Living in Grand Cayman

Once again, the 2013 Hurricane season was a complete no-show.  Interestingly the so called experts always say, at the beginning of the season that it will be an “active hurricane season”.  Well, not a single system made it into the Caribbean basin and of course nothing ever bothered us.  Lets keep it that way!

So we have a guest ; a good friend of Julie’s with us this week.  She will also run the 1/2 marathon which is tomorrow (Sunday AM)  Of course, being great hosts, we have been doing the rounds and seeing the sights.  Its actually fun since many of the places we take guests, we don’t often go on our own.  A bit like asking a New-Yorker when was the last time they went up the Empire State building I guess.

One of the stops : Camana Bay.  A lovely place to stroll around and spend some time. At the waterfront there is an artificial island (behind the girls …) which is really nice.

Next is Spotts beach.  Valerie & I did some snorkeling and saw 8 (yes eight …) turtles during a 45 minute outing.  Awesome.  If you don’t get too close, they will just do their thing while you float and watch them.

Here are the two lovely ladies enjoying the beach!

As a final note, I have noticed many new solar projects being done around the island.  First, here is a large solar array at Camana Bay,

This second one is the most impressive though. A local bank is covering a whole parking lot with solar panels. It also dubs as a covered car park for the employees.  Apparently these panels will generate almost enough power for their whole building.  Impressive and bravo to management for this project.

Marathon report in the next post likely very soon! Wish me luck 🙂

Well, it turns out that I was not imagining things with that storm system we had yesterday.  It also turns out that some much more competent photographers had their cameras pointed towards the sky.

I saw the below picture on my Facebook feed … WOW! I promptly asked the photographer, Courtney Platt, for permission to post his amazing picture here.  Note the picture is a “time lapse”, so those lightning strikes were not all at the same time.  This picture are the strikes seen over about 20 minutes.

To see the full size picture of the above, simply click on it.

For other really nice pictures of Cayman by Courtney, click the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/CourtneyPlattPhotography

Late this afternoon we were treated to a great light show … lightning that is.   WOW.   Very loud and very bright.  More than any other place I have ever been, I find the storm systems we have in Cayman to be extremely powerful.  They pack a serious punch of “BOOM”.  If its close enough, its enough to scare lots of people.  Dogs also do not appreciate these.  I for one really enjoy this natural spectacle.  Do you?

This afternoons storm was particularly intense and I managed to get some pictures.

Here is one good zap!

The aftermath … an intense white flash that lit everything up.

and another zap.

The whole thing lasted about one hour and surprisingly very little rain.  The darkest parts of this system were south of us, so over the ocean.

Amazingly, this pics was taken just a hours before.  Nice and sunny!  Clear skies and calm sea.  I went diving this morning with two friends of mine near the Turtle farm; a place called by locals as “Macabuca” .   We even saw four turtles swimming around.  The water is still a very comfortable 85 degrees ; note no one is wearing a wet suit.

I think we can put today in the “awesome day” category. 🙂