USA Today features Cayman Islands
Steve Blount, Special for USA TODAY
Experience the Cayman Islands
Although Columbus was the first European to find the Cayman Islands, it was scuba divers and wealthy investors looking for a discreet place to stash their cash who put it on the map. Once dubbed “the islands time forgot” by National Geographic, their location — in the central Caribbean south of Cuba and north of Jamaica — meant this wasn’t a place you went to on the way to anywhere else. That isolation and sandy soil ruled out commercial agriculture and Cayman’s most precious natural resource, its iconic marine environment, had to wait for the invention of the aqualung to be appreciated. The three islands, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, are a British Overseas Territory, like Bermuda. And like Bermuda, they have no taxes, which has made the islands a major offshore financial center.
The three islands sit atop a huge subsea ridge, the Cayman Rise, that overlooks a 24,000-foot canyon in the ocean floor. Steep vertical walls begin just a hundred yards offshore in places, and plunge to hundreds, then thousands, of feet. This geography (or bathymetry if you prefer) makes it a spectacular water sports destination. Large pelagic (open ocean) fish such as tuna and marlin come in close to shore, and tarpon, permit and bone fish provide rod-bending action for fly fishermen. For divers, the walls mean lots of nutrients welling up from the deep to nourish filter feeders including giant barrel sponges and hard and soft corals. The water can be crystal clear, with underwater visibility of 100 feet or more common.
Grand Cayman is the most cosmopolitan, with its luxury high-rise hotels and condos, and a cruise ship port. Little Cayman and “the Brac,” as it’s known, are small and intimate. Little Cayman has five hotels; the Brac just three, none of them chains. While anyone and everyone can be seen on Grand Cayman, the clientele on the other islands is made up of anglers, snorkelers, divers and a few misplaced sailors who’ve fetched up here.
Underwater, the scenery on these “Sister Islands” is some of the best in the Caribbean. Little Cayman’s Bloody Bay Wall starts a few dozen yards offshore and goes vertical to more than 600 feet, it’s face thickly furred with waving gorgonians and tangles of rope sponges in lurid day-glo colors. The Brac has it’s own walls, as well as the intentionally placed wreck of a former Russian-built warship, now dubbed the MV Captain Keith Tibbets. At night, sun- and sea-tired visitors kick back in the hotel bars to talk about the big ones that did or didn’t get away and knock back some adult beverages. Nightlife is a shore dive to sneak up on octopus and sleeping parrotfish.
Grand Cayman, on the other hand, bustles, its asphalt arteries and oceanfront acres bursting at the seams. The familiar hotels are here — Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Westin, Holiday Inn — along with some small boutique hotels that grew up with the diving business, such as Sunset House or Morrits Tortuga Club and a clutch of condo-tels.
There are wonderful beaches on Grand Cayman; the most famous is the inaccurately named Seven Mile Beach (it’s a bit over five miles long) along West Bay, but there are also great beaches at Rum Point and isolated beaches along the north shore and east end. Whether you arrive by air or by sea, it’s a good bet you’ll be spending a great deal of your time in the water. One look at the the beauty stretching toward the horizon, with the laser-green turquoise inshore water giving way to cobalt blue just off the wall, and you’ll have to dive in.
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