Little Cayman Dive Trip April 2024

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We made our annual pilgrimage to Little Cayman, BWI a few weeks ago. This was our 20th visit to this island. We really love diving on Bloody Bay Wall. It's amazing.

MAP

We left WHITE SNOW behind for WHITE SAND.

It was a long day of travel but we finally made it to our home, away from home.

Little Cayman Beach Resort

We were up early for our first day of diving. We had been assigned to the Sea Dreamer. Reef Divers at Little Cayman Beach Resort practices "valet diving" so we left our gear outside of our room before breakfast and the dive staff picked it up and delivered to the boat for us.

The Reef Divers staff personnel, Fabio and Brassy were diving with us all this week.

Our first dive spots were Mixing Bowl, Lei Lei's, Coconut Walk. We saw lots of our old friends-groupers, sea turtles and s few yellow headed jawfish with eggs. We even caught a glimpse of an Eagleray (my underwater spirit animal!) We looked around a bit for the Pillar Coral at Coconut Walk but couldn't find it. I hope it's not gone. I've been following it for years-PILLAR CORAL

Back on land I hit the Beachnuts Bar for my version of a Hemingway Daquiri then a yummy dinner and bed.

Our next dive spots were Mike Mount, Great Wall West, Dots Hot Spot.

Just as we get in the water, Jay and I spot a nice reef shark. There are lots of schooling fish and the sponges look pretty healthy.

Along came a hawksbill turtle that hung with us for a few minutes. Then we saw another Hawksbill enjoying breakfast on some coral.

We did notice some coral bleaching in a few places. But overall the reef was looking ok.

We started getting back into the eat, sleep and dive routine. And the next morning we visit Cascade, Donna's Delight and Joy's Joy.

We see more Hawksbill turtles, another Eagleray, and lots of beautiful coral. Jay made a grouper friend. And I finally got an OK photo of a butterfly fish.

I even saw this really cool tubeworm.

On Wednesday there was rain overnight and the winds had really picked up from the south, making leaving the resort area through the "cut" to get Bloody Bay Wall on the northside really challenging. The northside waters (Bloody Bay Wall) were pretty calm but getting there was really rough.

Brad subbed in as captain for Fabio and he and Brassy chose Randy's Gazebo and Marilyn's Cut/Mixing Bowl for our morning dives.

We love Randy's Gazebo, there's always cool stuff to see and you can swim through the "Gazebo" out into the blue.

Again, just as we get in the water we see a nice reef shark that circled around and checked us a few times.

Towards the end of the dive, right under the boat we found a beautiful green turtle resting in the sand with a remora attached to it's shell.

Next ups is Marilyn's Cut. Again, just as we jump in we see a reef shark. Jay checked out a barrel sponge and SURPRISE there was a lobster in it.

We saw lots of groupers.

And when we turned around and hit the shallows we saw a few Southern Stingrays. I even saw a Honey-combed Cowfish.

The ride back around the island was so treacherous that for safety reasons our afternoon dive was canceled. Reef Divers gave us a voucher for the canceled dive to be used at a future date-no worries about us using our vouchers!

We were down to five dives left.

We hit Paul's Anchor, Coconut Walk, Mixing Bowl.

We jump in first, a head of the mass of other divers on our boat, and we decide to head to Nancy's Cup of Tea so we won't have to deal with ALL the other divers. Good choice, we have the dive site to ourselves. We see a Queen triggerfish, some cluster feather dusters and my first orange crinoid sighting this trip.

We see another green turtle and some really lovely coral.