Little Cayman or Cayman Brac?

[scubaboy44]

I have never been to either and need some expert advice and opinions. Can you get in as much diving as you can in Bonaire?

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

I have been to both and would say that Little Cayman is the better experience if its all about the diving. On LC you will generally be limited to three tanks per day plus a night dive if there is one. The diving that I know of is all boat diving.

 

[nipi]

There is loads of shore diving on both Little Cayman & the Brac - you can dive as much as your computer will allow if you want to.

 

[Damselfish]

There is loads of shore diving on both Little Cayman & the Brac - you can dive as much as your computer will allow if you want to.

Please describe more about the practical aspects of shore diving on LC as a visitor. Even if possible in theorey I've never heard of people actually doing it. None of the diveops promote it or make it easy in any way (other than perhaps Sam McCoy's, which doesn't sound like my thing.) Where would you stay, where would you rent tanks, what are the sites that you can get to that shore access is ok, how do you get there? Can you really only do this if you rent a car? (Another thing you also don't see people do much on LC!) Is there any practical way of combining it with boat diving at any of the resorts?

 

[zf2nt]

I figure I've done as much shore diving on Little Cayman as anyone, so can address this question. As Damselfish points out, the problem is getting yourself and your equipment to the shore dive site. Most of the time I did this in a rental car, but I can recall several instances where I pedaled my little bicycle, with all my dive gear, over to the dive site entrance. It wasn't easy, but I did it many times. The dive operations will fill tanks for you, and maybe even rent them. I'm not sure about the rental aspect though, since I have my own tanks down here now.

There are only a few places on LC where the shore diving is easy. The others do require some fortitude, either because it's a long swim out or because you have to get through a fringing reef on the way out. But it's all very doable--if you have the desire (and the stamina).

The easiest place to get out is, of course, Cumber's Caves. In the same area, it's fairly easy to get to Jackson's reef, Eagleray Roundup, or going the other direction you can get down to Bus Stop and Sarah's Set. A little more tricky is the entrance at the would-be Bloody Bay Resort (Venture Partner Needed!). You have to get past a fringing reef here, so it's tough if there's any wave action. That will take you out to the Great Wall East buoy. I frequently go out to that one, then cruise the wall past Ringer's Wall and on down to Randy's Gazebo, then come back to my starting point on a diagonal.

Another super place is the road next to Ken Wagnon's house ("Pizza Man's House"). Go strait out from the beach and you hit a dynamite dive site with no buoy. The only problem is that the wall is a little deep here. You can cruise eastward towards the Joy's Joy buoy, then come in diagonally. Another super shore dive is straight out from the Salt Rock pier. Yes, there are "No Diving" signs all around, but I ignore them. Of course, I first checked with the local policeman to verify he wouldn't enforce the "No Diving" signs. If you go straight out from Salt Rock, you get to what used to be known as "Fisheye Funtasea". That's a fabulous site, but the barge kept tearing the mooring ball off and they haven't replaced it this year.

I think I've figured out how to get out to Lea Lea's Leap, but haven't tried it yet so can't verify this one is doable. Likewise, I think I can get to Coconut Walk...but haven't done it yet.

Again, it's not easy to do these dives, and I rarely see people attempting anything other than Cumber's Caves. But if you're a fanatic about this stuff, as I will admit I am, you can do it.

Bruce

 

[Damselfish]

So I poked around a little more out of curiousity and this is what the web sites say:

Sam McCoy's
dive package includes 2-tank morning boat dive and unlimited afternoon/night shore diving.

Paradise Divers
lists Tank/Weight rentals for shore diving.

Southern Cross Club
"Rental Dive Equipment - Outside Guests"
Little Cayman Residents - per tank
(Based on availability. Reservations required)

Little Cayman Beach Resort
no mention of shore diving or tank rentals, but I might have missed it - I couldn't even find a list of rates for equipment rentals? zf2nt - will LCBR rent tanks to shore dive, or are they still included even if not mentioned? I did come across a few reviews from around 2002-03 that mention it, like this one - http://www.adventuresbelow.com/trip_reports/little_cayman 9-02.htm.

