Living in Grand Cayman

Gustav is now a Category 1 hurricane and it is expected to get to category 2 very soon.  It will probably strike Haiti today.  Unfortunately Gustav is turning west towards Jamaica.  After Jamaica are the Cayman Islands …  Current projections put the storm over 100 miles north of Grand Cayman.  Its not all that bad, but not great either. For those not familiar with hurricanes, the “eye” of the storm (aka : the center) is the most dangerous part since that where the strongest winds are.  So when a storm passes 100 miles away, it means that the eye is 100 miles away ; the further the better.  At 100 miles away, the storm would probably only give us lots of rain and some minor damage such as knocked over trees, roofing damage to older homes, etc. Thats only the projection though ; where it will really end up is anyones guess.

The only “good” thing about a hurricane is that unlike an earthquake (for example), you have time to prepare.  If current projections are accurate, the storm should be here late Thursday or early friday.

Here is the current projected path!

Last night I started to look at my hurricane supplies and think of what I may need to do for the house & pets. Under a category 2, I might have stayed at home, but if its a 2 or more as it looks like, I will be definitely taking our important stuff and the pets to the office.  For the 1st time this week I am actually glad that Julie is off island visiting family for a while.

Stay tuned.  I will be making frequent updates as this unfolds. Lets hope the forecasts are wrong.

I learned something the other day.  Banana trees are actually … herbs.  We’ll, technically because their stem does not contain any woody tissue.  Also, did you know that after one bunch of bananas, you actually cut down the tree so that it can grow back and have more bunches?  Anyway, I was surprised! 🙂

Lots of people in my area have bananas growing behind their homes. Here is a bunch which should be ready soon!  Notice the flower just below.

Here you can see the owner cut them down after having their bunches ; only the last 16 inches or so remain from which a new stem will grow.

On the hurricane front, that tropical depression from my last post is now tropical storm Gustav and is expected to become hurricane Gustav tonight or tuesday.  Unfortunately on the computer models below, some have it going below Cayman and some above.  Lets just hope that they don’t average out and point towards here.

A final note. I implemented a while back a post notification function and though I would mention it again. If you sign up (click on “register” on the right) you will automatically receive an email each time I make a new post. I promise not to send you any spam or any other message ; I dislike spam as much as you!

PS : If anyone does not understand the title of this post (especially the French Canadian readers …) Herbie goes bananas is a childhood movie about a VW Beetle!

My usually cheery mood has not really been present in my last few posts! Well, lets continue on with that trend. 😉 I just took a look at the Weather Underground website and saw this …

The peak of hurricane season is Sept 10th, so it could get worse before it gets better! We shall have to keep an eye out for this one! In any case, for anyone considering living in Cayman, this hurricane watching is a fact of life. Chances of a direct hit from a large hurricane are relatively small, but still stressful! After all, Cayman was hit in 2004 by Ivan and before that has quite a few near misses.

On the positive side, the weather here is nice but VERY hot.  During the day make sure you have sunscreen, lots of water & hopefully a/c in your car. Take a look at the temperature gauge in the car.

That was probably because my car is parked in the direct sunlight all day, but still. How many times have you seen it hit 40 in your car? Thats the 1st time I have seen it.

Julie was going to get the wash from the machine tonight when I heard a shriek! I figured she saw a roach or something like that (we see one once in a while inside, although quite rare since she keeps the place really clean) But this time it was different … that shriek was nothing like I had ever heard 🙁

So I went to see and saw this … good lord!!!! I had heard about the tiger centipedes, but never seen one. So before exterminating this critter, I threw my car keys next to it for perspective and got the camera!

Amazingly, some web sites say that people keep these as pets and that they do bite, although not venomous! Not a pet for me thats for sure.

So, who again wants to visit us and stay with us? 😉

Since Saturday 10am, we are now under a tropical storm watch. All forecasts seem to have the storm turn north after Haiti, but we don’t really trust them! I’ll be putting up the shutters tonight and we are making sure we have all we need for at least 2 days. The forecasts also have Fay turning into a Hurricane Category 1 sometime soon. We prefer to be safe than sorry.

Now for some fun stuff we did on Saturday afternoon. A friend of mine at the office told me about this place … amazing! Its basically a small lake and there are many iguanas that live on the shores and in the trees. When we got there, there was not too much to see. But after taking out some saltines (crackers/biscuits soda for the frenchies reading), the show really started. About 10-12 fairly large iguanas showed up for a snack.

Here is a Youtube video that summarizes the event. (lasts just under 2 minutes)

Here I am feeding them. I have heard of people who have been bitten by these guys, so we took the BBQ tong to give them the crackers! Smart move 🙂

Here is Julie having fun with two of them. I just had time to snap two pictures since she was a bit afraid of them!

We spent a good 10-15 minutes feeding them. More were arriving from the lake. (see the video if you have not already done so) It was great fun.

Upon leaving, they seemed disappointed that the party was over!