Cayman Islands – the start…

So, we’re finally here, finished our travelling (more tales to come) and have had a couple of months settling in.  A few initial comments on the Cayman Islands for now…

Work

Surprisingly good, and as a result of the Cayman having more registered companies than residents this should not be that surprising.  They’re not all run by chancers and fraudsters but being in insolvency litigation I guess I’m running across more than my fair share of them.  The majority of business men in the Cayman are fully legitimate and respectable though and Cayman has moved on a long way from being the offshore haven for the Mafia (although apparently some of that still manages to slip through the net see this link – a real surprise given how hard it was for us to open bank accounts for our first pay cheque!).

Weather

We arrived on the tail end of a tropical storm, the Cricket pitch was flooded and we quickly realised why most people on the island drove high SUVs!  It didn’t help that that week turned out to be the a glorious week of weather in the UK and so I had people gleefully messaging me about after work Cricket, barbecues and the like.  Still, that quickly turned around and it’s only recently that the UK has got back into the flow of Summer, whereas the weather here has been exceptional!  That said, there’s a tropical depression building up now…

Activities

When it rains, it can be a struggle to find activities in Cayman (US tv is not great but for reruns of various comedies and Netflix and Lovefilm seem to have vast searchable databases without actually including anything you want to see within the monthly subscription, or is that just me…?).  But when it’s not raining (thankfully quite often!) there is just so much to do that the weekends are quite exhausting.  Apart from diving (see more detail below…), there’s a first class squash club (containing 7 courts), a great sailing club, yoga (for Anna), Jet Ski safaris to Stingray City, paddle boarding (still on my to-do list), windsurfing (I’ve yet to get out), kite-boarding (I don’t think I have the balance skills to risk this just yet), golf and just the odd bar or two to relax in afterwards… Not to mention the opportunity to develop previously untested barbecue skills (there’s only so much you can do on those cheap £5 barbies from tesco).  Talking of which, I’d welcome any recommendations for barbecuing recipes, although I’m currently trying to keep fish off the barbecue…

Diving

One of the principle attractions in the Cayman is diving.  With over 150 dive sites you are literally spoilt for choice, many of which can be accessed simply by dropping into the water.  Nevertheless, we did our first couple of dives guided from boats before braving a shore dive with friends.  The visibility out here, particularly after my experience of the Monsoon conditions in Thailand and the sediment saturated current of Cambodia that Anna learned to dive in, is incredible, with a good range of fish and coral.  One particular joy is being able to go for a night-dive after work, really helps you to get your mind out of the office!

There’s a plethora of diving operations and I intend to write in more detail about these, dive sites and dive gear at a later date.  This is just a taster and to start me getting back in the swing of things.

Thanks for reading!

Jez