A Week In Paradise - Cayman Brac

In mid-October, I got the chance to slip away to the small Caribbean Island of Cayman Brac. There were 12 of us total, all from NW Arkansas, Eastern Oklahoma and the Kansas City area. We all share a love of the sea. Who doesn’t love a warm breeze and beautiful beach sunset with a tropical drink in hand? Throw in daily scuba diving in crystal clear water ranging in the upper 80’s and I’m your mermaid, I mean gal! We stayed at the Cayman Brac Beach Resort which offers “valet diving.” This basically means they set up your gear, help you in and out of your gear, and change your tanks for you after every dive. We had three buffet style meals every day with good food! The outdoor bar offered specialty drinks every day – a bit pricy, but hey “you’re on vacation!” The resort is situated right on the beach with a walk-in pool and hot tub. You can even relax on the beach in a hammock and watch the waves roll in.

I opted for the 3 dives a day package, because, well, I’m on vacation! We were paired up with Rozie and Yanni for the week as our personal Divemasters and tour guides. The dive briefings included color drawings with amazing detail. I was super impressed that they could draw all our dive sites completely from memory. We hit three unique sites a day, usually with a deep wall dive first then a shallower reef dive, breaking for lunch and then one more reef dive in the afternoon. There were tons of swim throughs, so I was in heaven! Others could follow along on top and meet up with the group or explore at their own pace. Several divers brought their personal DPV’s so finning was optional.



Visibility ranged from 60 – 150 feet, quite a big difference from the usual 20 feet at Beaver Lake! We also enjoyed water temperatures ranging around 88 degrees – no wet suit required! These warm temperatures also had a downside, as we saw quite a bit of coral bleaching. Our guides informed us when the water cools down, the corals should heal and return to normal, which is a relief, as it was sad to see so much white on the reef. 

So what did we see? Lots of the colorful Caribbean fish you would expect, like grunts, butterfly fish, Lionfish, French and Queen Angels. We also were entertained by a Hawksbill Turtle and a couple of shy nurse sharks. On one of our dives, “Gary” the Grouper followed us around, showing us the reef, seemingly happy to have some company! We found huger lobsters and a couple of eels, lots of box fish and a few puffer fish. We even found my favorite, the juvenile drum!

They offered 2 night dives. I opted for the first night. I dove with a florescent light – oh my goodness! If you haven’t tried this, I highly recommend! It was like a disco party underwater! Everywhere I looked, the colors were amazing, with the reef jumping to life in neon! And the coral bleaching I mentioned earlier? It all appeared to light up like Casper the Friendly Ghost trails underwater. We dove Lighthouse Reef, which is the main reef in front of the resort complete with swim throughs and a turtle tucking in for the night. 



My favorite dives were on Friday, when we made the trip to Bloody Bay Wall in Little Cayman. Mike’s Mount was easily one of the most beautiful dives. It is a wall dive, where we dropped down through a chimney to 70 feet and swam around a huge pinnacle – twice! We saw giant grouper, lobster, a turtle and huge barrel sponges. The reef in Little Cayman was in much better condition and left me wishing we could have stayed longer.

We finished our trip with a visit to the cliffs on the East side of the Island, for which the island is named after. The view was amazing, with a 141 foot drop to the ocean below. We made up a game of coconut bocce ball, enjoyed one more sunset and one more beautiful sunrise, and then made our way to the airport and back to the mainland and reality.