Yep, it is tough living on an idyllic island, waking up to perfect 30 degree Celsius sunshiney days (day after day after day), opening my curtains to a view of the perfectly green blue sea and then having to spend my day in this paradise before watching the sun dip below the horizon whilst I sip on a home-made mojito…
Yes, life surely does suck here!!
So it has been over a week since I touched down in the Caymans and it has been such a busy one! I am going to attempt to fill you I on some of the highlights and quirks (there have been no lows thus far) of living here.
The flight was long. There really is no other way to describe it. Durban to JHB to Heathrow to Nassau (Bahamas) to Caymans. Flying time equals 27 hours (not including the stop over times). I arrived last Saturday just in time to see my first Cayman sunset…
Lee and Steph picked me up in their jeep and I got my first taste of the dodgy caymanian driving. The cars here are all quite beat up and old and that’s due mainly to the state of the average driver…
Lee and Steph have got an apartment on 7 Mile Beach, which is the pricey area to live but also more beautiful (you walk out your front door onto the famous, long, white sands beach). So I am trying to enjoy this place as much as possible before I move to a more ‘affordable’ abode.My first evening was spent at a festival called Taste of Cayman, which is an annual food and rum festival at the Turtle Farm across the island. I am not sure how much I remember at this stage as I had been awake for 32 hours and not quite with it!!
The next day we took Lee and Steph’s boat around to another beach where the boys played around with their kite boards and we spent the afternoon swimming, chilling out, drinking beers on a fantastically beautiful beach, before braaing and then heading home.
The sea here is completely flat and more like a swimming pool. Usually you can see straight through the water and you can watch the fish swimming around and nibbling on your toes. Ofcourse the weekend I arrived was the first windy weekend they’ve had all year and the sea was ‘rough’ in cayman terms.
Now for the fun part- my transportation to and from work- THE SCOOTER!! Yep, I am driving a nifty little silver Vespa until I find a second hand vehicle (looking for a Rav) to buy. Scooters are ideal for the island as the traffic is pretty bad (until recently there has only been one main road through the island, they have recently started building a second ‘highway’). So the scooter means you can weave in and out of traffic and miss all the traffic jams. I have become quite a pro at dodging trucks and crazy camanian drivers! The people here drive pretty slowly- the speed limit on the freeway is 40 mph (about 65 km) and 25 mph on other roads (40 km), so my little 80km/h scooter does just fine. The problem arises when the clouds arrive and the heavens open for a 5min downpour. The rain never lasts long, but when it is raining, it is pouring!! So, a white skirt, on a scooter desperately trying to avoid puddles is just not going to have a happy ending.This last weekend was a long weekend and Lee and Steph were off to Florida for the weekend so I had exclusive use of their jeep, house, boat, scuba and snorkelling gear etc. What were they thinking!!???
Thankfully I only managed to get the keys locked inside the jeep once and had to call in some emergency help but everything else remained intact. They drive on the left here (same as in SA) but all the cars are from the States so they are left-hand drive, which basically meant that I spent the weekend changing the gears with the door handle- very annoying!
So anyhow, I had met quite a few people last week who all managed to keep me busy throughout the weeknd (the resident ‘ex-pats’ on the island all know each other and it is the same sort of environment as a large university campus).
Friday night we went out to dinner at a really good seafood restaurant. We all had an average meal with some wine/ rum and cokes and we split the bill- came to 50CI$ each (R500)- OUCH! This island is far from cheap. I did some grocery shopping on Saturday at the local Pick n Pay/Tescos and had an apoplexy when I saw some of the prices!! R45 for a pineapple!!!
Anyhoo, back to my weekend, on Saturday we went for a snorkel out to a shipwreck and saw massive crayfish, a whole lot of beautiful brightly coloured fish and then a turtle swam past me as we were about to leave. The afternoon we went into Georgetown to watch the Pirates Festival- an annual festival which re-enacts some pirate battles and ships sinking in the harbour, followed by a float parade and just a really good excuse to drink methinks! Although I was still suffering from a rather large rum hangover from the night before, so I didn’t get too out of hand that night…
Sunday was yet another perfect day and I was lucky enough to join a group going to the north of the island, to a beach off a nature reserve (so stunning) and I had my first kite-surfing lesson!!
What a jol! Is not the easiest sport to learn but looks like it is going to be huge fun to do… The Sunday afternoon found us at Calico Jacks (the Durbanites are suddenly more interested), which is an awesome beach bar. Basically we chilled out in the sea drinking rum and coke from floating plastic cups!! 
Just before the sun set we popped over to the Marriot hotel which has a hot tub basically on the beach sand and we ordered 2 for one Pina Coladas as the sun was setting…(groan)Yes it is such a tough life!
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