Grand Cayman - Where’s the fish?

[tursiops]

That could very well be the case. I recorded the 91º temp at the beginning of the dive while still shallow (10-20 feet). This was a drift dive on the southern side of Grand Cayman entering at Kent's Cave and exiting at Ron's Wall.

In that case, it may also simply have been the long time-lag that most dive computers have in equilibrating to a new temperature from having been in a a different temperature. 5 mins is not unusual. Thermal lag is exponentially slow.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

My computer also registered the water temp as high as 91º F. Perhaps the water temp was responsible?

When swimming in tandem that might be one way of knowing that you are in your buddy's wetsuit wash.

 

[Kimela]

I've wondered if our body temp somehow factors into the temp the dive computer picks up. Between R and I there are three dive computers, and mine is always about a degree cooler than both of his. Mine's a Shearwater (Peregrine) and his are an Oceanic and sometimes a Mares or Gekko (Suunto?).

 

[DirtFish]

Have any of you been to Brac or Little Cayman? I've heard such wonderful things about both of those locations. Do they look better? If the reason for the reduced marine life is warmer water I would guess that Brac and Little Cayman have approximately the same water temps. If it is some sort of algae or bleaching, again I would assume they're close enough it would spread. I wonder what's going on.

I just got back from Little Cayman and Brac. Still in a food coma from all of the fantastic food at Little Cayman Beach Resort, (best I have ever had from an all inclusive, ever!).
There were lots of fish and the water was around 85 and clear visibility. Diving Bloody Bay Wall was on my bucket list for many years and it did not disappoint. Having only been here once I have nothing to compare it to as far as fish population history. Definitely more sea life than our recent 3 week trip to Roatan.

 

[Kimela]

I just got back from Little Cayman and Brac. Still in a food coma from all of the fantastic food at Little Cayman Beach Resort, (best I have ever had from an all inclusive, ever!).
There were lots of fish and the water was around 81 and clear visibility. Diving Bloody Bay Wall was on my bucket list for many years and it did not disappoint. Having only been here once I have nothing to compare it to as far as fish population history. Definitely more sea life than our recent 3 week trip to Roatan.

Did you go to Little and Brac with a group? We've looked at trips and the groups always seem to go on the weekends - and airfare is more expensive then. Just curious. Glad to hear the fish life looks good there.

 

[Dish]

East End this morning. Fish population looked normal to me. It was definitely not a barren wasteland. Plenty of parrots (stoplight, green, yellowtail), groupers of numerous varieties, beautiful queen trigger, nice ray, Loggerhead and Green Turtles, couple of rather large jaw fish (at least large for jaw fish) and the normal array of little reef fishies and nudis. Vis was not the best I’ve seen in GC, but they had a bit of T-storm activity yesterday. 87F shallow, 85F around 80 ft.
Edit: One thing that I didn’t see much of were lionfish. Saw one hanging out in a swimthrough. I reckon the lionfish hunts are helping… although I suspect that its just driving them deeper.

 

[DirtFish]

Did you go to Little and Brac with a group? We've looked at trips and the groups always seem to go on the weekends - and airfare is more expensive then. Just curious. Glad to hear the fish life looks good there.

No, we went on our own. Bookings at LCBR seem to be Sat. to Sat. so yes flights are a bit of a pain. We had 4 flights to get there and 4 coming home with a couple of layover days each way. What I noticed about the groups is that they get put on the same boat. There was a group from Arizona of 23 that were all on one boat, while our boat of misfits only had 8-12 very experienced divers. We were on the Bloody Wall every dive except 2, while the boat of 23 only dove the wall 2 or 3 dives. I won't travel or dive with large groups and all of the drama.

 

[AggieDiver]

Did you go to Little and Brac with a group? We've looked at trips and the groups always seem to go on the weekends - and airfare is more expensive then. Just curious. Glad to hear the fish life looks good there.

I was in LC on the boat with DirtFish a few weeks ago and can echo what he said. We have been going to LC for about 20 years and have around 10 trips there under our belt. My thought (and I just asked my wife and she agrees) is that the overall numbers were probably up slightly from what we remember from the last couple of trips prior to covid. We still are not seeing many eels (1 green and 1 spotted on this trip), but that decline seems to have correlated with the arrival of the lionfish a decade or so ago. We didn't see a ton of juveniles, but there were plenty of large schools of fish and lots of activity everywhere you look. I thought the soft corals, fans, and gorgonians were in much better shape than before covid.

As for booking trips to LC or Brac, the major carriers only operate flights to Grand Cayman on Saturdays during the low season (July/August to November/December). Many of them have flights more often during high season. LCBR and CBBR like to try to do all of their packages from Saturday to Saturday to keep things simple and avoid having rooms booked irregularly. But if you tell them you are having trouble finding flights (particularly the Cayman Express flights from Grand to LC that book up quickly on saturday afternnon), they are willing to do other arrangements. For non- saturday low season flights, look into the Cayman Airways flights out of Tampa or Miami if you can get there from wherever you live easily. Doing a non-saturday to saturday trip is always fun because you get to dive saturday morning when everybody else is flying out or flying in. We had 4 divers on the boat including my wife and I for the Saturday morning dives.

 

[Kimela]

I was in LC on the boat with DirtFish a few weeks ago and can echo what he said. We have been going to LC for about 20 years and have around 10 trips there under our belt. My thought (and I just asked my wife and she agrees) is that the overall numbers were probably up slightly from what we remember from the last couple of trips prior to covid. We still are not seeing many eels (1 green and 1 spotted on this trip), but that decline seems to have correlated with the arrival of the lionfish a decade or so ago. We didn't see a ton of juveniles, but there were plenty of large schools of fish and lots of activity everywhere you look. I thought the soft corals, fans, and gorgonians were in much better shape than before covid.

As for booking trips to LC or Brac, the major carriers only operate flights to Grand Cayman on Saturdays during the low season (July/August to November/December). Many of them have flights more often during high season. LCBR and CBBR like to try to do all of their packages from Saturday to Saturday to keep things simple and avoid having rooms booked irregularly. But if you tell them you are having trouble finding flights (particularly the Cayman Express flights from Grand to LC that book up quickly on saturday afternnon), they are willing to do other arrangements. For non- saturday low season flights, look into the Cayman Airways flights out of Tampa or Miami if you can get there from wherever you live easily. Doing a non-saturday to saturday trip is always fun because you get to dive saturday morning when everybody else is flying out or flying in. We had 4 divers on the boat including my wife and I for the Saturday morning dives.

This is great news - and great info. I'll be giving it more consideration. Thanks. We've noticed when we are in Cozumel on a Saturday that the boats are lighter too, because everyone is traveling.

 

[Alucard]

Have done 4 dives over the past week - 2 from Turtle Reef and two off a boat off SMB (Trinity Caves and Harbour Heights). Have to say that things are looking really good fish-wise. Lots of the usual suspects, with big schools hanging out. Spotted Eagle Ray, stingrays, Turtles, Lobster, just one lionfish, filefish, porcupinefish, anemones, jawfish, a nice grouper (posted a photo of that one to the picture thread), angels, tigertail, parrotfish, a glasseye snapper, spotted drum, lettuce sea slugs, flamingo tongues, and so on. Seems pretty much like I have been seeing there over the past 15 years of diving there.