Trip Report My First Trip To Little Cayman

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cleung

Contributor
Messages
875
Reaction score
139
Location
Collingwood, Ontario
# of dives
200 - 499
I have wanted to scuba dive at Little Cayman for quite some time now and finally made it there in May 2024. I've already dived off Grand Cayman on two different trips before but never Little Cayman which is often voted as the best overall diving in the Caribbean. I chose to stay at Paradise Villas since I wanted to stay for only several days but even at low season $280 per night for the room only, it still wasn't cheap so I came with high expectations just because of the high cost I would be paying.


Getting To Little Cayman​


Getting to Little Cayman was a bit of an adventure in itself because of the propellor plane ride required. The flight was smoother than I had expected for a small prop plane but it was noisy. This extra transit would of course increase the overall costs of this trip. But after landing at the tiny airport in Little Cayman, it was just a short walk over to Paradise Villas since the resort is right next door (Paradise Villas did help in bringing over luggage from the airport right to my front door at the villa I booked).

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Paradise Villas​


Paradise Villas has only twelve villa units so it's not a large resort. Although not a five star accommodation, it's pretty comfortable at about a three star or equivalent to a Comfort Inn or Days Inn room. The back door and deck faces the ocean which is nice but the beach itself is not that nice as it's only part sand and the area closest to the water are rocks. But 99% of travellers who come to Little Cayman come here to dive.


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In the beach area where I sometimes relaxed after diving, I saw cute little geckos and tiny hermit crabs. One great thing is that not once did I encounter any cockroaches and mosquitoes inside my villa.


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Over on the main road on Little Cayman with just a few minutes walk is the island's only grocery store/hardware shop where I got some price sticker shock. I knew this in advance so I did bring most of my own food for my stay since my villa does have a kitchenette and I didn't feel like dining at any of the three restaurants on the island.


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The Scuba Diving​


Okay so what's the scuba diving like at Little Cayman? Well I can confirm with all the diver votes on Little Cayman that I agree with their assessment that the best overall diving in the Caribbean is there at least for a land based dive trip. The coral reefs are among the healthiest and also the most diverse I've ever seen in the Caribbean. Both the walls off Bloody Bay Wall and the shallower reefs are in very good shape resulting in lots of marine life. In addition to the usual Caribbean fish life, there was that something extra on every single dive that made it a great dive whether it was sightings of stingrays, sea turtles, barracuda, sharks, lobsters or breath taking swim throughs. Water temperatures were constant from 28 to 30 degrees C by my dive computer.


Although there were many such awesome encounters with marine life, my top one was when I came across a school of grunt fish and instead of swimming away, they all stood their ground and just stared at me. Of course I stared back at them with probably a huge smile underwater. I don't have any photos underwater since I don't shoot on dives.


The dive operator Little Cayman Divers operates out of the dock over at Little Cayman Beach Resort, one of the all inclusive dive resorts. Each morning, they picked divers up from Paradise Villas and brought us over to the dock and back. They also used a valet type of service where they had divers sit at the end of their dive boat and they would bring us the tanks/bcd and the same when we returned to the boat at the end of the dive. I wasn't sure why they did this whether it was an additional service they wanted to provide or they didn't want divers to walk around the dive boat with all gear strapped on.


In the water, the divemasters were good at leading divers through the dive sites after informative briefings before each dive. They were fairly relaxed and casual in terms of how they ran each dive though as we didn't have to necessarily keep up with the divemasters. I also saw divers at times going off on their own especially near the end of dives when the divemasters always went back on the boats first (as they said they would during the briefings). Divers were allowed to stay underwater as long as time limits and air permitted. I along with other divers I observed often just spent much of the last part of our dives on our own but not far from the dive boat and the divemasters didn't really mind.


This might have been because the typical diver profile at Little Cayman tended to be experienced and older divers compared to those at many of the popular tourist islands in the tropics. This kind of makes sense since given the high cost of diving Little Cayman, it's usually the veteran diver who can afford such a trip who comes here. Many of the divers I met were repeat visitors to Little Cayman and perhaps of a higher level of diver experience, Little Cayman Divers permitted quite a lot of freedom on dives.


So is Little Cayman worth it? This is not easy to answer. The best overall diving is there for sure as far as a land based dive destination but it is very expensive. Once you've dived most of the Caribbean and are willing to pay more for the top diving in the region, then it's probably worth coming here but only when you are ready. This is the same with liveaboard trips.


Also, this is not a destination with non-divers as there is nothing much to do on Little Cayman except dive. There are some iguanas and red footed boobie birds to see but no shopping and no party bars. Little Cayman is very quiet and is a place to get away from busy tourist spots. But it's all about the diving here.
 
Thanks for the trip report and glad you had an enjoyable trip. LC is by far my favorite place in the Caribbean. One note on the relative cost is that while it is quite expensive, if you get an all inclusive with one of the resorts (particularly during the low season), the cost is not that far apart from going someplace like Cozumel. By that I mean if you pick a comparable quality hotel on the beach away from the crowded downtown, eat in comparable quality restaurants for every meal, and factor in taxis and other tips and fees, the price is not that far apart. Obviously you can do Cozumel much cheaper if you don't eat out every night at nice restaurants, get a cheaper hotel near the square where you may not want to drink the water, etc. But comparing apples to apples and factoring in all the extra costs, the difference in the total price of a trip is not as big as would be suggested when you just look at the big ticket items like hotel cost.
 
Did you get to do Randy's Gazebo? It took me four or five trips to Cayman Brac before I was finally able to do that dive. All the dive boats on Little get there first in the morning.

The Alexander Hotel on Cayman Brac opened up for $175 per night for an efficiency with a kitchen and we found a breakfast / dinner meal plan for $25 per day. That actually makes it quite economical in comparison to many other locations in the Caymans.

 
Did you get to do Randy's Gazebo? It took me four or five trips to Cayman Brac before I was finally able to do that dive. All the dive boats on Little get there first in the morning.

The Alexander Hotel on Cayman Brac opened up for $175 per night for an efficiency with a kitchen and we found a breakfast / dinner meal plan for $25 per day. That actually makes it quite economical in comparison to many other locations in the Caymans.

No our dives stayed pretty close to the Little Cayman north side
 
Did you get to do Randy's Gazebo? It took me four or five trips to Cayman Brac before I was finally able to do that dive. All the dive boats on Little get there first in the morning.

I was there for 10 days from April 25 to May 4 and Randys Gazebo is the cats pajamas and my favorite dive on the BB wall.
 
Randy's is at Little Cayman, North side, Bloody Bay Wall. Brac Reef Resort make a run to dive Little Cayman once per week, weather permitting. Little Cayman Reef Resort runs to Brac weekly as well, to dive the Russian Frigate.

My personal favorite Little Cayman dive is Mixing Bowl. Right at the junction of Bloody Bay and Jackson's Wall, so you get both topographies. Also the wall starts very shallow here so you do your safety stop on the top of the wall.
 
I'll see if this works but I shot two separate videos with the first one being my commentary on Little Cayman as well as a video tour of Paradise Villas. The second one is a fun clip of the Cayman Airways prop plane flight.


 

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