Little Cayman diving
Little Cayman offers spectacular diving opportunities. There is great wall and shore diving. The underwater scenery is abound with tropical marine life, black coral trees and colourful coral gardens. There are lots of dive sites of different depths to choose from and for non divers the snorkelling and swimming is great.
Always dive according to your level of training. Never enter the water without checking with the local dive center for safety, additional information, level required for each dive site and without being accompanied by a professional.
All the information provided is purely informative for our readers and shouldn't be used as is to plan your immersion.
Little Cayman is famous for its spectacular wall dives. The best dives are situated at the north west's Bloody Bay Marine Park which includes Bloody Bay and Jackson's Bay which have loads of dive sites to explore. Of the wall dives here Bloody wall is probably the most famous. It is highly appreciated by photographers and marine biologists because of the teeming marine life that exists here. The reef rises to within 20 feet (6 metres) of the surface and plunges into great depths. Bloody wall boasts nice coral gardens, trees of black coral, huge colourful sponges and sea fans and swim throughs. Inhabiting the reefs are turtles, sharks and rays as well as plenty of tropical fish. While diving on Blood Bay's dive sites you will encounter scorpion fish, big schools of fish, green morays and nurse sharks. You may even see yellowhead jawfish nursing their eggs.
Second to Bloody Wall in popularity comes Jackson Bay on the north shore. It has steep walls like Bloody Wall which start at 50 feet (15 metres). The drop-offs are covered in hard corals and sponges. There's also plenty of marine life present here which includes stingrays and eagle rays in great numbers. There are some swim-throughs, tunnels and caves on Jackson Bay's dives. The marine life you will encounter includes turtles, spotted eagle rays, nurse shark, tiger groupers and nurse sharks just to name a few. There are also colourful sea fans and huge barrel sponges.
The South Shore has some deep diving. There can be some strong current when diving on this side. Expect to see ocean triggers, morays, groupers and sharks. However the dives on the south side are not all deep. There are some shallow reefs. Your operator will make a program depending on your experience. While on the south shore you can dive the wreck Soto Trader which sits on a sandy bottom in about 50 feet (15 metres) of water. This is Little Cayman's only wreck. The Soto Trader sunk when there was a fire on board caused by an explosion. Around this wreck you may spot eagle rays and nurse sharks as well as spotted drums.
There are morning boat trip departing from Little Cayman to dive the Tibbets, the Russian destroyer sunk off Cayman Brac. Ask your dive operator as this is a great place for wide angle photography.
Not all of Little Cayman's beauty is underwater. This little island is known for the huge population of the Magnificent Frigate birds and the Red footed Booby. There is an observation deck at the Booby Pond Nature Reserve from where visitors can watch the birds through telescopes. There are also lots of Rock Iguanas, estimated population is over 2'000. Road signs were put up asking motorists to be on the watch for iguanas along the roads on the coast.
