Trip Report-Little Cayman

[DavidWarshaw]

My wife and dive buddy spent a week at Little Cayman Beach Resort (http://www.caymanvacations.com/indexmenu.htm?properties/lcbr.htm&2) with eight other divers from our dive club in New Jersey. All was excellent, and I'd recommend it for serious, advanced divers. Accomodations are good... not deluxe, but very adequte. Double Queen beds... AC... Cable TV. Buffet food (included) is varied and very tasty.

Diving is great! Most dive sites are at Bloody Bay Wall, which is a protected marine park, and only about 20-30 minute boat ride away. Dive profiles can be as deep as you want, as the walls typically start around 60 feet and go down to 6,000. Lot's of good corals... schooling fish... bigger stuff like sharks, mantas and lots of turtles. Vis is 100+. Much of the reef tops are up to 20 feet, so you can do nice swimming safety stops among the coral. Week we were there saw no rain other than a brief shower.

Dive operation (Reef Divers) is excellent. Large boats and great crews. Nitrox. Just walk to the end of the dock at the resort and board the boat. Would not suggest this spot for novices, however. Crews assume good dive skills. They give excellent dive briefings top-side... but then give you a 60-minute clock to do your thing. There is always a diver in the water who will act as a tour guide, but they do not hold hands under water.

We did three dives a day for six days. Could have added night dives, but enough was enough. There is a nice Russian frigate sunk off Cayman Brac, about 45 minutes way. It is an extra $25, but pretty neat and worth it.

Fly to Grand Cayman and take a puddle-jump plane for the 35 minute flight to Little Cayman. Don't expect to do anything but dive, lay on the beach, and eat... as the island has only 400 permanent residents and only a couple of other "attractions." Resort has a tennis court some water toys and a bar... but that's about it. You can, however, tour the blue-footed booby rookery!

Good diving. Enjoy the photos here, and more are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwar/sets/72157594211934094/

 

[cdavis]

Hi David,

We were freediving in LC in May, outstanding. Spectacular terrain, lots of big critters, coral not as healthy as I had hoped. Stayed at McCoys, who did us right. All in all, a very, very good week. We will be back.

With Reef Divers, a 3 tank day is one or two boat trips? What time did you leave th dock and what time return?? How did their nite dives work and where did they go?

Thanks

Connor

 

[DavidWarshaw]

Connor: Reef divers did three dives in two trips. Morning two tanker left ~8:00... back ~12 - 12:30. First dive profile max 130 ft/50 min. Second dive max 60 ft/60 min... with a 45 min surface interval. Lunch was served 12:30 back at the resort. YUM! Left for afternoon single dive ~2:00... again, 60ft/60min max profile. Trip around point to Bloody Bay Wall dive sites was between 25-35 min max. Night dives (an extra $65 charge) were to close-in dive sites just outside the cut from the resort lagoon. Week we were there, they went out Tuesday, but it was fairly rough and vis wasn't too good. My wife and I wimped out... but I was told they were just "okay." One of the night dive sites is a small wreck... told there were some largish groupers, lots of parrots. But I like to see lobsters and octupi, and none were reported. They had to bag it completely on Thursday night due to high weather. Hope this helps.

DAVID

 

[cdavis]

Thanks David,

I'm just beginning to plan for next year and it is handy to know what other resorts are doing. I'd love to do a night dive on the wall, but we were mostly swimming from shore, easy for freedivers in daylight, but pretty tough at night , very shallow entry, sea urchins, etc. Plus, like you, we were too darn tired.

Did you do any diving farther east than the park, in the area where few divers go? If so, what was the coral like.

Thanks

Connor

 

[DavidWarshaw]

Reef Diver boats went soley to Bloody Bay Wall... where moorings are placed. There are some charted sites in other areas, but I was told that since they are outside the marine park and subject to local fishing, sea life is not as abundant. I don't know about coral. There was a guy at the bar, however, who had completed over a week's time a complete snorkling circumnavigation of the island! ("Why?" I asked. "Because." He answered) He would ride out on a bike, find a way to the sea, swim out beyond the foam, swim along for a mile or two at a time, come back in, walk back to his bike, ride the bike to where he came ashore... and repeat. And he did it solo. Total ~25 miles plus. Sorry... not my thing. He did say he saw some beautiful coral and fish... for what that's worth. He did this without any thought of blogging, telling any one, getting his photo in the local paper. Because it was there, I guess. I did buy him a beer. Least he deserved.

 

[cdavis]

Know it sounds wierd, but that is just exactly the kind of thing I love to do, except I don't like diving with no buddy. The "explore" aspect is irresistable. Was he going all the way out to deep water, all the way around? With no tank to haul around, you can cover a lot more ground comfortably, but that is still quite a swim. When we planned this trip, we expected to be using bikes for transport to the dive sites, but McCoy's people were happy to drop us off and pick us back up wherever we wanted. Much easier, the island is bigger than I realized.
Next year I'm planning some dive time beyond the park to the east. We drove down there and I could see some marked spots from shore, but we didn't dive them. It is a lot farther swim and a small boat would be real nice.

My buddy, Ted, put together some excellent video/still collages and posted them in the "Freediving Stories" section. There are three sets scattered through a thread titled something about Little Cayman. Takes a while to download, but they are pretty good, a different viewpoint of many of the same places you dove.

Thanks

Connor