Living in Grand Cayman

It now looks almost certain that Hurricane Dean will make a direct (or almost direct) hit on the Cayman Islands.  Julie & I have done all that we could ; all our important stuff is now in my office and the house is as prepared as possible. We have decided to ride out the storm in my office.  Dean is now a Hurricane type 4 and may very well get to be a category 5, so staying home is probably not a good idea since the roof could be ripped off with such high winds.  Since we have never lived thru a hurricane, its probably also a better idea to be with other people than be alone at our house.  Right now its wait & see. We still have to remove our (very large) satellite dish and a few other things around the house. It is gorgeous weather now; it feels surreal that a massive storm is only 36h away …

 Below is the latest path predictions.  For those of you who are not sure where exactly is Cayman in all of that, I have circled Grand Cayman with the red circle.

It looks like Hurricane Dean, the first one on the 2007 season, will either hit Cayman or come quite close.  Julie & I are well into our preparation.  Last night we did a final grocery run to complete our survival kit and started to pick up stuff outside the house such as lawn chairs, flower pots, etc.  The groceries were already packed with people so we were glad we only had a few things to buy.  Most of our important stuff such as electronics and documents will be brought to my office which is a very solid and hurricane-rated building. We are unsure though at this time if we will use my office as a shelter or stay home ; it will depend on the storm trajectory and strengh.  If it is a Hurricane 3 or more, we will go to my office.  If its a 2 or less, we will probably stay home. In any case, the pets will be with us and taken care of.  The car will stay here in Savannah in our garage; although my office building is secure, the area is low-lying and flood prone so all cars will get wrecked.  Here in Savannah risks of flooding is minimal.   The hurricane rating of the meaning of Categories 1 thru 5 are detailed on this website : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/basics/saffir_simpson.shtml

 Below, is the latest predicted trajectory.  It places Dean just below Grand Cayman at 2am monday ; roughtly 72h away.   By saturday PM we should know for sure the path and strengh.  Fingers crossed.

The first hurricane of the 2007 Hurricane season is on its way!  As of today, it is still well off but possible paths include passing not too far from Grand Cayman.  As you can on the chart below, Cayman is the small island just above the second to last dot on the predicted path.  Of course this path is just a computer model as of right now, so anything could happen.   Julie & I are fully ready for this and will be safe & sound if this thing rolls thru the area.  Stay tuned!

In the last few weeks, we have been seeing more and more snakes around the house and in our area.  Probably mating season or something.  Good news : we are told that there are no venemous snakes in Grand Cayman 🙂  I finally got one on camera right outside our front door.  It is quite thin, was a good 20-24 inches long. 

 Here is the picture of the beast!

As a note if you leave comments on the blog.  Recently, I had been getting lots of “spam comments”.  As a deterrant, when you add a comment, you now have to answer a simple mathematic question such as 5+2.  All you need to do is enter 7 (or whatever the answer is) in the answer box.  Easy enough.

While driving around a while ago, I had noticed a small public beach & cabana sort of area.  It looked really nice, so we decided to go there this morning before it got too hot.  Between 11am and 5pm, it gets VERY hot now outside.  I even washed the car this morning and did some garden maintenance from 8-9am before it got too hot. We got back from our drive around 11:30 am and the outside temperature (according to the gauge in the car) said it was 34 degrees.

The place we went to is Frank Sound.  If you look at a map of Cayman, its on the  southern part (bottom) at about 2/3 of the way east (right), just near where there is a road which crosses the entire island North/South.  It was a great place to read and just take it easy.  Aipa had other ideas and explored the entire area and even went into the water on her own initiative to look around.  

Before the pictures below, on friday evening, Julie & I went with about 50 other people from work to visit Caybrew.  Caybrew is the Cayman Islands new local beer.  The previous beer, Stingray, was destroyed during Hurricane Ivan and had a reputation for a terrible taste anyway. This new one is, in my opinion, very good.  A bit like a Heineken. The visit was really interesting and we got to see all the machines for making the actual beer all the way to the bottling. Anyone who comes to visit us, the company gives tours upon request, so we will for sure take any guests of ours who would like to visit it.  Michel?  Denis? Genevieve?  Here is a very nice article about the new beer which was launched in March of 2007.

http://www.cayjournal.com/logic/story_detail.php?storyid=195

 Below are pictures of the beach at Frank Sound. The hut where we read and just relaxed.

The view from the water front.

Here Aipa explores the ocean.  She spent quite a bit of time looking around and hunting down small crabs.

A nice picture of Julie with Aipa 🙂