Living in Grand Cayman

For any regular reader of this blog, you are certainly aware of my affection for animals ; dogs, birds, stingrays, chickens, etc. Todays’ post is different from the usually upbeat beach & good weather stuff.

Upon reading this mornings Caymanian Compass, the front page story ruined my whole day and then some!

http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews01.cgi?ID=1030451

It turns out that during the night of Saturday to Sunday, someone entered illegally the Queen Elizabeth II botanical park and killed 6 mature blue iguana’s. They also severely injured 3 others and 1 is missing for a total of 10 iguana’s.

During our numerous visits to the Botanical park, we have come to know the different ones and where they live since they are territorial animals. They are amazing creatures and we featured one of them in this blog a few months ago. https://micho.org/cayblog/?p=330

I truly hope that they catch those that did this. However, the fact remains that these are an endangered species and now about 1/3 of the population at the Botanical park have been savagely beaten or killed. It is estimated that only 400 are on the island and no where else on earth can you find these iguanas.

Here is the official website of the Cayman Blue Iguana’s.  http://www.blueiguana.ky Beware in the press release, there are pictures of the dead Iguana’s.

🙁

Since last Sunday PM, a friend and work colleague from Montreal (formerly from the UK) is here to spend a week with us and go diving.

But before that, I took some pictures on my way back from BVI that I want to share. Here is the 1st one. Its the island of North Caicos in the Turks & Caicos Islands. The island that starts just under the wing is Providenciales where i have been a few times and where most people know it for its Club Med.

Upon my stop at the Miami airport for my connecting flight to Cayman, something on the board caught my eye. See the picture below:

Do you see it?

I saw it right away and was somewhat surprised : An American Airlines flight to Havana Cuba. I thought there was no such flights. Ill have to look into that. If anyone knows about this, drop me a line.

Back home, on Sunday morning, I saw this right in front of our house. Notice the very young chicks! I count four of them, Very cute 🙂

Now back to our visitor. Today, we went to the ever popular Stingray city. I was counting how many times I have been and am quite sure this is my 9th visit. To be honest, I don’t get bored of that place. Susan, for her first visit seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. Here she is getting ready to drive the boat 🙂

At stingray city there were very few boats today, so we had virtually all of the stingrays to ourselves. There were so many of them and they stayed with us for the whole 30 or so minutes we were with them. Here Susan is getting a hug from a rather large specimen!

After Stingray city, our friend Niko, the neighborhood dog, came over for a visit to the house. He did not smell very good, so I decided to give him a shower and use papaya (or something like that) scented shampoo. He’s a really good dog since he did not protest or try to run away.

Finally, before supper, we went for more snorkeling (and some reading) at Spotts beach which is a 5-minute drive from our house. At this place Susan & I saw 3 sea turtles, some flounders (the flat fish you get at the grocery …), 2 lobsters and a bunch of other fish.

Talk about a great day in gorgeous Grand Cayman!!!

Once again this year, I have the opportunity to go to the British Virgin Islands for a few days of work. In my post last year, I posted quite a few pictures of the scenery.

See https://micho.org/cayblog/?p=165 for that post from last year.

This time i’ll discuss the place I stay at each year : The Mongoose apartments. (http://www.mongooseapartments.com/)  Instead of staying in town where my work is, I stay a 15 minute drive away, which is the other side of the island.  Mongoose is more a “home away from home” than a hotel.  You get a full kitchen, living room, walk-in closet, bathroom and of course bedroom. Its only a 6-unit operation which is ran by Sandra (canadian ex-pat) and Elroy.  Its located a few hundred feet from one of the most beautiful beaches on the island (Cane Garden Bay) and hidden away in a sort of jungle setting. Its definately different from your standard & vanilla luxury hotel, but for BVI, its bar none the best place in my opinion.  In any case, dont take my word for it.  Sandra gets rave reviews on Trip Advisor, a well known travel site.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g147354-d150624-Reviews-Mongoose_Apartments-Tortola_British_Virgin_Islands.html

This is the road that leads to Mongoose Apartments.

This is the place! 🙂

View from the kitchen.  Notice the laptop using the wi-fi connection and the TV on CNN for US election coverage!

View from the entrance of the living room & kitchen

Bedroom

The mango tree right outside.   They are not ripe yet, but will be in the next few week. Note to self : Next year come around mid-may.

Pineapples growing right behind my room.

\

At the airport upon arrival, I spotted this Dassault Falcon with a Virgin logo on it!  Its Sir Richard Branson’s plane (The Virgin guy)  He owns one of the smaller Virgins Islands (Necker Island), so I was not suprised to see it at the airport.  Nice to be rich!

A final note about the trip to BVI.  A much as I like this place, getting here can be a bit of a challenge from anywhere in North-American and even Cayman. Its basically a whole day affaire to get here.

Below is the itinerary to get here.   Cayman -> Miami -> San Juan, Puerto Rico -> Tortola, BVI.  Going back home is the same.  But come to think of it, the place is so nice that its worth the trip.

Julie & I really love it here, so recently we have been shopping around for a property.  There was one that really stood out and I have liked it since our first visit to Cayman.  The current market is not great here and it has been on the market for a while, so we made an offer late last week on it : Its ACCEPTED!!!  We are thrilled. Now we have to get it inspected and clear the financing part.

Here is the picture of this Caribbean beauty:

And here is an aerial picture that the real estate agent gave us:

Its quite private and there is a staircase to the ocean where we have access to a coral reef for snorkeling, swimming and fishing.  Its also 33ft above sea level, so it is very well protected from hurricanes.  For me its a 30 minute drive to work and is in a gorgeous part of the island. It also has a 3-car garage and 4 bedrooms. Floors are ceramic throughout the house.

We just cant wait for you all to visit us … next April fools day 😉

On Saturday, my mother flew in from Montreal. I cant blame her! Believe it or not, Montreal has beaten most snow records this winter. So far (winter is not over …) they have received a whopping 500+ cm (thats over 5.4 yards for any Americans or Brits reading this).

The weather has been very cloudy since she got here. However, on sunday we decided to go for a drive around the east end and had a great time.

Here she is near a rocky ledge. If anyone ever wondered why I am so skinny, I can only say : do you have any more questions? 😉

Our very own Loch Ness Cayman monster can be seen at east end village. Actually we are not really sure what it is. I suspect its an old ship anchor. Julie thinks its a lamppost of some sort. Who knows … and who cares anyway.

Mother getting wet near the largest of the blowholes along the south shore of the island.

We stopped in front of this store to take a picture. Two funny things here. First thing, “Buy one Jerk, get one free”.  🙂 Secondly, we liked the fact that this guy was so honest, that he called his store “The tourist trap”. At least when you walk into this store, you know what you are getting into.