Grand Cayman is as flat as a steam rolled pancake. No climbing scene what so ever, a truly depressing place for a man of the mountains to live. Despite this seemingly disastrous situation I am making the best of it by playing around on the terrible wall at the local sports centre. Myself and Jim are the only people who dare venture near the thing but we’re having fun and keeping the fingers moderately strong.

However its not all doom and gloom in Cayman. The ‘Sister Islands’ lie some 90 miles to the NE of Grand and provide a fantastic contrast to the spoilt Grand.

The larger of the two sister’s, Cayman Brac, is about 15 miles long by 1 wide and has a population of about 1000. Beautifully Caymanian, slow paced and partially ringed by a steep limestone sea cliff, it makes for a great climbing  retreat.

First discovered and developed by a hard core of very committed American climbers in the 1990’s some 100 routes were put up. Dramatic erosion of the in-situ hardware saw an even more committed experimental rebolting of approximately half the initial routes. The new hardware seems to work and means the island is once more a safe place to climb. The routes are spread over 5 areas, are steep and pretty committing for sport climbing. One thing for sure, your not going to be queing for routes, I suspect only a handful of climbers visit the island annually.

The journey from George Town takes between 25-35 minutes depending on whether you fly on the jet or the twin otter, either way the price is about $100 return. Car hire essential. Always warm, normally windy and often wet, Nov through to June are best months to visit, the others are very clammy but i guess do-able

My first visit was with Elaine in May 06 where we stayed at the Divi Tiara resort and had a great time. I returned in Jan 07 with Mackie and Pete and stayed in Bluff View, a cheapish rental property. We had a blast, again getting some decent climbing done and some pretty cool diving, including a wicked trip to Bloody Bay Wall with Craig. For anything Brac, Craig is the man. He runs a small but super cool dive company, Indepth Watersports, based at the now defunct Divi. Very helpful dude and now a good friend of mine.

http://www.indepthwatersports.com/ 

My third and to date last trip to the Brac was Nov 07, again with Pete. Frustrating baggage hold ups halved our climbing time and strong winds and seas from the NE seriously limited our venue options but never the less fun was had and some of the islands superb caves were explored.

The potential for development on the Brac is certainly there and with time I would like to be involved. There are however a few obstacles to overcome before this can become a reality.