Basic HTML Version
simple practicality: There is a green house on shore near
the mooring. Live corals decorate the tops of the spurs, and
crevices along the canyon walls host schoolmasters and
squirrelfish. Now it is not uncommon to see lionfish along
these shallow reefs as well, even though local divemasters
actively cull them. Green morays on some of the nearby sites
such as
Plymouth Rock
are now associating divers with a
lionfish handout, so they are far more likely to be seen free
swimming here than is typical elsewhere. As on many of Brac’s
shallow reefs, large schools of grunt are common.
East ChutE and thE WrECk of thE Cayman mariner
Located on the north wall of Cayman Brac,
East Chute
offers a
wall dive beginning at about 70 feet with a dramatic sand chute
that exits the wall at 110 feet. On the sand plateau you’ll find the
wreck of the
Cayman Mariner
, a vessel designed to service the
oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Sunk in 1986 as a dive attraction,
it now lies in 55 feet of water. It has suffered the ravages of
storms over the years, which has blurred its profile, but it still
hosts colorful sponges and many small reef fish.
WildErnEss Wall
Along Cayman Brac’s south wall, several immense pinnacles
rise from the reef shoreward of the precipice; there is
also one prominent pinnacle located seaward of the wall.
Concave sections of the reef are filled with a large variety of
sponges growing in incredible shapes. A dive light will reveal
splashes of bright red and yellow where encrusting sponges
have plastered every available hard surface. Four species
of angelfish (rock beauties, French angels, gray angels and
queen angels) are abundant.
littlE Cayman
Little Cayman and Cayman Brac are only 5 miles apart, so it
is common for dive boats from each sister to visit the other
at some point during the week. Little Cayman is just 9 miles
long, barely 1 mile wide and mostly flat. Resorts tend to be
small and intimate, specializing in friendly, personal service.
A nearby 11-acre islet, Owen Island, is a bird sanctuary with
a lovely sand beach that’s a popular picnic spot for kayakers.
Little Cayman offers outstanding marine life and some of the
Caribbean’s best vertical walls.
A large stretch of Little Cayman’s northern coast,
from Spot Bay to Jackson Point, is under the enlightened
protection of the Bloody Bay Marine Park. Only two boats
per dive operator are allowed each day, and each boat is
limited to no more than 20 divers. The western section of
the park is dominated by Bloody Bay Wall, and the eastern
section is known as Jackson’s Bight.
JaCkson’s Bight sitEs:
magiC roundaBout
The roundabout, a large pinnacle rising from 120 feet
up to 70 feet, allows circumnavigation through a crevice
rich with black corals, rope sponges and orange elephant
ear formations. The walls are fascinating, and there is
an impressive concentration of reef life in the shallower
depths. The combination of unusual sand-dwelling species
and a rich reef make Magic Roundabout a fish watcher’s
paradise. From tiny sailfin blennies to sleek Caribbean reef
sharks, the site serves up a wide variety encounters.
EaglE ray roundup
The mooring at
Eagle Ray Roundup
lies in a large arena
where spotted eagle rays often come to dine on small
crustaceans buried in the sand. Nurse sharks can be seen
preying on queen conch, which are relatively common here,
and high-profile coral islets provide habitats for trumpetfish,
angelfish, damselfish and surgeonfish. Numerous cleaning
stations attract tiger groupers to the lip of the wall.
Bus stop
Sometimes old names for dive sites endure, even when
the inspirations for them are long gone — like the derelict
school bus that once sat on the shore near this site. The
site offers a mini wall at the shallow end of the reef,
and nearby, several small coral formations rise 20 feet
above a broad, 50-foot-deep sand “meadow.” Reef sharks,
growing accustomed to handouts of dead lionfish, are now
encountered here more frequently than in previous years.
Bloody Bay Wall sitEs:
thrEE fathom Wall / mixing BoWl
This site comes by one of its names simply enough: the wall
begins at a depth of 3 fathoms (18 feet). As for its other
name, the site is bisected by a large crevice that separates
the bottom profile common along Jackson Bight from
the topography of the Bloody Bay Wall, mixing the two
environments. Swimming east from the mooring will bring
you to the face of the crevice, which is often crowded with
schools of snapper and grunt. The shallow reef is so good
here some divers may not make it to the wall, but those
who do will find abundant large sponges and black coral
trees typical of the Bloody Bay Wall.
randy’s gazEBo
Almost directly seaward of this site’s mooring line is a large
opening in the shallow seafloor that becomes a tunnel,
which leads directly out of the vertical wall. Everywhere
you look are sponges and corals, and Nassau groupers and
placid hawksbill turtles can be encountered at almost any
depth. The healthy fish populations here are the result
of years of successful marine conservation. Not so long
ago, local fishermen decimated grouper populations by
overfishing them at the very times they needed to gather in
great numbers for procreation. Fishing the grouper spawn
66
|
SPRING 2012