We dove for a week in Cayman Brac with a 17-dive package from Cayman Brac Beach Resort. See our resort review here
Diving is on-site and run by Reef Divers. There are at least four boats but as the resort wasn’t full, we had two boats going out daily during our stay. Our boat, the Reef FantaSea, had a crew of two. A married Canadian couple made up of Captain Stephen and Sheryl. They took turns guiding the 3 daily dives.
We had 10-12 divers on our boat but there was easily room for 20 on the 42-feet Newton Dive Special boat. The smaller group gave us some extra room to stretch out.
The boat typically left at 8am, the first dive was a 50-minute deeper 80-100ft wall dive after which we did a 40-minute surface interval followed by a 60-minute shallow dive in the 40-60ft range. You could stay shallower on the wall too but in many areas the dive started around 70ft and by the time you rounded the corner to be on the wall you were already at 80-90ft.
After bringing our gear on the first day, we’d leave the regs and BCDs on the boat and the crew would hose them down and set them up for us on fresh tanks for the following day. We brought our wetsuits ashore to rinse them in the large soapy bins by the dive shop and we then hung them up in a locker room with good ventilation that was locked up for the night.
We were diving with our 3mm wetsuits and these rarely dried for the next day, but it wasn’t too bad. Water temperature was a consistent 80-82°F and we never got cold with our 3mm wetsuits.
The dive boat had a covered area to stay out of the sun, and an upper deck for those that wanted a good view. It was a good size at 42-feet. The other dive boat was a typical 46-feet Newton.
We would take our boots and fins and dive accessories such as electronics back to the room for the evening. We found a nice trick for the boots where we’d place them on the balcony table next to the exhaust of the air conditioning unit. The warm air dried the boots, and it was nice to start the day with toasty booties.
The diving
Getting into the water was different for us. We were asked to sit on one of two benches on either side of the back of the boat where we donned our fins and mask. The crew would bring over the tank and BC setup and place it on our back and we would attach and secure it with our gear. Then we simply had to stand up and take the giant stride into the big blue pool!
Stephen or Sheryl generally guided the group for the first 30 minutes or so and then brought us back to where they would point out the boat. With 100ft + visibility on most days it was easy to spot the boat from below, and we would often even see the shadow on the reef below.
They would then leave us to do our thing until we hit either the time limit (60 minutes) or 500 psi. And there was always a hang line and regulator for low-on-air safety stops, but we didn’t see anyone using it.
After the two morning dives, the boat returned to the dock around noon so we could have lunch. It then headed back out for the afternoon dive around 1:30pm. We did some of the afternoon dives but took some afternoons off too.
Many of the shallower dives were done around 20ft coral heads so it was a nice way to do a safety stop. Instead of just floating 30ft above the reef watching your computer at 15ft, we could explore the coral heads and spot lots of little blennies and gobies.
Cayman Brac Dive Sites
While we didn’t get to do the Bloody Bay Wall off Little Cayman, (it was too rough) we did the East Chute and West Chute wall dives off Cayman Brac. These were spectacular on their own and reminded us of the nice wall diving we had done on Grand Cayman’s East End.
It was also too rough to offer any night dives during the week we were there. They said these were only done with flat seas.
While some of the prior reviews talked about going to visit the Little Cayman Beach Resort for the day, we were told that since Covid they are no longer doing that.
Aside from the wall diving, many of the other sites we did such as Charlie’s Reef, Buccaneer Reef were more interesting for us. Many had huge coral heads and lots of life.
If we looked closely and moved slowly, we would see a lot of the small macro stuff we love. We had a lot of fun spotting the little secretary blennies.
On the larger side, we saw a couple of playful turtles, some large stingrays, a sleeping nurse shark, and lots of large groupers. Not the Goliath but large Black and Nassau groupers.
We only saw two morays all week and a single nurse shark. We saw one lettuce sea slug and just a handful of Pederson shrimps and banded coral shrimps.
Some shiprecks
Wrecks we did included Preacher’s Barge and Cayman Mariner, but the best wreck by far was the M/V Captain Keith Tibbetts. It merited its own post: Diving the M/V Captain Keith Tibbetts Off Cayman Brac
M/V Captain Keith Tibbetts
Preacher’s Barge
Cayman Mariner
Conclusion
There are also quite a few shore dive sites around Cayman Brac. We had brought a DRYFOB just in case, but with our 17 boat dives package we didn’t do any shore dives.
While visibility was great and currents virtually nonexistent making for great diving, we found that many of the sightings were quite similar. Further, as the winds picked up the visibility also worsened, and we finished the week with our last dives having 60-70ft visibility (which is still pretty good) compared to the 100ft + we’d had when we first arrived. Of course, this can happen anywhere and was just our luck.
While the reefs looked healthy and full of life, we didn’t have as many large creature sightings, nor did we see as many colorful shrimps, crabs or nudibranchs that we expected to see.
It did make us appreciate the moments we had with the hawksbill turtle that curiously came over to see us, and the time we spotted 3 secretary blennies jumping out of their holes on the same coral head!
Reef Divers took good care of us, and Stephen and Sheryl were fun to dive with and even came to hang out at the resort with the group. It was fun getting to know them and getting to do a week of diving together.
Would we recommend diving Cayman Brac? Yes, indeed we would. Would we rush back to the same resort? I think we’d probably give Little Cayman Beach Resort a try instead to compare the two.
There are still a lot of places left on our dive destination bucket list and we love trying new places. Some of the divers we met there had been many times and intended to return.