is fantastic. I don't understand why so many are infatuated with LC, which I love, but won't give the Brac any props. Not only is the diving on the Brac first rate, but the snorkeling, all over the island, is incredible. HH could shed more light on the dive sites of the Brac as could Craig over at Indepth.

Yes, the sites like the Brac's "Wilderness Wall" are treats. But what I think what has evolved for the diver customer might be similar to the reduced popularity of the 356 wreck: the customers don't seem interested in any level of challenge, and these are deeper dives. It seems that the modern dive customer's perception of goodness is defined simplistically as merely bottom time, so naturally, the deeper, shorter dive invariably comes up short.

Its hard to say this without being perceived as an elitist dive snob, but it does seem to me that the current dive customer paradigm is "Quantity over Quality". Sure, its nice to have more Bottom Time, but the philosophy figuratively appears to be a willingness to turn down a "10" dive for a longer "7".

The rest of the story seems to be the quality of a destination's marketing engine for claiming to have lots of 10s, so for the customer who hasn't yet found a true "10", they'll pick that destination. And when that product has figuratively degraded to 7s due to not removing any moorings for rest breaks over the past 20 years, because that customer doesn't know what a true "10" is to know if they got the product that they think they bought, even if they merely had a "good" trip, they'll unknowingly perpetuate the reputation's claims.

Which merely reminds me again that I still do need to go dig through 20+ years of UW images from LC/Brac and get them digitized to try to illustrate the chronological changes that have taken place.


-hh

 

[keyshunter]

-hh,
I would appreciate your posting some before/after shots of LC and the Brac. In the 18 years I have been diving both LC and the Brac I seem to have noticed many changes, but, my memory being what it is, would really like to see photographic evidence.

 

[jan livengood]

Has Cayman Brac recovered from the hurricane yet? We are thinking of going there in June 2010.