Southern Cross Club, Little Cayman Island: Undercurrent 02/2026

Southern Cross Club, Little Cayman Island

diving with REEF

from the February, 2026 issue of Undercurrent

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Dear Fellow Diver,

This was a REEF trip (yes, we're fish geeks). While I've made 500 dives, to the other travelers, I was a comparative rookie and certainly so when it comes to fish ID. The task of a REEF (Reef Environment & Educational Fund) diver is to tick off the species we see, and our information ultimately is fed into a database to describe the species common to an area and changes in species population. On this one-week trip, I ticked more than 100 species, including my first tobacco fish and first harlequin bass. And a Caribbean reef shark. I was poking around coral heads looking for critters when the shark swam between two coral heads and headed toward me. As it approached below, I dropped slightly and got my camera in place. It kept coming, and I kept shooting as it cruised just below me. A lovely moment with Cayman's apex predator.

Twin Otter Inter-Island Flight The Southern Cross Club folks were prepared to support our work, and, without exception, they were a pleasure to dive with. One of our guides/captains had been there 15 years, and Mike, a Dutch expat and the head of dive operations, had been there 18 years. They picked up my gear from my room on the first day and set it up. They analyzed the nitrox and marked the percentage on the tank -- 32 percent consistently. They were diligent about each of us checking our configuration before leaving the dock and again before hitting the water. After our dives, we left our gear aboard, and the crew rinsed it. Divers who wanted could dunk their gear at the shack on the dock and hang it up there. They would have it on the boat the next morning. I took a few things back to my room for cleaning and drying.

While the Southern Cross Club first opened as a fishing club nearly 70 years ago, it now has 14 attractive beach bungalows, a lovely dining area, a classic outdoor bar, and a 900-foot beachfront. I had a large and comfortable beachfront room, with a king bed, a refrigerator, a walk-in closet, and ample space to work on my camera, charge my lights, and edit images. Though I traveled solo, it would serve two guests very well. I loved the outdoor shower, which made post-dive cleanup easy. My duplex bungalow had a shared porch, a clothesline for drying gear, and an additional porch shower for post-dive rinsing. And, with an Illy coffee maker in my room and a Jura in the dining room, I was happy (fellow coffee snobs understand)....

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