Conch Club
similar to LCBR on website, no mention.

Pirates Point
no mention of tank rentals on website, though I found a review (http://www.diveatlas.com/travel/Cayman8.asp) from 1999 that mentioned guided night shore dives being available for $65. Different matter than rentals, but I wonder if they still offer that?

 

[RP Diver]

zf2nt,

Reading your description brought back memories. Not of shore diving, because the only diving I've done on LC was during 2 trips on the Cayman Aggressor, but many of the sites you mention bring back fond memories. My wife and I will be at the Southern Cross Club March 5-12, and I am looking forward eagerly to reacquainting myself with those wonderful places. :07:

 

[zf2nt]

So I poked around a little more out of curiousity and this is what the web sites say:
...

You need to take most of these web sites with a giant grain of salt. With one exception (Paradise Divers), everybody here contracts with some self-proclaimed HTML expert to do their web pages for them. So then said expert puts together some sexy graphics, lots of frames, some tantalizing pictures, and lets the dive operations write some text for the web site. Then Mr. Expert cleans up the grammer, puts a good marketing spin on it, and voila: a web site. The only problem then is that the resorts have no way of managing the site, short of going back to Mr. Expert and begging him to do some needed update work. Minor updates don't pay like new projects, though, so the minor updates get pushed aside. In short order, the web sites are sadly out of date. As one case in point, not one of the people currently listed on their web site as being on the dive staff at Southern Cross is still working there today. I just checked the Pirate's Point web site, and apparently Gladys has given up on trying to keep a picture of her current dive staff on the site. I remember last year she had so much trouble keeping it up to date that she finally had her webmaster pull the picture of the dive staff and put a picture of an empty hammock in its place. The text under the picture still listed names, however, even though it had turned over a couple of times since that particular list.

But back to the question Damselfish posed to me...I asked at Reef Divers (LCBR) today and got the answer that the rental charge for a tank was either $10 or $12. (She couldn't remember which, and told me to go in the shop and look it up myself. Somehow I never got around to doing that.) I do know Ryan ("Caymanwind") has told me the charge for filling a tank is $5. The bottom line is that rental rates on equipment are consistent with stateside rental charges. However, ALL of the resorts are reluctant to rent BC's and regulators for shore diving unless you are known to them to be a responsible individual who won't drag the equipment through the sand and bring it back in a mess. Also, guests at the resort get priority on everything. They are not about to rent out equipment they might need for their own guests. Rental gear is there mainly as a courtesy and a convenience for guests; it's not a profit center by any stretch of the imagination.

Bruce

 

[nipi]

As you can see, you simply rent a tank & weights & drive to the site. Whether you think a site is "diveable" from the shore is a matter of personal preference, I guess. We have dived all the sites Bruce mentions from shore - in fact every site from Cascades at the top of Jackson's to the last one on Bloody Bay which I think is Joy's Joy. Also off Sam's & off the house to the west of Sam's - Shark Alley I think the site's called. The Salt Rock dive (Fisheye Fantasea) is a particularly good one as is combining Bush Gardens & Sand Chute next door - enter & exit at the house just to the west of Salt Rock. Or combine Jigsaw Puzzle & Paradise Plunge - park on the road about 100 yds east of the dock - walk across the ironshore to enter & swim to P. Plunge - go left on the wall & exit at the dock - walk back to car. Also been off the W. End lighthouse & some in the bight south of Pirate's Point though entries are not easy here - can access via the "road" cut when the barge went aground. Also done Soto Trader from Paradise Villas & RockBottom and some other sites on the N coast E of there but quite a swim to the wall.

 

[carlislere]

Scubaboy44,
Obviously, what you need to do is spend a week on Cayman Brac, then spend a week on Little Cayman.