As you have acknowledged, conditions are highly variable that time of year. When cold fronts move in from the north, the conditions on the north side of the island can make diving the north side sites very difficult. The boats often can't make it around the west end of the island without chumming up the water, so out of respect for the guests they stay on the south side. (However, I have never seen weather so severe--outside of a tropical storm--that I couldn't go out from shore. It's all a matter of how badly you want to go out!)
Looking at my log book for this previous January, I notice the LCBR boats were restricted to the south side January 16-19 and January 28-29. The water temperature was generally 79F, though there were a few dives where I recorded 80F or 81F. (However, I started showing a consistent 77F at the beginning of February.) And by the way, there were only a very few days during January when I wasn't diving at all. Thus I think this is a fairly accurate record. The previous year, during January 2004, I see south side dives on January 7, January 13, January 21, and January 28-29. For some reason, I didn't go diving January 8-12, so that period may have been crummy weather (or it may not have been!).
The bottom line is that during the winter there simply are no guarantees. You might be there during a week where there is no choice but to dive the south side, or you might have no weather problems at all. But what's wrong with the south side sites? Frankly, I love them! The only problem is that the south side deep sites don't offer much to see above 65', so you're likely to run out of bottom time very quickly on the second dive if you're not using Nitrox. But there's an easy solution for that: use Nitrox!
Bruce
Zebra mussel:
Went to Little cayman last December and had a wonderful time. My question is about the weather. I want to bring a couple of fairly inexperianced divers and Im somewhat concerned about the sea conditions. We are thinking about travelling in early Jan. I know that weather can vary tremedously,but what are the historical conditions at that time. Will we be able to get to the North side on a regular basis or does most of the diving take place on the South side because of the sea conditions? If we cant regularly get to Jackson or bloody bay wall because of the conditions,I feel we would miss the main reason to travel to Little Cayman. Does anybody with any experience at that time of year? Pleas let me know.Thanks!
