Has anyone been to both Cayman Brac and Bonaire, and if so, did they enjoy one or the other? I am deciding on which island to go to. Thanks!

Daren..I've been to both Islands & prefer Bonaire.
Bonaire diving is easier/more accessible & a dive boat is not required.. However, some of the best diving in the Carib is on Little Cayman's Bloody Bay wall.So, if you're going for the diving in the Cayman's I'd pick Little Cayman over the Brac.

I would concur with everything Vince says :-)

Brac is very quiet, and the diving is just about all boat diving, and not altogether exciting.

Bloody Bay Wall area off Little Cayman is fantastic diving though (but we were on a liveaboard, which made it all so accessible as well). Never been on Little Cayman itself though.

Neither can beat the ease of diving on Bonaire. Diving, once in the water is very different between Bonaire and the smaller Caymans though, with Little Cayman's Bloody Bay wall being a 4000 foot vertical drop, whereas all of Bonaire's diving is reef slopes to a sandy bottom which you can almost always see.

Jake

There used to be a fisherman named Shelby who regularly took folks from the Brac to Little Cayman (and Owens Island also). Bloody Bay Wall is fantastic and the islands are beautiful as well.

Our first choice would be Bonaire for the easy shore diving. We would choose Little Cayman over Cayman Brac, we have been to both. The diving at Bloody Bay Wall is everything they say it is however it is really all boat diving. That is why we like the pace of Bonaire, you dive when you want to dive, on your schedule, not anybody elses.

Daren, it seems for years that Bonaire has won the crown for the best Caribbean Shore diving while Little Cayman got the bid for the best Diving in the Caribbean, I’ve been to the two plus Cayman Brac several times over considerable years and I agree.

I will add that I found Cayman Brac to be excellent, even after the big hurricane(Gilbert?).

As to excitement level, IMO the diving on Bonaire has no excitement value what so ever(except for two or three locations which are hard to get to and, being shore dives, are often too rough for a safe ingress/egress). I would describe Bonaire diving as very easy relaxing diving to which the new/old diver demographic seem to flock.

Seems to me, the middle group venture out a bit more.

Back to your question, If you want great profile, walls,caves,holes,big fish(for the Caribbean)and big blue water, I would opt for a Brac/LC package.
If you have the big bucks stay on LC. If you stay on the Brac, the operators will bring you over to LC depending on the weather.

Laid back diving, which is good too if you're in the mood-Bonaire. The Bonaire profile is about the same all over with the exception of a few double reef systems, which are nice...

The few people that live on the "rock" (brac) are very friendly and crime was non existent the last time I was there '99. The last time I was in Bonaire '98, if it wasn't nailed down or behind bars, it was gone, come to think of it, some of the nailed down stuff was ripped off too.

Unfortunately, there are now several high end resorts on LC, and the diving, while superior, was sometimes crowded. It is probably worse now. Bloody Bay is actually a pretty small place.

Just my observations of course.

"Egress?"...Are they those heron like white birds that stand in the shallows trying to catch the small fry, Dave?
I guess we must've missed 'em, as we didn't notice any when diving Bonaires east side, which is where I presume you're referring to.
The waves were slightly troublesome but Marcia & I found the smooth sea bed particularly "wrinkly" friendly at Bonaires Baby Beach...For both her Zimmerframe & my wheelchair, during our...how do you say it...ingress? Certainly, it was a doddle in comparison to the struggle we had when we attempted to shore dive the wall at L C's Bloody Bay.

Daren:

I have been to both. Here is what I know, or have experienced:

Bonaire is easy diving. The shore diving is unbeatable. Boat rides are short and calm. Many of the dive site have a simialr profile. To find spur and groove you must go to the north end, and I do not know of any pinacles.

Cayman Brac, from my experience, was all boat diving. When I was there the seas were very rough. This may not be typical. Divers were getting sick on the way to sites, and the surface intervals made even more divers sick. I learned not to eat bacon for breakfeast, it was not as good the second time around. However, the dives were very good I thought. Much more structure than Bonaire, and a better chance of seeing eagle rays and other bigger stuff.

My personal preference is Bonaire by far. Dive freedom is what does it for me. I like shore diving on my own time table. Boat dives are too scheduled for my vacation mind set, and I get sea sick too easily.

Cayman Brac has never come to mind as a place I would want to retrun to. Bonaire, on the other hand, I continue to return to.

A side note, the best diving I have done has been in St. Lucia at Anse Chastanet (Spell?) I do want to return there someday, but Anse is epxensive, and I have been under the understanding that to stay elsewhere on St. Lucia means huge boat rides to dive sites (Sea sick thing again. Anse is not near the main town. The ride from the airport to the resort was something like 4 hours over incredibly rough roads. We actually paid the dive shop to bring us back to the airport via the dive boat rather than the road. Yep, the boat ride was less likely to cause motion sickness than the land route.

Good luck in your decision.

