We do like to be beside the seaside!

It's been a crazy few days. Although we have only been on island for 6 days, it seems as if we have been here much longer, as we seem to have packed a lot into the time.

 So far we've managed to; buy a car, rent a house, set up all utilities, meet some local islanders, get new driving licences, swim with stingrays, buy our first bottle of rum, get sun burnt, snorkel with moray eels, barracudas and parrot fish.

Interesting things we have learnt so far;
1) You will always find a great beach in front of a cemetery - one of the only places you can dig on the island is where the iron shore gives way to sand.
2) Chickens have no natural prey. Therefore they are good looking and breed like hell. They also have right of way. I found this amusing this morning...those of you quick enough will get why;

3) Cayman is the only place you can find a turtle 'farm' in the world. But they still eat them.

We have also learnt that George Town is there primarily for the tourists and the office workers. During the week it's full of office workers and on the days which cruise ships are in, is teaming with (largely) American tourists off the ships from Miami .
Cruise ships do not call at the weekend (to give the islanders a bit of a break), but outside those times there is not much call to go to GT, as everything has shifted to the hotel/residential district of Seven Mile Beach on the western strip of the island. We think it's a bit of a shame as the real soul of the Caribbean is in George Town and it could do with some more restaurants and bars.
You'll be pleased to know we still get rush hour, in the capital too -  at 5pm no less ;-)

Talking of cars, one of the first things we had to do on Monday was to visit the Cayman Islands Dept. for Vehicle and Driver Licencing to convert our UK Driving Licences to Cayman Islands Driving Licences. So now Barn has been legally been unleashed on the roads of Grand Cayman. Little do they know.... (those at our wedding can verify).

Once we did that we headed off to (recommendation) Tony's Toys and bought ourselves a new car. Something fresh off the boat from Japan. It ticked the critical boxes; good AC, good bodywork, right hand drive, 4x4, and girly enough for us both. Apparently the puddles created by the tropical rain can completely ruin a low riding vehicle and we wanted something we can throw a kayak or row boat on the top of.

Fresh off the back of our success in buying a car, we viewed some properties for rent. Whilst it may be part of the dream of moving to the Caribbean that you lease somewhere right on the beach (and indeed we were pretty swayed by the property that we are being put up in, whose living room opens right onto the sea), our criteria have been somewhat tempered by the stories we have heard and the photos we have seen of the impact (and aftermath) of Hurricane Ivan, which completely decimated the island in 2004. The destruction a hurricane can cause is still very apparent here on the island , with houses and hotels completed gutted and standing empty and windowless awaiting a buyer.

So, while we have viewed a few beach front properties, the ones we were really interested in were the townhouses in developments further inland. By inland, we mean 1 mile. It's only 4 miles wide! We viewed a few, three properties really caught our eye, but one in particular we fell in love with. So we rushed back with the estate agent to put down the deposit before it could be snapped up!

We signed the lease yesterday and as of next Friday we will be the proud tenants of a 4 bed town house, with a pool, 3 minutes drive from the office, 2 minute from the beach and 6 minutes from all of the action on 7 mile beach.

We also checked out our nearest beach...... bearing in mind this is high holiday season it's really quite amazing.

One thing we must stress, is it's incredibly efficient here. Every office, computer system, and company is simple, straight forward, friendly and takes about 10 minutes. Very surprising. Whereas back in the UK you would be passed from call centre to call centre and from customer service agent to manger and back again, here you speak to someone in person, and it is done in a matter of minutes. We got a car bought and insured within 1/2 day, Driving Licences within 10mins from walking into the building, bank account within 35mins, all utilities within 10 mins. Phone, broadband and mobiles within 20. Just our type of place - absolutely no phaffage and let's you concentrate on what's important - having a good time!!

Surprisingly as I'm sure you'll all be gutted to hear, the heat isn't too bad - it's about 35 degrees with strong breezes - best time of year apparently (end of winter) - the summer (Jul/Aug)is horribly hot - no breeze and lots of humidity.
It's currently a bit too hot to be outside between 12 and 2 but the sun rises at 6.25am so we get up and head out for a swim each day - although this routine plus the strong winds/rum/beer/sun means we are ready for bed at 9pm!!!

The food on the island so far has been fantastic! Lots of fish, (primarily red snapper) and lobster and local fish such as Mahi Mahi. My best discovery - conch, the prehistoric snail type animal in a conch shell. Pronounced Conk here, it's incredibly yummy and you can cook it a million different ways. The only way to describe it is a steak like calamari.

Lobster and Avocado starter at Guy Harvey's Restaurant, GT, KY

There is also turtle and dolphin "en menu" but not sure I can bring myself to try those. They also have Subway, KFC, Hard Rock Cayman Islands and Burger King,  but luckily we haven't had to grab any fast food quite yet!! The price is similar to London and wine starts at £7 a glass, cocktails are £8. However locals get a huge 50% discount on lots of things.

The supermarkets are expensive. There is a huge selection but due to the shipping/freezing process, it only lasts 2-3 days once you get it home so pre planning of meals is required! Meat selection is fantastic though - veal is very cheap and steaks the size of your head (from the US of course). Bizarre things like milk cost about £3 a bottle but a bottle of 2L diet coke is £1.50......not as nice on shreddies though.

Toiletries are INCREDIBLY expensive. So that's something we will be stocking up on when we are home. It's about £7-8 for each shampoo/shower gel etc. The cheapest chemical laden brands are around £5. Never thought I'd miss poundland.....

 On our shopping trip we did however pick up a couple of beer coolers.........say what you will about being cheesy/U.S.A influenced.

I'm sorry to say I used the word "gas" instead of petrol today and Barn used "cell" instead of mobile. It's started. Sorry, so very sorry. Barn has asked to be put down if he starts saying "trunk" or "sidewalk".....

Back to the adventure.

Today was a road trip to the tourist hot spot Rum Point (north cost) where we took a boat out to Stingray City.

There, we snorkeled with the stingrays, swam over coral reefs, met some bossy Brazilians, too friendly yoga loving Red-necks, and Captain Jimmy who enticed a Moray Eel from it's lair and allowed us to hold/feed 4 ft stingrays... that pasty white smiley thing below is indeed me.

the stingrays on approach were everywhere (yep that's the sea not a swimming pool)



We also kayaked for an hour over the reefs and now we are home, applying vast amounts of aloe vera over our now red pasty bodies and pouring as much 40% proof Cayman rum as we can into iced glasses of coke. It's been a good day.

So, there you have it. A (not so) whistle stop summary of our first few days on the island (and hopefully now you can see why we feel as if it's been longer than 6 days!)

Until the next time.

B&B