Cayman Brac

Author: Cheryl Morgavi Mire

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times" seems a most appropriate opening for my Cayman Brac trip report (7/24/1999-7/31/1999). I know it's been used before, but perhaps I can claim partial rights to it as an English teacher ;)

Luckily, most of the "worst" came before the "best." As you might expect, the "worst" times were provided by our carrier, American Airlines. Our 3:15 flight didn't take off until well after 6:00 p.m., which meant we were touching down in the Miami airport at exactly the same time as our Cayman Air connecting flight was taking off. American had called ahead so that its own European connection would wait a full two hours in Miami, but they were "unable" to ask the Cayman flight for the fifteen minutes we would have needed to make our connection. So, the seventeen divers in our group spent the first night of our dive trip in an airport Travel Lodge rather than at the Divi on Cayman Brac. American even rubbed a little salt in our wounded spirits by refusing to compensate us for the overnight delay. They claimed it was a weather delay although we watched Southwest, Continental and Northwest airlines take off and land repeatedly as we sat for three hours in the New Orleans airport waiting to proceed on our journey.

Sunday morning, we took the Cayman Air 11:15 a.m. to the islands and suffered through the 10 hour layover on Grand Cayman which we had hoped to avoid by taking the 8:50 flight the previous evening. The Turtle Farm and island tour with our group did little to help us forget the three dives we lost out on as a result of the delay.

Finally, on Monday morning, we were treated to the "best" of times by the Divi Tiara resort on Cayman Brac. Although the resort is scheduled for a facelift in September (pool and patio dining area resurfacing), the Divi offers a luxury experience we have not noticed at too many other dive facilities for serious divers. The one exception might be Captain Don's in Bonaire, but even they cannot compete with the food on Cayman Brac. The Divi clearly has a "chef," not a cook. We missed the butterfly shrimp the first night, but managed to scoff down sufficient Caribbean lobster, T-bone steaks, cracked King Crab legs and large boiled shrimp to feel we were not totally deprived. Even lunches were special, with Chicken Fajitas and Chicken Caesar salads rather than the typical hamburger and hot dog parade. I 'll spare you my accolades for the blueberry pancakes at breakfast.

Lest anyone think that all we did was eat and waddle around, I'll make some brief comments on the diving. I've never cared for the fish catalogues which make up trip reports, so I'll confine the description to the dive operation itself and the "best in show" parts. Since I'm a diehard fan of the CocoView (Roatan) dive boats, I cannot give a glowing recommendation to the Divi Tiara boats. We had 17 divers in our group, all on one boat - a little cozy for my taste. After the first day, we rarely had more than 12 on a single dive, so it was tolerable. The boats provide two rear exits where the divers are seated and attended to by the crew. For those of you who are nervous about someone setting up personal gear, this can be a negative. We had some confusion on the first dive, but the crew quickly memorized everyone's idiosyncratic set up for the rest of the week. It was a pleasure not to have to handle the rinsing and rushing which usually make up a good part of my dive experiences. However, entry for 12-17 divers, two at a time, being attended to like groupers with gobies in tow, was a slow process. The one re-entry ladder at the rear of the boat also made for some extended safety stops on occasion. All in all though, this setup did not interfere with our ability to achieve bottom time averages of an hour to an hour and 20 minutes. None of the air hogs seemed to mind waiting on the boat, munching on orange slices and cold granola bars while the rest of us tried to pretend we could stay down as long as a Cayman turtle.

To me, diving in the Caymans has always seemed the stuff of legends, something I dreamed of as I planned for each new dive trip in my new sport. This was my first visit to paradise, and there were some truly exceptional moments. I can't imagine more intimate contacts with the sea than I had in Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. The gods blessed us with ideal conditions the entire week, so we were able to sample the north and south shore of both the Brac and Little Cayman. The Divi graciously gave us not one but TWO free mornings in Little Cayman to help us overcome our American Airlines transportation nightmares. Besides a plentiful representation of the usual tropicals, we were treated to a couple of sharp tailed eels at East Chute Reef. In Little Cayman, we encountered large groupers at the Hole in the Wall Reef which seemed more like friendly Labradors, waiting for us to pet them or even hold them in our arms. I had seen older dive masters pet groupers in Cozumel, but I suspected the behavior was linked to years of free handouts, a custom now discouraged. I'm not sure if the same is true of these groupers.

We, of course, saw no sharks at Shark Alley reef on the Brac, but we encountered a very large Bull Shark and 6 foot long Barracuda at the Busstop Reef. I was able to rent a Video Camera and housing to produce a film which the photoshop converted to a VHF tape with island music in the background. It was a good deal for $45 total, and I was glad to have the chance to record the movement of both the shark and barracuda. The hammy barracuda even hung around for my safety stop; guess he didn't think I had captured his most photogenic side yet.

Other special moments included a 10 minute swim with a baby Loggerhead at Cumbers Cave on Little Cayman and an eyeball to eyeball encounter with a Tarpon cruising around the corner of a coral head (on Tarpon Reef, naturally). But the memory which I will carry with me for a lifetime is the extended chance encounter with a very charming Dolphin at Heddy's Reef!! It was near the end of our week, and many of the divers in our group had chosen to sit out the afternoon dive. I was tempted myself, but my dive trips are too infrequent for me to miss a moment below the surface. As soon as our group hit the water, she appeared; we named her Dolly later that evening as we shared the story with our envious companions. Dolly swam with, over, under and among us for the entire hour of the dive. She let us pet her, stroke her belly and even, in the case of one adrenaline pumped diver, remove our mask and kiss her on the snout. As we gathered around her, she talked to us in that wonderful squeaky Dolphin-speak which we humans don't understand yet. If we backed off, she followed us, tossing a blade of seaweed up and retrieving it. When we ran out of air and returned to the boat, she popped up behind us, as if begging for more play. We certainly were willing to oblige her, donning snorkel gear and playing til we could tear ourselves away. Priorities are priorities, it was lobster and steak night!

Although I must confess to being a member of the TV generation, I never believed in the Leave It to Beaver family and I don't believe in wild dolphins who play with 10 crazed divers for an afternoon. Dolly could not possibly be a wild dolphin. The staff at the Divi Tiara suspect she is one of two Dolphins who did not return to their pen after Hurricane Mitch. She has been showing up at various Cayman Brac dive sites for the past several weeks. If she hangs around much longer, they'll have to put her in the promotional brochure as an attraction!

On Saturday, July 31st, the best of times came to an end with a pre-dawn flight home. You guessed it, American Airlines flight 1791, the flight which had denied us the first dive day of our trip, was late to New Orleans once again! Maybe Rodale's should add a new feature to those articles where divers rate dive operators and resorts - a rating for the airlines which attempt to ruin the best weeks of the year for divers, the days we get to blow bubbles and take away our memories.