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schoolmaster snapper, and large green morays can be
seen freely swimming about the reef. Butterflyfish are
well suited for foraging amid the reef crannies, and it is
common to see angelfish here as well.
Because of the prevailing winds, much of the diving
is done off the west and north sides of the island, but
there are several great sites off the southern and eastern
shores.
Anchor Wall
is a particularly photogenic
south-side site with a giant and very old anchor
embedded in a deep coral crevice about 4 feet above
the seafloor at 100 feet. Orange encrusting sponge now
decorate the anchor’s shank and flukes; to give a sense
of its immense size in the photo, I like to bring a model
in from the seaward side, just behind the anchor.
Although it is a long run, most dive operations try
to get their groups to the east end, weather permitting,
at least once during their stay. This trip gives a nice
overview of the island’s topography, particularly the
bluff, which is all the more imposing when viewed
from sea level.
Rock Monster Chimney, Son of
Rock Monster
and
Ken’s Mountain
are all popular
destinations for a bluff run. Here the wall begins at
about 60 feet, with giant sand canyons that cleave the
substrate. The crevices are overgrown and provide
swim-through tunnels along the wall. There may be
more current here than along the island’s west side,
but the payoff is visibility that can exceed 150 feet.
There is so much high-profile shelter from flow that
current tends not to be an issue anyway.
LITTLE CAYMAN
Lying 7 miles from Cayman Brac and 86 miles from
Grand Cayman is Little Cayman. If you were given a
blank slate and a magic pen and were told to create a
dive destination, you just might draw Little Cayman.
First, make a 9-mile-long and 1-mile-wide oblong
shape. Then add a little 11-acre patch of an island off
the south side, near enough to kayak to but far enough
away to serve as a bird sanctuary (that would be Owen
Island). Then add some scenic white sand beach along
the island’s south side, and on the north side, which
features the best diving, make an ironshore to keep
the visibility optimal. Put some high-profile spur-and-
groove coral formations along the south side so there’s
good diving no matter the wind direction. On the north
side render a wide, shallow plateau that could host
high-profile star corals and lots of gorgonian. Carve out
a vertical wall that begins as shallow as 18 feet and then
plunges to 6,000, and have it all washed by the indigo
waters that pass through the Cayman Trench. Make
sure it is semiarid with no rivers to ensure the best
possible water clarity, and then keep the population tiny
to minimize the impact from cars or sewage. Sprinkle
in lots of sea turtles, friendly grouper and large schools
of grunt and schoolmaster snapper. Add a few sharks,
some eagle rays and some green morays, and then on
top of it all lay a marine park so that all the pretty things
you envisioned are protected and preserved. Then you
would have Little Cayman.
When I was there last October we had unseasonably
windy conditions, which I wouldn’t normally mention
because it was so unusual. But it kept us diving the
south side of the island for several days, and I had
never before done much of that. Normally we’d
motor right by all those south-side reefs on the way
to the better-known sites along the north side such as
Bloody Bay Wall
and
Jackson Bight
. But this time
we explored some of the southern sites, including
Charlie’s Chimney, Pirate Point Reef, Windsock
Reef
and
Grundy’s Gardens
. I’m sure with more time
I could come to discern the fine distinctions between
these sites, but in broad strokes they seemed to offer
similar hard-pan shallows that gradually build into
spur-and-groove channels of high-profile corals that
slope down to a sandy, 45- to 50-foot-deep seafloor
punctuated by large clusters of 15- to 20-foot-high
coral. All of this slopes very gradually seaward before
plunging vertically from a depth of about 80 feet. The
corals are quite nice and provide habitat for grouper,
turtle, rays (both stingrays and eagle rays), trumpetfish,
jacks and angelfish. While the frequency of significant
marine life encounters here may not be as high as
that on Bloody Bay Wall, these are very nice dives and
sometimes deliver decidedly different vistas than those
found on the other side of the island. Granted, it is
hard to not choose Bloody Bay and Jackson Bight when
the conditions permit, but I was glad for the windy
conditions just so I could experience a bit of Little
Cayman I’d never known before.
The sites along
Jackson Bight
have been more
productive for me over the years in terms of pelagic
encounters. In the prelionfish years this was the best
site for seeing sharks, but these days Caribbean reef
sharks often appear wherever lionfish culling takes
place. The large sandy arenas of sites such as
Eagle
Ray Roundup
are predictably good for eagle ray
Opposite:
A free-swimming green moray eel makes for a dynamic
photo opportunity on Cayman Brac’s Buccaneer Reef.