Stake Bay, Cayman Brac tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 23:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are America/Cayman local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Stake Bay is the main settlement on Cayman Brac, the 19 km-long island that sits between Little Cayman and the open western Caribbean. The island's name comes from the Scottish Gaelic word for bluff or cliff — bràigh — and The Bluff is the defining feature: a 42-metre limestone escarpment that runs the full length of the island's eastern half, its highest point overhanging the sea cliff on the north coast and its gradual western slope dropping toward the settlement end. Stake Bay faces north toward the open Caribbean along a shoreline of ironshore limestone and small sand beaches separated by rocky points. The fringing reef on the north coast begins 50 to 100 metres offshore at 3 to 6 metres depth and provides some reduction in wave energy, but this coast is more exposed than the sheltered south coast beaches and picks up the northeast trade swell more directly. The dive sites off the north coast at Stake Bay include wreck dives at depth — most notably the MV Captain Keith Tibbetts, a Cuban frigate deliberately sunk as an artificial reef in 1996, sitting at 18 to 28 metres depth in the Bloody Bay area west of Stake Bay. The wreck is encrusted and colonised with coral, and it is the most popular dive site on the island. Sea kayaking along the Stake Bay coast uses the relative shelter of the north coast bays between rocky points; the morning glass before 09:00 is the calmer window for the stretch from the Cayman Brac Beach Resort east toward the north Bluff face. The limestone rock formations along the ironshore coast hold nesting seabirds in the cliff crevices and provide the characteristic Cayman Brac coastal composition for photography. The Bluff itself is crossed by hiking trails from the south coast road; the North Bluff Trail exits at the cliff edge above the sea, giving an elevated view of the north coast reef and the Caribbean horizon. The tidal regime at Stake Bay is mixed semidiurnal, spring range roughly 0.4 to 0.6 metres — similar to Little Cayman, slightly more exposed than the south coast. Shore anglers work the north coast rocky points on the early morning flood, targeting the Nassau grouper and snapper that move onto the reef on the incoming tide. All tide predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine gridded model — accuracy within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height.