Living in Grand Cayman

Recently I had some friends on island ; they are former neighbors from Canada who I have stayed in touch with and read this blog! 🙂

They are staying in the East End, so I suggested that we spend a day together and go to Stingray City.

Before going to Stingray City, what kind of “Tour Guide” would I be if I did not show them Seven Mile Beach!  Here is Orline and his daughter Marina enjoying Cayman’s warm and crazy clear waters.

On our way out to Stingray City, I noted this house I had not seen before. I like it. Looks like it was built in the last 2 years or so which is pretty much the time since I last went to Stingray City.

Getting closer. Rum Point in the distance.

Almost there.  The colors today are out of this world.

And here come the stingrays. They are attracted by the noise of the engines.  That is there queue ; they know “new” people have arrived and that free food will soon be given out.

It was great to see my former neighbors.  I like to think that them reading my blog over the last years had something to do with them visiting.  Going to Stingray City was a bonus! Considering the rain we had recently (see last post) we were quite lucky.

I reckon its my +-10th visit and its always as much fun. Hope to see you again sometime Jana, Marina & Orline.  I hope you got to see/do all that you had planned for in Grand Cayman.  🙂

In the last few days we have received copious amounts of rain. We have not has a tropical storm or the likes, just lots and lots of rain.  More of less 5 inches on Wednesday and then another 3 inches on Friday.  Flooding ensued in many places.  Of course, people who have cisterns at their homes will be happy.  Swimming pools are also nice and full.

Here is the system that is affecting the area.  See that big red blob on the middle-left? Right in the center of that there is a small white dot … That is Grand Cayman!

All of that rain gave us scenes like this around the island.

Along my running route I noted the cows field was essentially 1ft of water.  Although the cows did not seem to care and were munching on grass.  They seemed quite happy.

Sign that summer and the rain is here … the land crabs are out in force.   Once their burrows are filled with water, these guys start roaming aroud.  This one was particularly big and blue. Had a massive claw.

Ok here is very interesting part of the story.  I actually missed that day where there was 5 inches of rain.  I flew back to Cayman during the second day.  On final approach to Cayman, we ran into some nasty weather and turbulence.  The turbulence felt like a roller coaster ; some people on the flight did not enjoy it.  Anyway, the pilots diverted south and we were in a holding pattern as you can see in the picture below for +-90 minutes.  After that we were able to make a successful landing.

Since the pilots decided not to divert to Jamaica and did a great job in some very hairy moments during massive turbulence ; I decided to pop my head into the cockpit upon exiting the plane, just to say thanks for the great job they did.  To my surprise, they were all chatty and cheerful after what I though was an eventful flight.  For them it was probably just “another day at the office.” They even let me take some selfies.  🙂

Definitely one of the reasons why I often fly on American Airlines.  I think it’s safe to say that all the passengers were pleased to be on the ground.  We were also planning for a really wet Saturday and of course, we had a lovely dry day 🙂