How about diving ... maybe a short synopsis of what to expect, a few favorite dive sites and why, and what sites might be popular. Are all the dive sites accessible year round? For example, is it the same as LC that due to weather conditions certain times of year Bloody Bay Marine Park isn't always accessible? Is there a specific area on Brac that is designated as a marine park?
Let's see...
(1) Yes, there are some designated Marine Park and 'Recovery Zone' regions on the Brac,
but don't worry about them.
What has both helped
and hurt Little Cayman is the designation of the Bloody Bay Marine Park (BBMP). As such, while the BBMP designation does keep fishermen out, it has unfortunately reenforced the mistique of these dive sites and as such, they're being overdived and loved to death due to visitor demand. Simply put, if a Little Cayman dive operator doesn't take his customers to BBMP, no matter how good the diving might have been, they'll complain that it wasn't in
famous BBMP.
On the Brac, most vistors don't know the locations of its Marine Parks & Replenishment Zones (assuming that they know that they exist) and as such, the dive operations are free to "spread out" without incurring customer complaints. As such, the diver pressure at any one site is reduced, which means less reef damage and overall, healthier reefs. This is a good thing, which is why I say "don't worry about it", but if you want to see a precise map,
click here.
(2) Dive Site Accessibility -vs- Weather: not all the dive sites are always accessible.
It is pretty much the same on the Brac as on Little Cayman: the dive operations will favor to whichever side of the island is in the lee of the wind/weather, and if it is blowing "down the slot" (straight down-island), dive sites in the West-Southwest ("end of island") region will be used.
The major difference here is that you'll find that there's significantly more moored southside wall dives on the Brac than on LC (which I personally find worthwhile; see further below), so there's more general "interest" to try to get in a southside wall dive on the Brac than on LC...when prevailing weather permits. There's no foolproof time of year to go to guarentee which side of the island will be prevailingly to leeward/windward, but the general rules of thumb are that southside diving season is "winter"; starting in Sept/Oct and ends in Feb/March...but you can hit a calm stretch (or the opposite) any time of year to allow you to go anywhere you want.
(3) Dive sites - generalities
(a) Depth. In general, people say that the Brac's wall dives are "deeper" than on Little Cayman. In reality, this generalization really means that they're deeper than what one finds in the Bloody Bay Wall region, where the dropoffs are as shallow as 20fsw (3 Fathom Wall). Some people claim to dislike the Brac's wall dives, often claiming that they're "too deep", etc - - my pet theory is that this complaint is really more about how depth limits one's bottom time, not the quality of the dive: a classical "quality vs quantity" debate. In general, wall dives on the Brac are generally well suited to being dived on Nitrox, as this offsets part of the traditional bottom time limitations when diving these same profiles on air.
(b) Topology. Part of the popular appeal in Little Cayman ... sites like Mixing Bowl, Cumber's Cave, Bus Stop, Marilynn's Cut, Magic Roundabout, Randy's Gazebo ... focus around tunnels/overhangs and similar swim-through (overhead environment) topologies.
They're not absent from the Brac, but are generally present on the southside walls: Orange Canyon (aka Tiara Tunnels), Wilderness Wall, Rock Monster, Son of Rock Monster, Crab Alley, Mike's Mountain, the wall off of Public Beach, Anchor Wall...but also shallower (Lighthouse reef) and on the North side: East Chute, Knuckle's Wall, 356 Wreck, Stingray Tower, Charley's Reef, etc.
In general, while at a lot of islands you might swim *over* the reef, on the Brac (and LC too), the scale is large and profiles high, so you can swim *through* the reef if you wish.
The other aspect of topology is which way does the wall's dropoff face? What I'm specifically referring to here is, broadly, "northside" versus "southside" walls.
LC's famous Bloody Bay region is a northside area and as such, the steeper and more dramatic their wall's dropoffs are, the more that they will be in shadow from sunlight (since we're in the Northern Hemisphere). This does make these walls great for wide angle UW photography, since when you photograph the wall, you can compose to put the "sunball" in the bluewater background of your image, and the previously-dark critters on the wall get illuminated by your camera's strobe(s). However, for a diver who's just sightseeing without a WA camera, these walls can appear very dark and gloomy. Thus, why I personally like (and admittedly "talk up") the Southside Walls, because when you dive on these southside walls, they'll be nicely illuminated by sunlight, which means that you actually get to see them. It does make for a marked difference. Because of the LC Marine Park tourist demands I mentioned in (1), its actually easier to get out to dive on a southside will on the Brac than on LC. My recommendation is to try them all to see the differences for yourself
(4) Dive Sites
On the Brac's northside, its pretty much a given that you'll be taken to East Chute, where the wreck of the Cayman Mariner is, and to the 356 wreck. These are both very popular sites and with both reef and wrecks make for a nice amount of variety. Reef Divers will provide a good site briefing for both.
