Grand Cayman Trip Report

[KathyV]

...Your experience with your Little Cayman trip struck a nerve. One of the main arguments in favor of picking a land-based Little Cayman op. (e.g.: Little Cayman Beach Resort) over the Cayman Aggressor (which, if weather cooperates, hopes to hit all 3 Cayman Islands), is to do all one's diving at what it seems a # of people consider the 'best' Cayman island for diving, without worrying that bad weather will beat you out by having the Cayman Aggressor stick around Grand Cayman, only diving it...But I've read that Bloody Bay Wall (and maybe Jackson's Bight) are the best places to dive there, what L.C. is legendary for...So even if you spend the week on Little Cayman, you might not get to dive there much. Wonder how often that happens? Richard.

Of course weather is always a big variable, no matter where you go to dive, but it would be very disappointing to head to the Caymans with plans to dive BBW and JB and not have that opportunity. I am sure that the Aggressor will do their best to get you the best diving available based on conditions. I think you will probably be fine based on the time of year you are going, but you should ask AdivingBel or AggieDiver because they have been to LC many times and during different seasons so they can give you a more accurate assessment.

 

[KathyV]

Rich, I just remembered that I had a conversation about "the best time of year to dive the Caymans" at the Our World Underwater Scuba Exposition in Chicago in February. I spoke with a representative from LCBR, CBBR, and CCGCR and she said that "summer is the best - you get warm water, great vis, and lower prices".

She said that "May was her favorite time to visit the Caymans but occasionally the winds make it impossible to dive BBW." It only happened to her one time but it does happen.

She said that Jan and Feb are great because the turtles are breeding - but the water is colder.

She suggested "pick the month that is best for you and buy trip insurance because there is always the risk of bad weather no matter when you travel."

The year that we did the Cayman Aggressor we went in October - which is always an iffy time of year for Caribbean weather. We spent the first week of our vacation on the Aggressor and the weather was perfect. Most of the time we were diving BBW and JB and the vis and conditions were spectacular. One of our all-time best dive vacations.

We spent the second week on Grand Cayman and the weather was terrible. Bad storms and rough seas all week. We did one 2-tank dive trip and decided it wasn't worth it. We did get to do a little snorkeling near the end of the week but it wasn't the best. When we were driving around the island one day we saw the Aggressor anchored off-shore and we were very glad that we weren't on the boat that week!

And one time when we were staying at CBBR in the fall, we had great weather and we did a day trip over to LC to dive BBW on our last dive day and it was fantastic. On the trip back one of the divemasters said that "bad weather was coming in and that next week it was unlikely that anyone would get to dive BBW". I said "that would be very disappointing because that's why people travel to LC." She agreed and said that "when the weather is poor you usually have better options around CB than LC."

Personally, if the weather is bad I would rather be warm and dry on GC because there is a lot more stuff to do topside when you can't dive!

Over the years we have had excellent, good, bad, mediocre, and rotten luck with our dive travel weather.

I really hope that you will have excellent luck on your Cayman Aggressor trip!

 

[captio2000]

Thank you for the great trip report. I'll be going in October for my daughters wedding and plan to dive a few days with Dive Tech. Staying next door at the Westin but some of the wedding guests are staying at the Sunshine Suites.

 

[howswedeofme]

Very nice trip report. We dove with Dive Tech in January (as well as Ambassador and DNS because we know people at each dive op) and had a great time. We also made our way out to the East End for a 3-tank with Ocean Frontier. The topography variation is what draws me to GC. January was our second trip and we are going somewhere else next year, but I'm hoping to make GC an every-other-year trip. The East End diving was great. One site (Desi's Donuts) was very boring and I thought too deep for the start of a 3-tank but the second site (Ironshore Gardens) now tops my list of favorite dive sites in general, not just on GC. Our final dive was out in front of OC's dive shop where they said you can pretty much always expect to see sharks in the afternoon, and the site did not disappoint. We saw three reef sharks, two big and one small. For anyone h

 

[ronscuba]

Rich, I just remembered that I had a conversation about "the best time of year to dive the Caymans" at the Our World Underwater Scuba Exposition in Chicago in February. I spoke with a representative from LCBR, CBBR, and CCGCR and she said that "summer is the best - you get warm water, great vis, and lower prices".

She said that "May was her favorite time to visit the Caymans but occasionally the winds make it impossible to dive BBW." It only happened to her one time but it does happen.

She said that Jan and Feb are great because the turtles are breeding - but the water is colder.

She suggested "pick the month that is best for you and buy trip insurance because there is always the risk of bad weather no matter when you travel."

......

I am always a little leery about asking a resort or dive operator representative about best time of the year. Are they being honest or pushing you towards low season because business is slow at that time ?

When I think back about my dive trips in the Caribbean, there was not much seasonal variation, but late spring/early summer and late fall/early winter seemed to be the most consistent and less susceptible to storms.

One thing for sure is in the future, I will avoid traveling during spring break. The airports were a mad house filled with crowds and flight delays.

 

[drrich2]

Thanks to Kathy for the added info. Of course, being stuck 'just diving Grand Cayman' would seriously be a 1st world problem!

I recall from another thread it was thought both Dive Tech and Ocean Frontiers have the option to add 2 afternoon dives, instead of just 2 morning divers; wonder how much it costs to go from 2 dives/day up to 4? Like for a package deal. I imagine a lot of people dive 5 or 6 days, 2-tank mornings. Let's say you added 5 days of 2-tank afternoons on top of that?

Richard.

 

[guruboy]

On the Ocean Frontiers website there is some "bulk" pricing breakdown in terms of divers and dives. If you need almost a week probably easier to call them directly.

Ill be staying on the east end so I plan to go dive with OF. Probably only a couple days at most though b

 

[AggieDiver]

But I've read that Bloody Bay Wall (and maybe Jackson's Bight) are the best places to dive there, what L.C. is legendary for.

So even if you spend the week on Little Cayman, you might not get to dive there much. Wonder how often that happens?

The best guy to ask this question to is ZF2NT. He lived on LC for a while and still spends time there every year I believe. My experience is that BBW can be blown out just about any time of year. But the time of year you are most likely to get blown out for an entire week (typical trip length) is October through January. Other times of the year, you might see a few days here or there where conditions get bad (mainly strong north winds), but you generally don't see sustained conditions like that for a week at a time very often outside of fall and early winter.

My favorite time to go there is August. The upside is that most of the other resorts start shutting down by early to mid-month, so the island is very quiet (even more than it usually is), the airport is less crowded and hectic on GC, the sea conditions and visibility are usually outstanding unless there is a hurricane brewing nearby, and you get it all with low-season pricing.

The downside to that time of year is that it can be pretty hot if you aren't used to it, and the risk of tropical cyclones is on the increase. I did some poking around a couple of years ago and figured that in the last 25 years or so, the risk of a tropical system near the Caymans generally peaks later than the Caribbean in general (mid-September peak), and you are most likely to see them get hit in October/November, although any month during hurricane season has at least some risk.