Dive Review of Southern Cross Club in
Cayman Islands/Little Cayman

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Southern Cross Club: "Great Diving, Great Resort", Feb, 2024, by Michael Cotter, VA, US ( 2 reports with 1 Helpful vote). Report 12912 has 1 Helpful vote.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This was my third annual trip to the Southern Cross Club (and I'm already booked for Feb 2025). There is a group of us, up to eight, that have been going since 2022. Many of them visited a few times in the 90s. SCC has two dive boats: a 36-foot Newton and a 36-foot Seahawk. They do a two-tank AM dive and, if there is enough interest, a one-tank afternoon or dusk dive (4 diver minimum). The afternoon/dusk dive went out every day (three afternoon and two dusk). There were typically 8-12 divers on the boat with the divers split between two groups. Prior to your first dive, your gear is taken to the boat and set up for you. It is left on the boat for the duration of your stay unless you want to take some/all of it back and forth to your room. Back at the dock after a dive, the crew hoses the gear down with fresh water to provide a modest rinse. There is a shack at the base of the dock where you can hang your wetsuit and other gear to dry out between dives. There is also a dunk tank at the shack for rinsing your gear. The crew will move your gear to a new tank after a dive. Three of the current DMs have been at SCC for the three years I have visited. They do a great job with the boat orientation (safety, first aid, head, logistics, etc.) and pre-dive briefings during which they provide lots of information about the topography, corals, fish, fish behaviors, etc. to be seen on the dive. The boats carry a first aid kit, oxygen kit, and AED and utilize an underwater recall alarm. The DMs do a great job helping people out of and into the boat who need extra assistance managing the weight of their gear. Light snacks are provided after a dive. Of my 17 dives on this trip, we dove Bloody Bay Wall nine times. When northerly winds made Bloody Bay Wall too choppy, we dove the southwest corner of the island near Pirate's Point. I'd estimate that I (or someone else on the dive) saw reef sharks on roughly a third of the dives and the occasional nurse shark. Turtles were abundant. All the usual suspects were there: huge groupers, barracudas, wrasses, angelfish, triggerfish, damsels, parrotfish, various crabs, various shrimp, lettuce sea slugs, lobsters, jaw fish, hamlets, rays, etc. We saw an octopus, a few juvenile drums, a spotted eagle ray, a single nudi, and two queen angels. I teased a sailfin blenny from its hole. Shrimp cleaning a grouper's mouth. Shy hamlets on 4 dives. Black durgons performing a circular mating dance. A honeycomb cowfish displaying neon blue chasing away interlopers. A school of tarpon with one so close I could have reached out to touch it. All in all, the fish population was very healthy with many, many species to be seen. The reef did have a few spots of bleached coral but not as bad as I was expecting. The DMs said the bleached corals had been recovering decently since the water temperatures dropped to normal. Otherwise the reef seemed to be quite healthy. A nice feature of diving Bloody Bay Wall is the shallow moorings (and, for that matter, the top of the reef wall); you can often do your safety stop and use any extra gas puttering around on the reef at the mooring where many of the above encounters occurred. SCC's rooms were very comfortable; my favorite feature is an outdoor shower on the balcony. The meals are wonderful. Four of the dinners were plated three-course meals (orders are taken at lunch) and the other three were buffets...the Indian Night buffet is amazing (after all, the chefs are Indian). The staff, which has very little turnover, remembers us by name year-to-year. They are friendly, cheerful, and provide topnotch service. A manager checked in everyday at lunch to see if we noticed anything that needed attention and to get our feedback on how the resort was working. While most of our group dive, several do not but they have plenty to do (kayaking, paddle boarding, biking, fishing, pool, hot tub, etc.) to break up their long stretches of lazing about on the beach. For those who need connectivity, good Wi-Fi is available at the main house and surrounding area (but didn't reach the further end of the property where I stayed); the internet speed was fine. If you've read this far, it should come as no surprise that I think highly of SCC and would recommend it.
Websites	Southern Cross Club Southern Cross Club
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, St. Lucia, Turks & Caicos, BVI, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, Cozumel, Belize, Galapagos.
Closest Airport	Edward Bodden Airfield (LYB)	Getting There	DCA <--> MIA <--> GCM on American Airlines. GCM <--> LYB on Cayman Airways. No issues on this trip (had a Cayman Airways cancellation last year...and Cayman Airways is often running late).
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, choppy, no currents
Water Temp	78-81°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	75-100 Ft/ 23-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	DMs concluded briefings with max time & max depth though I never saw them police it. Dives were guided by DMs who allowed divers reasonable latitude to "wander" as long as they were in sight. I was routinely 10+ minutes over the max time without being ushered onto the boat.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Small camera table on dive deck. Large cooler served as rinse tank. Crew handed cameras down after splashing and retrieved cameras before climbing ladder. No camera room at resort.

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of Southern Cross Club in Cayman Islands/Little Cayman

Southern Cross Club: "Great Diving, Great Resort", Feb, 2024,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Southern Cross Club in
Cayman Islands/Little Cayman