Cayman Islands

GETTING THERE

Our flights to Georgetown from the west coast (Vancouver Island) were the cheap part; $625 CDN return on Air Canada through Toronto. I also booked a Cayman Airways flight onto Cayman Brac. The current Georgetown airport terminal opened in 2019 so it was comfortable to wait a few hours for our island hopper.

Between flights, I walked just over 10 minutes each way to the Fosters Airport supermarket and picked up 30lbs of groceries and kept us well within our luggage allowance. Grocery prices in Georgetown are roughly double US or Canadian prices, Cayman Brac food prices are about 2.5 times and Little Cayman about 3 times more than on the continent. Partly because almost everything is imported and there are no income taxes (so there are import tariffs), everything is expensive in the Cayman's. It is one of the few Caribbean islands where it is much cheaper to bring duty-free rum than to buy it locally.

We had prearranged a rental car to be collected at the Brac airport and a representative for our rental property also met us and led us to our cottage and got us sorted. It was all easy.

OUR ACCOMMODATION ON CAYMAN BRAC

Holiday rentals on the Cayman Islands seem to be of good quality, but they don’t come cheap. We opted for a nicely equipped cottage on the south side of the west-end. The unit was “affordable“ and we opted to largely self-cater.

It was called the “Ocean Retreat”, listed on Airbnb. I'd recommend it or the larger house (“Escape from Reality”) on the same property, but it looks like the price has gone up substantially since our stay (perhaps, we were off-season). A more expensive option would be to rent something on the north side of the west-end, which would have better water access.

On our first full day we did a quick tour of the island, some grocery shopping and an afternoon snorkel on the north side. We turned in the car and relied on the cruiser bikes for a week of diving. It’s often windy during the Caribbean winter months so it would be challenging to get in the water at our property. However, we were a 10 minute bike ride from the dive shop, a little more to a reasonable small supermarket and much closer to the nearby south side public beach.

We found the sun was intense through most of the day (mid November!) and the diving seemed to wear us out, so we weren’t inclined to do much in the afternoons after lunch.

THE DIVING ON CAYMAN BRAC

It was pretty good. We dove with Cayman Brac Dive Shack who get top marks from us. We opted for a 6-day package and did two morning dives each day. Service was excellent. There were a maximum of 10 divers on board, even so, we would sometimes deliberately linger on the guided dives and allow the main group to go ahead.

The wind affected the daily site selection; there aren’t many sheltered spots when the eastern trades kick up over 15 or 20 knots. Generally, the first dives were in the 80-90ft range and the second dive @60 ft. Although we were using enhanced air (aka Nitrox), the cumulative nitrogen effects started to creep in after 5 days, so we took a day off.

CAYMAN BRAC TOPSIDE

The Brac has more topography than its sibling (Little Cayman) or Grand Cayman. Walking both on and below the cliffs (Brac) was enjoyable. We saw a number of nesting brown boobies. The population is suffering; they nest on the ground and the eggs are targets for the feral cat population. We also took a small detour along Peters Road for the cave and worthwhile Peter's viewpoint. We visited a number of caves dotted around the island (used as impromptu hurricane shelters). Nani Cave was the only one that we visited that had stalactites.

We were fortunate enough to spot a pair of Cayman Brac parrots in the parrot reserve.

Cycling was mostly limited to the early and later hours. The locals were friendly and interesting to listen to.

Once we had finished our diving program, we took another rental car (two thumbs up for 4 D's Car Rental) to get around and try out the snorkeling. Without the diving, Cayman Brac did not really hold a huge amount of interest after a day or two of looking around.

CAYMAN BRAC SNORKELING

We found the snorkeling on Cayman Brac was often “helicopter” snorkeling, with the reef some 25 feet below us. If we saw something interesting, we had to take a deep breath and head down to see it. We did snorkel with a dive float (it is the law and a safety issue, though there were not many boats when we were in the water).

On the north side, we liked Lynn, Radar and Sylvia reefs (they were all quite similar, but deep). Handcuff reef was less interesting. Scott’s reef is a place for a windy day and Buccaneer is a last resort but still OK. We swam out to the Tibbetts wreck on a calm day. Further west, we enjoyed the Acquarium area (less deep, plenty of fish).

On the south side, we quite enjoyed the sheltered area between the Scuba Shack and the Cayman Brac Beach resort area (plenty of critters in the water), just watch for slow moving boats. We also tried in front of our cottage (OK), the public beach (long swim, but OK) and further east in front of the Bubble House (better).

The south side generally requires calmer seas than the north side but the different topography makes it worthwhile (larger coral bommies and deep channels, though perhaps less fish).

We arrived fairly early in the day and didn't dive that day, so we borrowed a resort sit-on top kayak to visit Owen island. We were fortunate that it was not a windy day. We were somewhat disappointed by the lame snorkeling.

DIVING ON LITTLE CAYMAN

We then shifted into the routine of over-eating at the wonderful buffet meals in the resort restaurant for the balance of the week. Self control? Not a chance. Coffee was ready by 6:00am and we enjoyed the daily sunrise show.

We had opted for the 2 morning dive package. Reef Divers provides excellent valet diving, though the boats load up with a maximum of 20 divers. The skipper & dive guide work hard through the 6 day work week. The main difference between diving the Brac and Little Cayman is the Bloody Bay wall. It is a world class dive area.

On the first day of diving, it was too rough for the boats to get out to the north side, but on the following days, the winds eased a little bit and we managed to access the wall. On a number of days, the dive boat really rocked at the dive moorings. So much so, that Sheila was thrown around while she was getting into position to dive, and she cracked a couple of ribs. She finished the dive program, but it took about 4 weeks before she could sleep without pain relief.

The diving was very good and I can understand why most of the resort guests were returning customers.

LITTLE CAYMAN TOPSIDE

The resort is across the street from the Booby Pond. It was fabulous to watch the frigate birds and red footed boobies, especially from the National Trust viewing platform.

The Little Cayman museum was of interest, mainly to see all the iguanas out back and to listen to the woman who is studying the iguanas. We did a few bike rides on the resort cruiser bikes and we caught the sunset one evening. It is about a 2 hour bike ride around the island.

ONTO GRAND CAYMAN

The resort weekly package ends on a Saturday, and the next Air Canada flight wasn't until Tuesday, so we booked a couple of nights on Grand Cayman. Hotel prices seem to be even higher on Grand Cayman, so we were happy with staying at Harbor View Apartments which are sandwiched between Georgetown and Seven Mile Beach. There is a dock and decent snorkeling out front. We wandered over to the Seven Mile Beach area; it felt like South Florida. On another day, we had a look around Georgetown before the daily cruise ships disgorged. It was interesting to see Grand Cayman, but we didn't find it particularly appealing. If we were diving Grand Cayman, we'd likely stay a distance away from the main tourist area. I heard that the Grand Cayman walls start deeper than Little Cayman, so diving would be more taxing (more nitrogen build-up).