I am part of a timeshare system in which there are two hotels that I can exchange between either in Bonaire or on Cayman Brac: Divi Flamingo or Divi Tiarra. It sounds like if I don't go to Little Cayman that Cayman Brac is a waste of time. And it also sounds like if I am not a boat diver person I won't find much. Dave has said that Bonaire diving is not exciting compared to Little Cayman. Please let me know your opinion. Thanks!

Daren

"Egress?"...Are they those heron like white birds that stand in the shallows trying to catch the small fry, Dave?

dunno, did they catch you brother Keely, whilst in the shallows?

Define 'exciting'. Yes, Little Cayman has Bloody Bay wall, but unless you like to go deep down a verical wall, there is nothing much different otherwise. I heard that Molly the Manta does not appear anymore, so that takes care of that. I think that Bonaire has more variety of dive sites. There are actually fewer people on Brac than on Bonaire, and when I was on LC, the permanent population was something like 36. I believe that Little Cayman Resort is the newest place on LC and it is more like a new motel with diving than the Plaza or Belmar.

Been to both.

Bonaire rules.

Amen!

PLUS they dont have a reef cam!

nobody disputes the crime thing?
come on cheerleaders
give me a B

Rah Rah ..sis boom bah...Bonaire is the best so far!
Or my Tee shirt slogan..."Nothing can compare ..to Diving in Bonaire"....I want a minimal commision for this one :}
Anyone know Tee shirt printers on the island?

Can this really be the same woman that came up with "Doggy Bags Are Us"?
I think we're all spent out on the crime thing Dave. We gave it a pretty good bashing while you were gargling Cava in Fiji.

Or my sweatshirt slogan: "If I was DIVING IN BONAIRE, I wouldn't need this damn sheatshirt"
11 days
12 hours

Daren,
We stayed at the Divi on Brac once and found that usually the majority of the boat dives went to Little Cayman anyway weather permitting. And yes, it was rough most of the time.

You could dive from the Divi but it was quite a swim out. The only other shore dive available at the time was a night dive on the other side of the island from the Divi. I don't remember there being shore access to many sites due to the very rugged coastline.

Well ok then Meryl, I didn't really consider you one of the cheerleaders, but the image of you in some slinky doctors outfit with those pompoms....

Bonaire it is then.

I stand corrected, once again.

But, the best diving in the caribbean is certain west Caicos walls.

and maybe a tatoo theme...I had a sweatshirt until I did a shore dive in Bonaire

This concludes the pro vodka tour.

Almost. one last shot.

Do all of you eat at your favourite resturant over and over and over and over?

Yep ok, I'm burned out, but, don't you get a jolt out of a back roll into boiling cauldron of hungry fish, swift current and exterme profile?

oops nevermind.

Safe diving to all of you, catch ya on the flip flop.

respectfully submitted,
Dave Scott
"the second or third best diver in the world"

Dave, thanks for the laugh!.. Sarah

Hey Bro'!...I was with you all the way until you got to the bit about "exterme profile". I guess it's just another corruption of the old mother tongue.
It means that you only dive during the kids school vacations, right?

Kung Hei Fat Choy! (Come Here Fat Boy! is the US translation, I believe.)

I really wanted to leave it at that, but for the very few of you out there who it was wasted on...It's the time of the Chinese New Year celebrations & to everyone outside the States it reads as, Happy New Year!

Well, Chuc Hung Nam Moi to you. Enjoy your Ban'h Te't.

Faith and I took the Nikon School Underwater Photo course on Cayman Brac in July 2000. We've been to Bonaire many times. The diving is good at both places.

The Brac offers a different type of reef system, and great opportunities for the underwater photographer. Where Bonaire is a fringing reef, with a predictable slope in most cases, the reefs around the Caymans tend to be spur and groove.

We stayed at the Divi, and loved it. July is about the calmest time of year, apparently. We were doing 3 or 4 dives a day, and a roll of film on each dive.

Comparisons?

Cayman diving tends to be deep. 65 feet on the shallow dives. On the deep dives, you're on walls in the Cayman trench... bottom is at 3000 feet, so watch your depth.

The diving is all boat diving. The boat crews are outstanding, and in general the diving is quite easy. We were never rushed to be back on the boat in a particular amount of time. We'd have gone 60 minutes per dive if we'd had more film. Usually we were done after 45 minutes, since we'd finished our rolls.

Bloody Bay Wall certainly is spectactular, but I really liked many of the sites around the Brac.

In some ways there's more variety diving from the Brac, since there are shallow spur and groove and deep wall sites. Also there are sites north and south of the island. Again this is useful for the photographer, allowing better lighting. On Bonaire, with the exception of Angel City the shore dives have better lighting in the morning. Angel City has reef structures extending out on the outer reef, providing good lighting in the afternoon.

So, which would I choose? Both sounds good. We will definitely return to the Brac, and will make more trips to Bonaire.