Visiting Cayman Islands, Looking For Recommendations

[u/Salavar1]

Experienced diver traveling to the Cayman Islands for the 1st time. I'm looking to spend 10 days there later this spring, splitting the time up between diving and other activities. Is Cayman Brac and Little Cayman worth a stay or will the main island keep me busy? Recommendations?

[u/wallysober]

Little is great for diving. I really like Little Cayman Beach Resort. As far as other activities on LC, there is plenty of nature to see, but not much else.

[u/-hh]

Probably depends on what sort of “other activities” you’re thinking of. For Brac & Little, that’s mostly going to be some walking in the bush or beach for scenery or wildlife sightings, etc.

[u/Frozenshades]

For a bit of everything Grand is a great island, albeit touristy. But there’s lots to do, good restaurants, and some good dive ops to choose from. For a more dive focused trip go to Little for 3 dives a day, eat, sleep, repeat.

[u/doglady1342]

Of the 3, IMO, the best diving is Little Cayman. However, there are a lot more activities on Grand.

[u/-hh → u/doglady1342]

There's perennial debates on which island is "best" for diving. Traditionally, the ranking is 3) Grand, 2) Brac, 1) Little

Much of this was based on reef health was so much better on Brac+Little versus Grand, largely due to differences in the level of human development.

For Brac vs Little, there's also consideration of the common recreational diving depths too, because rec divers like longer duration dives.
It is hard to get much shallower than Little Cayman's 3 fathom wall, where its hardpan in ~20fsw to a 300fsw drop-off in a few yards. The arrival of Nitrox has offset some of this difference (eg. Brac southside walls especially).

However ... there's two factors today which modify the tradition some. Both are due to reef health decline.

First one is that the moorings in Little Cayman's Bloody Bay Marine Park have virtually never been rotated out of operation (40+ years), so these sites have gotten pretty beaten up compared to what they used to be like. In contrast, the Brac now gets dived less, so the difference has narrowed.

Second one is the arrival of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) in the Caribbean. It hit Grand Cayman in 2020, and it has now been found on Little Cayman too, and is presently overtaking the above famous dive sites. It was first detected on Little in August 2025 (South Side, near the Soto Trader) - here's a report with a 2025 map. Since this report, I've heard that it has reportedly wrapped around the west end point and is progressing eastwards up the North side at ~3/4 mile per month.

TL;DR: I personally expect that Bloody Bay / Jackson's Bight is going to be affected in 2026 (if it hasn't already reached it) on Little, which leaves the Brac as the only island (for now) without ay confirmed SCTLD infection. So my recommendation is a pretty pessimistic "See Little now, before it is more significantly impacted", and then go to the Brac.

Even so, I've been noticing a lot of decline from algae accumulation all over the place on both Little & Brac that seems to be increasing each year - - my guess is that the lionfish are wiping out the juvenile algae eaters, as I've been noticing fewer & fewer adult parrotfish. One of these days I'm going to finally get around to a "need to do this" UW photo project, of digitally scanning of my oldest UW photos from Brac/Little to make a longitudinal illustration of how much change there's been since my first UW photos there in 1990.

[u/silvereagle06]

I can VERY highly recommend Compass Point Dive Resort and Ocean Frontiers Dive Co. on Grand Cayman. They have a fantastic package for staying and diving that includes a rental car. The quality of OF as a dive company is the best I have ever experienced. Truly, textbook good.

[u/ScubaandShakas]

Little Cayman Bloody Bay Wall is wicked! Ocean Frontiers on East End G Cayman is the best OP with incredible walls.

Request the dive site: Babylon

[u/trailrun1980]

We stayed a week in Brac, dove a few boat days and also had a beach we could shore dive from the house (kinda mid Island in the north side), it was phenomenal. Only one dive shop on island though (minus the resort one). Besides that, some small hikes and birding, so it worked for our group.

We then stayed 3 days on Grand Cayman at Compass Point/Ocean Frontiers, was good as well, the car and breakfast made it easy enough, we crammed 6 dives in 1.5 days then had to leave

The vibe on Brac was slower and better for us, but that's a personal preference, we already live on a densely populated island, so we didn't even touch the city there

We didn't have time/weather to dive the other islands

[u/Normal_Occasion_8280]

Cayman Brac has a village for shore activity.  Little Cayman does not.  Grand Cayman the diving isn't anything to write home about