Living in Grand Cayman

This week I had the privilege of visiting the lovely island of Bermuda.

The first thing I would say is that its a really nice place ; in part I have to say its a lot like Cayman.  The buildings are very “British Colonial” and the overall feel of the place is safe, clean and and overall nice place.  Where it differs is that it is somewhat “hilly” although there are no mountains.

One other big difference is the number of scooters that are around.  In Bermuda the law states that there can only be one car per residence.  So most people have a scooter to get around town.  Its funny to see ladies with high heels and executives in suits on their little Honda scooter zipping around town.

Here is a scooter parking lot in downtown Hamilton.  Everywhere you look there are scooters parked in the street.

Right in Hamilton, the world headquarters of Bacardi ; who knew!  This sure was lovely ; note the dual waterfalls.  Also, the lawn was one of the most perfectly manicured I have ever seen.

View from “Blu” restaurant of Pitts Bay.  Very nice.

I saw quite a few of these when going for a run one morning. (note : running in Bermuda with the hills is soooo much more difficult than Cayman).    Cutting though this rock to make the roads must have been quite a job.

Ok … the finale.   As the title of my post says “When in Rome … ” so I dressed like the Bermudians 🙂  This is acceptable business attire here. It definitely felt funny to wear shorts like that with a tie, and of course the socks!

My trip to Bermuda was very quick but I really hope to get to go back at one point.

As in many western countries, the cost of power (electricity) always comes up as an issue for many people.   Cayman is not exception where the cost is very expensive, since we have no waterfalls or large wind farms.

That however should change soon with the coming “online” of our newly minted plant.  Those of you who have visited Cayman in say the last 12-18 months probably noticed a lot of activity on the southern edge of the island, around east end.

Well, its almost done … Cayman will now have its own nuclear power plant.  Cost efficient electricity for everyone and for generations to come (assuming no nuclear disaster of course)  Sweet!!!

Here it is ; I took this picture this Easter week-end.   Lots of people checking it out along the south’s rugged coast.  Too bad we lost the “blow holes” though.  The dogs don’t seem to mind it.

Here is a better view from an aerial shot that was also published in one of our local papers.  As you can see, the coastal road we used to have has simply been moved a bit inshore ; no big deal.   We will have tons of lovely shoreline.

Apparently, due to the inflow (to the ocean) of all that hot water used to cool the reactors, there are numerous new types of fish swimming around.  The CI government is also considering starting up a “hot springs” project sort of like they have in Norway in order to leverage all of that hot & steamy water.  Good idea for tourists.

If all goes well, we will soon be using this state of the art facility … by next April fools day!