Middle Chute and West Chute have traditionally been common/popular sites, but their mooring balls are currently out of service...although one DM is mixing up his dive site names and is telling people that this is where they are going.
I mention these sites because a common SOP for the dive operators is to take the diveboats out to one of the "Chutes" as the first dive on Sunday. Sundays is when most newly arrived customers have their first day of diving, and the normal lay of the boat at mooring puts sand or reef roughly 60ft down off the stern instead of being "bottomless", so if a first day oops occurs, it won't be a major crisis. Its merely a subtle way that the operators check out their new customers.
I do hope that they get these moorings back in soon, as a friend did a drift dive (rare) over Middle Chute and reported that it is in really nice shape right now. Personally, I swam up to West Chute from Airport Wall and also found it in nice condition, with a resident school of 'Boga' (see Paul Humann 'Reef Fish ID' (1st Ed) page 53) swirling around, and found that the 'Hydra' (a big 5-headed barrel sponge on the east side of the pinnicle in the middle of West Chute in 85-90fsw of water) is still growing. As such, both these sites are a good dive right now.
Further up the northside on Cayman Brac, the walls tend to get less steep...only a 45 degree angle. One of the walls had a couple of resident flying grunards, but they've reportedly disappeared...ask the staff if they've returned and if so, ask for that site (I think its either Greenhouse or Cemetary Wall). Similarly, if you want to photograph some nice Strawberry Sponges, ask for Strawberry Sponge Wall.
FYI, I think its on Piper's Wall right now that there's a very rare "fingerprint" flamingo tongue. The staff knows of it and its in their dive site briefing. The same dive site also has a Indigo Hamlet right in the same area of the reef; dive staff didn't mention it.
For shallow reef northside, a popular non-moored site is "Stingray Towers". There's a resident Hawksbill Turtle that has buddied up with an Angel (French?) to munch on sponges to the west side of the coral patch, nearly behind where the boat will be, that is very mellow regarding divers. I've seen him there for the past 2-3 years.
On the South side, I enjoy any of the walls for their sunlight illumination, with some favorites being Anchor Wall (photo Op of a 19th century anchor), the swim-throughs as Orange Canyon and the pinnacle at Wilderness Wall that often has a school of swirling horse eye jacks. For nearly any of these southside sites, its also nice to find a spot along the top towards the end of your dive where there's an upwelling and then just settle in and watch the schooling fish swirl around.
For Southside reefs, the popular classic is Tarpon Reef, for the resident school of Tarpon. There can also be some flying grunards in this area too, out a bit deeper. An alternative to Tarpon that I like is Lighthouse...if there's no current, you can swim over to Tarpon too...Lighthouse features some unusually deep spur/groove clefts for a shallower dive site. From there, any of the southside reefs are nice, as they have more hard corals (fewer soft) and the lettuce leaf nudibranks are blue instead of white. You can also fairly reliably find some red spotted lobster in the overhangs, although I happened to find one on the northside at Radar Reef last week. If you're able to get far up-island, the wreck of the Prince Frederic is an interesting shallow site - - this is a real wreck site that dates from the late 19th century.
For places to skip, Atlantis. If you get stuck being taken there and you find it not to your liking, swim west. This area is known as "Duppy Reef" (Duppy = zombie/undead) and isn't moored, so it isn't dived much, so it should be pretty pristine.
If I had to put together a perfect dive week, I'd probably split it fairly evenly between the north & south side on Cayman Brac and include a Bluff Run to look at the cliffs from the sea. For a daytrip to Little Cayman, I'd probably skip Bloody Bay Marine Park since I've been there so many times and go "exploratory" diving instead. I'd drop in at the research mooring of Blacktip Blvd (extreme eastern tip of LC) and then throw the hook in someplace shallow along LC's southside to the east of Owen Island to see what could be found.
Finally, you might want to find/buy one of the various diving guides that have some of these dive sites. If you want the original, it is Shlomo Cohen's "Cayman Diver's Guide", by SeaPen Press, 1991 (ISBN-10: 9653620053 or ISBN-13: 978-9653620056). Its been out of print for years, but you can find it on Amazon (
try this link?) and find people selling used copies. To the best of my knowledge, Cohen was the author who appears to have invented the use of an isometric ("3D") view to map out a dive site. I carry a photocopy of a few of its pages with me in my drybox.
Hope you're able to finish reading all of this before your trip!
-hh
