Living in Grand Cayman

This week-end I visited one of Cayman’s newest attractions : I was not disappointed.  This place only opened in January 2016 and is quickly becoming one of Cayman’s top tourist (and locals …) neat things to do.  The attraction is called “Crystal Caves” and is located on Grand Cayman’s North Side.  Well worth the drive out.  As the name implies, you will be going into some caves.

Before we head out, they made a lovely deck area which is right in the forest.  Very nice.

Ok so we head out into the caves.   During the visit, which is guided, we get to visit 3 different caves.  Each one very interesting. Here we are in the 1st cave – right away people were in awe that we have this in Cayman. We were told that these have been formed for over 250 Thousand years.

Here i’m in the “open air” cave which is mainly lit by natural light.  You cannot see it, but my shirt is becoming wetter but the minute (more on that later)

Now for some even more spectacular pictures.  The next two caves are closed – no natural light.  However, there is LED lighting and it makes for a spectacular sight.

Isn’t this amazing?  Note: if you are only mildly claustrophobic you should be OK.  If you are VERY claustrophobic, then skip.  In most places you will be, the ceilings are quite high.  The only thing I really noted is how humid it is in there.  Of course this is summer, so it was quite hot which did not help.  But this is a cave visit after all, so I think some humidity is to to be expected.

The 3rd and final cave is for sure the most spectacular with the underground lake.  There was also a place where we could see some water cascading in – really neat. We were told its all fresh water, which is quite rare in Cayman.

Upon exiting the 3rd cave, we had this awesome sight. This fig tree – which I’ll assume is very old, has some very spectacular roots.  Note that the tree “sits” on top of the cave and that the roots then go down towards the ground via the air.  Quite a sight.

The tour lasts +-90 minutes and is OK for kids and anyone who is able to walk a few hundred meters. I do recommend you wear proper shoes and not flip flops.  Also, if you want to be able to take decent pictures, I recommend you bring a “proper” camera if you have one. I suspect pictures from a smartphone will not turn out great.

Here is the Web site of the company – reservations are required.

Cayman Crystal Caves

A recent government decision has left many locals and tourists alike scratching their heads!

In a recent legislative assembly decision, the leader of the Government, Mr. Bob S. Bodden tabled a motion to render many of Cayman beaches inaccessible  to snorkelers.  This is due to recent damage to coral reefs, notably by a Cruise ship and also by a luxury yacht.  It is believed that further damage can be avoided by limiting snorkeling activity at some of the main snorkeling areas.

Signs were quickly put up.  Here we can see one at Eden Rock.  When I went, the notice did seem to get little respect since there were plenty of people snorkeling.  As of right now, I am told that people will get a warning, no fines are being issued in the first weeks.  Fines will be in the 50 Cayman Pesos range for the first offence.

Here is the sign at Spotts beach – my favorite spot to snorkel with the turtles.

So there you have it!  But there is some good news from all of this.   There is an extraordinary legislative assembly hearing soon.  The opposition party, the Republican-Socialists Party aim to have this overturned.

We should find out if they are successful no later than on April Fools day 🙂

One of the favorite races, outside of the Cayman Islands Marathon, is the “Cross Island relay”.  I ran this race a few years ago in a team with Julie.  Had not been in it since … until this year.

This time around I ran with a bunch of guys from the office.

Of course we all have to be a bit nuts to get up and run on a Sunday morning where it would be much easier to simply stay in bed.

The concept of the race … wait for it … is to run across the island 🙂  Thus, we are 6 runners per team and we each run 4 miles (a bit over 6km).  The race starts in the East End at 6am and finished at Smith Cove in South Sound.

Here I am passing the baton  to my teammate.  I ran leg 4 of 6.

The finish line at Smith Cove.   This year there were a lot of teams.  Sure is a popular event now.  There were 95 teams entered into the race this year.  We came in at a very respectable 11th place overall and 4th corporate team.

The prizes for the winners!  Note the dark cloud on the back.  Just before the end of the awards ceremony, it started to pour down. I am very glad it did not rain during the run. Running in wet running shoes is no fun at all.

The teammates – well 2 of them anyway. We took this picture in quite a haste, seconds before the massive rain started falling.  One South African, one Aussie and a Canadian.  This is definitely the Cayman Islands – a big mix of nationalities which is awesome.

So every year there is the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit.  Financiers from around the world network, listen to experts and mingle.

Once business is done, there is time for some fun.  At the end of the week, there is the “Legends Tennis” where ex-pros and celebrities play tennis while the regular folk sip champagne on the sidelines in the VIP section 🙂

First person I got to see was Sir Richard Branson.  Note the stitches above his eye.  The story is that he walked into a glass door at a local store.

Next up, the lovely Anna Kournikova, definitely a (male) fan favorite. Anna was one of the top tennis players in the world in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

But, the highlight of the week for me was this guy.  We had Kevin Mitnick, the most famous hacker in the world at the conference. In the 1990’s, he was a bit of a bad boy, where at one point he was on the FBI’s most wanted list and a fugitive on the run.  Anyway, now he is a renowned speaker on Cyber Security matters and has also written three very interesting books (I have read them all). He gave a great talk and scared everyone in attendance with hacking demo’s.

In the mix of it all, I even got to spend a bit of time with him for dinner. Really nice guy.  I took him, his guest and a friend of mine to Calypso Grill in West Bay. He liked Calypso so much that he told me that we went back 2 evenings later. We had a lovely evening talking about Security, technology, global politics and all kinds of interesting subjects.

Long time readers of my blog know that I have a lot of love for the East End of Grand Cayman.  The only thing I like more is diving in the East End.  There are only two dive operators and the dive sites are all in fabulous shape. And … at a few of the dive sites, an area they call “the corner”, there is a family of sharks that usually hang around.

On my dive this week-end with some friends, two of them joined us for our dive.  Luckily, one my my dive buddies had a GoPro camera (I know .. .I should get one …) and filmed the event.  At one point, one of them got to within 30 or so feet of us.  Such a majestic animal.  I want to stress … at NO point were they aggressive or did they shown any interest in us.  It seems like they may have been curious and just swam by to sort of say “hello”.  🙂

Here is the video.  Thanks to my friend Andrew.

On the second dive (when going out with Ocean Frontiers, the dive operator we were with its always a boat dive and we go for 2-dives), we did a Lionfish hunt.  At the end of the video you just saw, there is a beautiful Lionfish.  They are awesome looking, but an invasive species in the Caribbean.  We are encouraged to hunt them down!  Too boot, they are great to eat.  A lovely white meat not unlike codfish. They are hunted with a spear.  So between the 6 of us who were diving we got 10 Lionfish. Plenty for a dockside ceviche after the dive.

Here Cory is fillet-ing them. Note the spines are quite dangerous.  If they puncture your skin it (apparently) hurts a LOT. Glad he was doing this and not me!

Our haul of Lionfish

The final product.  Not that I did much a part from supplying a bag of tortilla chips! 🙂  It was very good. Lionfish, avocado, mango, lime & some other stuff (I’m a terrible cook, in case you had not yet noticed)

So diving in the East was great and the water was calm.  In George Town : Not calm.  In fact the water us extremely rough.  This was taken right in front of Eden Rock.

Another picture taken from the same location, but looking at town.  The waves crashing were so high, that some of the water was going onto the street.

Its somewhat chilly right now in Cayman.  This morning on my way to the office I noted 22 degrees.  I will not say its cold, but for Cayman it sure is not very warm.