Bloody bay wall from cayman brac

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

BUDMANOK

Contributor
Messages
410
Reaction score
276
Location
Broken Arrow,Ok
# of dives
100 - 199
what's the best way to dive Bloody Bay wall from the Brac? best op to use? charter or not? costs? how much time does it take to do two dives and make the trip over? worthwhile?

this may be my one chance to make this dive so I really want to find out if it's worth the costs and if so why?

only those that have actually made the trip please:D:D

Thanks
 
There are only two dive ops on Cayman Brac that I am aware of, Reef Divers and Brac Scuba Shack. Both make trips to Little Cayman on a regular basis. I have never used BSS, but have dove with their DMs when they worked for Reef Divers. Mikey and Vincent apparently dive with them quite frequently, so they can tell you what their policy is. The trick to diving LC from the Brac is that the crossing between the two can get a bit bumpy coming or going, especially with a moderate to strong east or north wind. Beyond a certain point, the boat captains won't make the trip if they are going to beat the tar out of their boat or their guests to make it there and back. It is generally up to the crew to decide that day whether they can or will make the trip, so there are no guarantees. It is usually done as a 2 dive morning trip and the time depends entirely on the sea conditions. In calm seas on Reef Divers boats, it is probably about a 45 minute trip one way.

The easiest way to get there is to stay at Brac Reef Beach Resort and dive with Reef Divers. I believe that they include a trip to LC once per week in any of their dive packages (weather permitting). That way, you have all week to wait out the weather to be sure to get a chance to go over and see it. They generally only send one boat over per day, but most people run packages from sat-sat, so if it gets to weds or thurs and they haven't been able to go all week, you might see 2-3 boats go on the same day to get everybody a chance to dive over there. If you aren't staying with them, but plan to shore dive the Brac for most of your trip, I suspect that you would be able to schedule in advance to jump on one of their boats depending on how busy they are when you are there. The trick for you will be if they are really crowded and you are not diving with them or staying with them other than those dives, you will have to be really flexible (or lucky) to pick the day, or days when weather allows them to make the crossing. It really just depends on the time of year...I have been there when you could make the crossing easily for 7 days straight, and then there are weeks when making the crossing was only possible one or two days out of seven. If you are shore diving, you might set something up with BSS instead where you would rent tanks from them and get fills from them, and if they have a trip across planned otherwise, you could get on with them and go.

Oh, and I missed your last question...worth it? I think so. On my trips to Cayman Brac, the best dive days were usually the ones spent on Little Cayman. Now I just go to Little Cayman instead. Now with that said, "worth it" really depends on the cost, your financial situation, and the conditions. Brac has excellent diving. So if I were going to have to pay more than say $50 extra for a couple of morning dives on Little Cayman, I probably wouldn't. Same situation if there was a strong north wind and it was very marginal conditions for a trip over. The vis on the Bloody Bay Wall can get washed out pretty quickly with a swell coming from the Northeast. I would not take a long and rough boat ride for an hour each way just to dive in low vis conditions. However, I say that as somebody who thinks $50 is a decent amount of money to part with, who has done probably close to 100 dives on the Bloody Bay Wall, and who knows I will be spending lots of future days on the Cayman Sister Islands. If I had never been there, was not planning to return for several years and thought nothing of dropping $50 on something, I would probably have a different perspective on whether the trip was "worth it" in marginal conditions.
 
Last edited:
I was skunked earlier in the month due to heavy weather. Brac scuba shack will take you for a 40 dollar surcharge, but they like to have a full boat of 6. The fee for a 2 tank dive is 80 dollars US. The best 120 dollars you will spend, and well worth it. They are an excellent shop and try to accommodate requests. I have used BR, but the trip to LC is usually full unless you reserve in advanced. Both shops are awesome, although I prefer BSS. There are boats that will take you over, but to SCUBA i would stick with the licensed dive ops.

To be honest, LC is a 1 out of 14 day trip from Brac. My thought would be to stay on LC one trip and stay and dive Brac on another. There are plenty of spots on Brac that no one dives that are spectacular. Like Bluff wall on the south.(a 1 out of 14 day dive as well)The best wall in Cayman IMO. Have fun.
 
I agree with pretty much all of that. The diving is good enough on the Brac, that I would not pay extra to go to LC more than one or maybe two days depending on how long you will be there. The underwater terrain is different on the Brac than what you will see on Bloody Bay Wall or Jackson's Bight over at LC. I actually prefer the Jackson's Bight sites on LC to the BBW, but the shallow wall top and sheer drop are just so spectacular that they are definitely worth making a special effort to do at least once. When we went to Brac in the mid and late 90s, we dove a lot of sites down near the east end that don't seem to get much traffic most of the time. They were terrific sites and I guess maybe it was unusual conditions or cheaper fuel that allowed us to do so many of them on that trip. The last couple of times we went to Brac, it seemed like all the diving was focused on the west end sites. The best choice is to focus on Brac and maybe do one day on LC, then come back next time and stay on LC and see which one you like best.
 
A spectacular site on the Brac which no one goes to is Strawberry Wall, the bouy has been missing for nearly 20 years and it has something worth seeing. Last time I dove it about 10 yrs ago, there was a huge vase sponge on the floor that was covered with brittle stars...I was out of film:furious:

There was also numerous entwined sponges, plenty of fish too, you would need a strobe as it was too deep for a gopro without a strobe. I talked to a diver that has dove on that site since and he agreed with my enthusiasm, he dove that site with locals.
 
thanks great replies.

This time I am with other divers so it will be a consensus as to whether we go or not but I am leaning toward staying on the Brac this time and seeing what is has to offer.

Caymaniac do you want to share directions to Strawberry wall?:D
 
I'd say it's worth the cost unless you think you'll come back to stay on LCB...
 
I believe Strawberry is the site next to Cemetery Wall.(correct me if I'm wrong) It's too far east for the dive boats, they don't go much past the Scott's dock. The wall all along the north side is an easy swim from shore. Another site worth seeing is the just west of the Almond Beach site in Spot Bay. There is a tall limestone pinnacle that rises from the edge, pretty cool. Not many people dive that site, and it attracts a lot of big yellowfin tuna . The local fishermen will tell you the big sharks are along the northeast end and seem to appear in the evening hours, so I tend to dive these sites in the midday. Enjoy Brac, it does have some beautiful sites. Cheers
 
I have stayed at the BRBR twice and both times we had excellent diving off Brac and felt that Reef Divers was a great dive operation. But Bloody Bay Wall is some of the best diving in the Caribbean and if conditions are good then it is well worth an extra fee IMO. We once spent the best part of a week diving Bloody Bay Wall off the Aggressor and it was spectacular.

The first time we visited Brac we were able to make a day trip over to LC, but the weather was iffy the second time we were there and the boat captains were unwilling to chance it. We are going back to the Brac this fall and I hope we will have a chance to dive BBW again.

I imagine that a charter would be quite expensive, I agree that the best option is to arrange to join a trip over being sponsored by Reef Divers or the other dive operation on the Brac.
 
When the Divi was in operation I spent a number of trips diving at Little Cayman all week. There were four boats and one was always going to Little Cayman. Other years the boat I was on voted to dive Bloody Bay every other day which was great seeing the best of both Islands. The last two trips to the Brac we had to settle for only one day a week on Bloody Bay, but of course not to worry, the diving on the Brac is spectacular, especially when you know what sites to visit.

Staying at LCBR is the best way to dive Little Cayman, staying on the Brac is the cheapest way to dive LC.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom