Cayman Brac

Christopher Columbus sighted Cayman Brac and Little Cayman on 10 May 1503, when his ship was blown off course between Hispaniola and Panama, and named them Las Tortugas for their turtles. Francis Drake, passing in 1586, used the name Caymanas, from a Carib word for the crocodilians he saw — though many believe they were the rock iguanas that still live on the island. The island's own name comes from its bluff: "brac" is Gaelic for a bluff. In the age of piracy, ships used the Brac as a haven to take on water from its wells and food from its forests and shores.

For generations the islanders lived from the sea. The great Cuba hurricane of 1932 struck hard, a loss remembered in the grave in Rebecca's Cave. Air links came in the 1960s: in 1965 Cayman Brac Airways, a subsidiary of the Costa Rican airline LACSA, flew twice a week to Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Montego Bay, and in 1968 the Cayman Islands government bought control of it and formed Cayman Airways.

Tourism grew around diving. In September 1996 the government sank a Soviet-built frigate off the north-west coast as a dive site. In 2006 one of the island's two hotels closed, and in November 2008 the Category 4 Hurricane Paloma caused severe damage. The airport took its present name in 2012, after the local businessman Captain Charles Kirkconnell.

Cayman Brac is an island of small villages, and Spot Bay has been described as the heart of Caymanian culture. Several of the families prominent in business on Grand Cayman — the Kirkconnells, Fosters, Tibbetts and Scotts — come from the Brac, and islanders are known as Brackers.

A craft almost unique to the island is carving caymanite, a local stone found here, into jewellery and small sculptures. Island carvers have won national contests, made the official gift to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on their 1994 state visit, and a Brac-raised artist crafted the territory's gift for the 2011 royal wedding. The Cayman Brac Museum in Stake Bay keeps the household goods and seafaring tools of earlier generations.

Nature is part of the island's identity. The Brac has its own subspecies of the Cuban amazon parrot, an endemic racer snake and an endemic plant, and is rich in species for its size, with 14 native reptiles and amphibians and over 80 native birds. Red-footed and brown boobies live here too. Rock climbing has been developed on the cliffs since 1992, and there are now about 100 sport climbs.

Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, the Sister Islands, together had 2,163 people at the 2021 census, a tiny share of the territory's population. Islanders live in small settlements such as West End, Stake Bay and Spot Bay.

The economy rests on tourism, government and local business. Government, including Cayman Airways, is the largest employer. Tourism centres on diving, though the hotel trade has shrunk since the 2000s. There are two primary schools and a secondary school, the Layman E. Scott Sr. High School, and the University College of the Cayman Islands has a campus here. The island has one hospital, Faith Hospital, with 18 beds and surgical facilities, and flights link it to Little Cayman and Grand Cayman every day.

Days follow the rhythm of a small island: early starts, dive boats heading out in the morning, recreational and big-game fishing, quiet evenings and Sundays given to church. Residents keep an eye on the weather each hurricane season, remembering the damage Paloma did in 2008.

Brac cooking is Caymanian cooking, closely tied to Jamaican cuisine: fish and seafood such as tuna, snapper, mackerel and mahi-mahi, conch and turtle, with staples of coconut, plantain, cassava, yams, breadfruit, and rice and peas. Jamaican influence brings jerk and curry seasonings, and jerk chicken and pork, oxtail and patties are common.

The surrounding waters are fished both recreationally and for big game. Fruit grows well in the island's gardens, and at one farm visitors can pick their own papaya, mangoes, pomegranates and bananas, with mangoes in season from May to August. Conch has long been a staple, and stewed turtle, the national dish, uses meat raised at the turtle farm on Grand Cayman.

Eating out is limited to a handful of hotel restaurants with American-style menus and small, homely places cooking local Caribbean food. Visitors in holiday houses often cook for themselves, buying groceries from the island's few shops.