Overnight we moved 145 km east from Grand Cayman to the smaller island of Cayman Brac where the Wind Surf “drifted” for a few hours while we had a chance to explore the island.
“Brac” means cliff in Gaelic, and a cliff definitely dominates the landscape on this, the second-largest of the Cayman Islands. The cliff is limestone and is highest at the eastern end of the long, thin island where it rises to 140 feet.
Whereas Georgetown on Grand Cayman looks like many North American cities, with bad traffic and subdivisions, Cayman Brac is “wilder” with no traffic to speak of, numerous caves and hiking trails, some requiring real climbers because they scale the cliff on the steep side. There are shipwrecks for divers and birders will appreciate the Brac Parrot Reserve.
Years ago, birders would have appreciated the healthy population of Brown Boobys the island had but they were in serious jeopardy of being wiped out on this island because of the abundant feral cats who ate the eggs, chicks and even sometimes the adults. Conservation efforts of humanely dealing with the feral cats are underway and appear to be working and it’s hoped the Booby’s will be back.
This is Windstar’s first stop at this island and we were apparently the first cruise ship to stop here because there was a lot of hoopla about our arrival. A band greeted us at Scotts Beach Pier along with a line of tents with some of the locals selling handicrafts. Rumour was that the Minister of Tourism was there when the first tender landed this morning and our Destination Manager told us tonight that there was a TV crew there this morning to get a story about it.
Our group of about 25 piled on to a school bus to head out on a 2 hour tour of the island (echo – “a two hour tour”). Our first stop was to a small museum not far from the pier where our tenders landed. It was quite small, but full of all sorts of artifacts and infographics about the history of the island and its people. We saw several names of locals whose history is also appreciated by naming of streets, hospitals, etc throughout the island.
On display across the street from the museum was a traditional blue Cayman catboat first introduced in 1905 by Captain Daniel Jervis of Cayman Brac. The design of the cat boat had the single mast at the front of the vessel making them great for transporting freight, and for fishing and turtling, which was traditionally practiced.
Next our bus driver took us along a low coastal road toward the eastern end of the island for a look at Long Beach, which our guide warned wasn’t a beach at all. And it wasn’t. A short walk down a trail took us out to a section of the coast line that was scattered with piles of coral remnants and rose above the surf by enough of a height that if one fell off the edge, it would be a disaster given the sharp coral rocks and drop. It gave us a great view of the bluff rising out of the sea at the eastern end of the island though and a chance to feel the sea breeze on our faces.
Piling back on to the school bus we were off to the Cayman Brac Lighthouse which our guide warned us wasn’t like a traditional light house and it wasn’t. It wasn’t very exciting at all, but as you can imagine the lighthouse (or more correctly light tower) was erected at the highest part of the island and so the view of the ocean below was lovely. And a pathway which started at the lighthouse took us to a spot where we carefully walked through the sharp coral remnants toward the edge of the bluff which dropped down the 140 feet to the water’s edge. Our guide assisted us to a place on the edge that was relatively safe to sit and took pictures of each of our groups for us. It was a little scary but had breathtaking views. The poor bus driver knew that we were pressed for time and he was getting impatient but our guide was so patient to help everyone get their best possible experience.
Thankfully, no one fell over the edge, and we were safely off to our last stop, Rebecca’s Cave. In 1932, a hurricane named the Cuba-Brownsville hit Cayman Brac, and caused enormous destruction. People hid in the many caves around the island to wait out the storm and spent up to 2 days inside. They came out when they thought the storm had passed to survey the damage, but the storm had doubled back and hit the island again.
Rebecca was a young child of 18 months and her mother carried her to the cave to try to save them both. The story most likely has been enhanced as the repeating of oral history added some drama, but the story goes that the child was swept out of her mother’s arms into the waves that they were making their way through to get to the cave, but she was saved by someone nearby who passed her back to her mother. The mother and baby sought refuge with others in Bat Hole, but the baby had sustained some injuries and died either from her injuries or perhaps pneumonia which is another version. In any case, the family buried the child Rebecca in the Bat Hole cave and her grave is marked with sea shells, and visited by descendants each year on her birthday. We entered the cave today to see the grave, in the cave now re-named Rebecca’s Cave.
And yup, there were bats there too. Our guide told us to look at the ground where we were standing and there were shells from almonds the fruit bats had brought back to the cave to eat all over the floor, and hanging in depressions in the ceiling to try and outwit the owls who would like them for dinner were the bats. He made the sound of an owl and the bats immediately took off to fly around the cave and into an area deeper in the cave. I was not impressed. I was doing amazingly well at managing to be in a cave and didn’t need to have bats added into the drama.
We did a drive-by look at the airport, of which the locals seemed extraordinarily proud, on our way back to the pier. It is an international airport as they get one flight a week from the U.S. The majority of the flights are from or to, Grand Cayman, and Little Cayman.
It was an interesting and fun day on Cayman Brac and we headed out of the bay just after 1 pm on our way to our stop in Jamaica tomorrow. We had movie trivia this afternoon with us having to name the movie having been shown the poster for the movie. I was of no help at all to Clair, I’m afraid, as I only knew the obvious ones. Tomorrow is back to general knowledge trivia where I can usually be of help with the science and geography questions.
Lois' Adventures 