Cayman Brac is the eccentric middle sibling of the Cayman Islands — 19 kilometres of limestone running east-to-west, rising at its eastern end into the Bluff, a 43-metre cliff that is by some distance the highest point in the country. Grand Cayman is flat as a billiard table; Cayman Brac has caves, rock-climbing routes, hiking trails along the cliff edge, and a 2,000-person population that knows everyone else's business. The name comes from the Gaelic brac, meaning "bluff" — a remnant of the Scottish sailors who settled here in the 18th century.
The island works as a quieter, more outdoorsy alternative to Grand Cayman. The diving is the headline — the wreck of the MV Captain Keith Tibbetts, a Soviet-built Cuban frigate deliberately sunk in 1996, sits in 18 metres of water just off the north shore and is one of the best wreck dives in the Caribbean. The walls around the island drop nearly straight down into the Cayman Trench, with shallow tops at 12 metres and faces continuing past 1,000 metres. Above water the Bluff is honeycombed with caves used as hurricane shelters since settlement, and the island has the best developed rock-climbing in the Caribbean — bolted sport routes set into the limestone cliffs by visiting climbers in the 1990s.
There is no town as such. Stake Bay on the north coast is the administrative capital and the location of the Heritage House museum; West End and Spot Bay hold most of the houses; the airport sits at the western tip and the few small hotels are nearby. There are no cruise ships, no fast-food chains, and no real nightlife — by 9pm most of the island is asleep. Hurricanes have hit hard (Paloma in 2008 was catastrophic) and a number of old wooden Caymanian homes are gone, but the Spellman McLaughlin Home and a handful of others survive as listed heritage sites. The Brac suits travellers who like quiet, dark skies, good diving and unforced friendliness — and who don't need much else.