Living in Grand Cayman

Well, house No. 2 fell thru.  We were 200$/m away from the owner and both parties did not want to budge.  No sweat, No. 2 was not our 1st choice anyway.  We should get news monday for house No.1.   If that does not work, still no sweat. 2-3 more homes came to the market last week.  However, unlike the two homes I posted a few days ago, these new homes we have not visited.  If No. 1 does not work, we will probably go to Cayman without a lease in hand and sign one once onsite.  In case you are curious, all the homes we are looking at, including the ones I posted a few days ago go for about 3000$US/month.  Thats to rent, not buy!  Ouch!

Happy new year everyone.  All the best for 2007.  Now with the new year, we need to do some really detailed planning.  Today, I did 3 critical things. 1) Booked our plane trip from Miami to Grand Cayman. 2) Booked a car rental from Albany, New York to Miami, Florida 3) Booked hotels along the way down on Interstates 87 & 95.

Flight from Miami?  Car in Albany?  I figured you would wonder what that is. Well, turns out that flying with pets (yeah, those guys again) is not simple.  Either the dog cage is too big, the weather is too cold in the cargo hold or some airlines dont take any pets at all.

So the only workable solution we found for january was to have someone drive us to Albany NY, pick up a rental car there since renting a car in Canada & dropping it off in Miami was not practical, and then drive all the way to Miami airport.  We plan to stop in lower NY state, Virginia (Near North Carolina), Georgia (near Florida lines) and then in Miami.  The flight is the next afternoon.  That gives us enough buffer time in case we have car troubles, snow storm or whatever. I am actually looking forward to driving down. It will remind me of when I was a kid & my folks drove the whole family to Naples Florida.

Should get news for the homes very soon.  Stay tuned!

As most of you know, we are taking our dog & bird.  Many tests & procedures have to be followed.  The dog’s “biggest” test was the RFFIT test.  Its basically a test that proves she has the rabies antibodies.  Cayman requires this since they are a “rabies free territory”.  Easy right?  NOT.  First, 6 months ago we had a microchip implemented into her ; its basically a unique identifier, similar to a tatoo.  Then we had to get two rabies shots 6 months apart.  Then after 6 months & two weeks, we had a blood sample drawn for the RFFIT test.  Once that is drawn, we had to ship the sample via FedEx overnight to Kansas State University.  Turns out this is the only place in North America that does this test.  So we had to get a small cooler (10$), order dry ice (55$) to keep the sample cold over night & more in case it got caught up at US Customs, FedEx this whole thing (130$) and pay for the test (50$).  Now, tell me I dont love our dog! 🙂  Oh yeah, the test results are great!  She can be taken to Cayman.

Now that the moving & container is pretty much aligned, we need to find a place to live.  Today, I contacted two agents for houses that I visited at my last visit to Cayman 2 months ago.  We made offers to rent for both ; lets see how that plays out!  The first one is a bit “in the sticks” but slightly bigger than No. 2 & 1km from a really nice sandy beach. The second one is a brand new house, double garage & on a really nice canal.   Both are are in great locations & are “high & dry” with repect to hurricanes. Which one do you prefer?  Both in our opinion are great choices. Please use the comments section above if you have an opinion 🙂

House 1.

 This beach is quite nice & quiet.  There is great snorkeling to be done.  Only about 8-10 mins of walk from the house.

House 2 on the canal:

Front (there is probably grass by now)

 The back of the house, the deck & canal. The water is really clear and you can fish from there!

Late last week, we were told by our vet that we needed a specific product to be able to comply to the Cayman imports requirements for our dog.  Turns out this product is not sold in Canada.  Doh!  So, today we took a treck to the lovely city of Plattsburg, N.Y.  So, 4h later, a stop at PetCo, Champlain mall, Exxon & a Big Mac combo, we are back in Montreal.  What would we not do for our dog!  BTW, feel free to leave comments by clicking on the comment section at the top.