Living in Grand Cayman

Part of living in Cayman is wanting, from time to time, get off the island.  Its great to be able to drive at highway speeds, shop at Walmart/Macys/JCPenney/Bestbuy/etc and of course eat at McDonald’s!  Dont get me wrong, Cayman is great, but a trip abroad like this is nice.

First stop, the Everglades. We made two stops there. One for a (some what disappointing) walk and then to a place for a  “fan boat” ride and gator show/information session which was really interesting.

Here Julie was picked by the host to play with the baby crocs.

I got to hold an older one. We really enjoyed seeing/touching them. Beautiful creatures!

Here is the “fan boat”.  Goes quite fast and makes lots of noise.  Highly recommended 🙂

Crocs in a pond along the Tamiami trail that crosses the state (and everglades) from Miami to Naples on the gulf coast. There was one right near the side of the street that scared the $%^& out of us when s/he dove into the pond when we got close.

Our ride for the road trip ; a Chevy Impala. I was not thrilled when we got it, but it was a great highway cruiser and very comfortable.

Now in Naples. This place is very special to me. When I was a kid, my parents used to take my sister & I here for Christmas vacations. I remember fishing from the pier and have many great memories from this city. The picture below was from that pier ; we were lucky to see a family of dolphins the morning we were there.

Going North … now near Orlando. No, we did not go to Disney. We went … Orange picking! haha  In Canada, Julie & I and with our families would always go apple picking.  So we though that orange picking would be lots of fun.  Guess, what? I was great.  We even picked some limes, lemons and grapefruits.   Here we are in this lovely orange grove filling our large bag. We had so many that we had to make juice in the mornings at the hotels so not to waste any.

We even made a discovery : Kumquats!  They are like mini-oranges. The skin is sweet and the inside somewhat sour, but totally addictive. I had never even heard of these.

Now further up north, Atlanta! First stop, the Georgia aquarium. Built in 2005 with a 250$M donation by the founder of Home Depot, its the largest sea aquarium in the world.  It was amazing.  To give you an idea of how big the tanks are, look below.  There are some people sitting down in front of the 2ft thick acrylic window. Whale sharks (huge!!!), belugas and so many other fish, it was very impressive.

After the aquarium, off to the world of Coca-Cola. Very interesting for anyone (like myself …) who likes the stuff.  At the end of the tour and as seen below, there are 64 fountains of all the different coca-cola products around the world.  I sampled all of them of course. Some were great, but some were not even potable in my book!

Now to “The situation room”! The CNN tour is great for CNN junkies like myself. You get to see the studies and some behind the scenes stuff.  No pictures could be taken inside though. It was quite cold in Atlanta so we had to dress up.

One of our final stops on our way back to Miami : Daytona beach. I remembered that we could drive on the beach and Julie wanted to try it. It was high tide and no other cars were on the beach … its a rental car, so why not! 🙂   It was lots of fun. Probably get arrested for driving this on seven mile beach in Cayman.

In total 1654 miles (2661 km) and a great time!  Next post, the “massive” Christmas lights are up as they were last year.  Ill get some different pics and put them here probably this week-end.

In the last week or so, Christmas lights have been showing up all over the place.  Notably some of the roundabouts in the main roads.

Here is the main roundabout on the island.

A smaller one, yet very colorful!

Christmas trees at our local warehouse store ; a sort of Costco!

Note the price.  Ouch!  40$CI = +-49$US = 63$CAN

Not Christmas related, although I have been asked about this a few times recently.  Here are pictures of the masses of wild bush chickens that we see every time we go for a walk in our neighborhood.  They are island wide, so if ever you come to the Cayman Islands, expect to see them a lot.

Here they are just roaming around from property to property looking for food & whatnot.

More Christmas pictures in the coming weeks as more shows up!  Have seen some light on palm trees … will try to get some of those 🙂

In a few hours that is!  As of December 1st, the 2008 hurricane season will be in the history books and finished.  It was rough!  Here in Cayman we had four systems to deal with; two of them being serious threats, one quite far away and one passing as a tropical depression before becoming a Hurricane and hitting Texas.

So to recap :

1. Dolly in July

2. Gustav in August

3. Ike in September

4. Paloma in November

I think I speak for all the residents here when I say that we are very pleased that its over.  Its extremely stressful!

On the home front and because of the hot weather we have here, we have to shave our Husky mix since she is used to the snow and cold of the Canadian winters.  So every 2 weeks or so we shave her to take off a good amount of her coat.

Here she is before today’s visit to the “Micho salon” 🙂

15 minutes later ; the small mountain of fur I shaved off.

After ; a lot lighter color.  Not a huge difference visually, but she definitely seems to appreciate it when we do it.  Also, whatever we take off there will not end up on our floor since she sheds a LOT.  She is very easy to shave; she lies down on the ceramic and lets me do it.  I “flip” her over when I need to do the other side.  Great dog 🙂

The inlaws arrive next friday for an extended Christmas vacation and Christmas lights seems to be going up around the island!  Pictures to come in the next week or so.

Immediately after Paloma, we had some guests over. Yves (a former co-worker of Julie) and his gf Jennifer were scheduled to arrive on the Friday but their flight was canceled.  So they arrived on the Monday following Paloma.
On the Wednesday, only 5 or so days after the passing of the storm they went to Stingray city. For those who have seen our past pictures of stingray city or who have been, you know that the water out there is clear and blue.  Well, this time it was different, big time.

Below you can see Yves & Jennifer definitely having a great time with a friendly ray, but the storm “churned” up the bottom and turned the usually Cristal clear water to a muddy brown that is not unlike the Thames river in London!  Sorry guys … next time you need to come outside of hurricane season! 😉

Two more days until the “official” end of hurricane season ; not a day too soon it you ask me! According to a web site I read, hurricane season is set to encompass 97% of all tropical activity.  That website also had some interesting wisdom about hurricane season:

June- too soon.
July– stand by!
August– look out you must.
September– remember.
October, all over.

Not sure why they do not include November!

Since Paloma, the weather here has been quite cool.  Not cold, but very cool which is actually great for a few reasons.  I am sure the tourists here would not agree since with the cool weather there has been a good dose of wind that has made for very choppy seas and not that much sun.  Why is the cool weather great? First, utility costs ; when its hot, the electricity bill is huge because of frequent use of air conditioning.  For the last two weeks, I cant recall when we last used the a/c. Secondly, after the crazy heat of July & August, a nice breeze  and low humidity is definitely welcome.  Finally, with cooler weather, we get cooler water … hurricanes like very warm water.

One picture from right after Paloma … Julie looking for some bread at the local supermarket.  Obviously stock was low since people took supplies before the storm.

Here was my drive to work one morning. It went down to 23 degrees but by the time I got to my parking it was back to 24.  For you Fahrenheit people, 23c is equal to +- 73f which is quite cool for here. I saw some locals with jackets on!

Upon arrival to my parking space ; the sunrise!  Nice, but probably means that I get to work a bit too early 🙂

A final thing.  Why is this chicken on my roof? Its looking down at something and does not look like it wants to come down.

Here is the explanation.  My Husky Aipa spotted this chicken and chased it.   It took flight to the roof and took refuge there.

Guests arrriving in a few weeks for the Christmas period.  Hope it does get a tad warmer so that they can enjoy the beach & ocean.