I have visited Grand Cayman twice. Today is the fourth day of my second visit and I have yet to meet anyone from this small Caribbean country. The woman who gave me my pedicure this morning is from the north of England; the hairdresser, from Georgia (I admit, quite pampered); our hired driver, from Jamaica; Waiters from Tunisia and other faraway lands, but none from the Caymans, most not even from the Caribbean.
I live in Barbados where Barbadians hold the most jobs at all levels of society. I have always felt that the locals give a country a sense of place. If it weren’t for the locals, I would imagine you might as well be in an airport, easily the fewest places on earth.
However, after snorkeling in the pristine Caribbean waters of the Caymans, I really couldn’t compare this place any less to Grand Cayman. Every island in the Caribbean has a certain magic, including Grand Cayman.
After two visits to snorkel, dine on delicious seafood, and walk along the beautiful and famous Seven Mile Beach, I take away the following insights and impressions of this small, English-speaking island:
About Grand Cayman
1. Grand Cayman offers some of the world’s top diving and snorkeling spots. The tie? The graceful manta rays, sunken ships from their pirate days and beautiful coral. The beaches are pristine and the Caribbean sea is a beautiful light blue color, warm, very soft and as clear as a glass of water.
2. Grand Cayman is a great place to do absolutely nothing. The hotels line the soft white sand of Seven Mile Beach. Five minutes on this beach and I go into lazy mode; on one day of my vacation, my best effort was to reach out my hand to get my next ice cold drink from the waiter.
3. Grand Cayman is about 22 miles long and 4 to 8 miles wide and is at sea level.; as Barbados is a coral island, not a volcanic one. My first impression was that it is a sandbar, so different from the varied geography of my home country of Barbados. The highest point on the island is the landfill.
4. Grand Cayman is the largest of the three islands which includes the Cayman Islands. The other two are Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.
5. Cayman is located in the Western Caribbean Sea, about 400 miles south of Miami. (In contrast, Barbados is in the Eastern Caribbean, about 1,600 miles south and east of Miami.)
6. Cayman was first sighted by Christopher Columbus in 1503.. He named the three islands The turtles after sea turtles. The name Cayman, a word from the Carib Indians, came later, after a local species of crocodile.
7. Cayman never had slaves (Unlike Barbados, which after 1650 imported thousands of African slaves to work the sugar cane fields).
8. Cayman and Jamaica were ruled as a single British colony. until 1962, when Cayman was designated a “British Overseas Territory”, one of 14 territories under UK sovereignty but not part of UK and Jamaica became independent. (Barbados, also once a British colony, is one of the 53 member states that belong to the British Commonwealth.)
9. The Cayman Islands have more registered companies than people (population is around 60,000). The main source of government revenue is indirect taxation: there is no income tax, no capital gains tax, and no corporate tax. Based on income, Caymanians enjoy the highest standard of living in the Caribbean. Locals complain that there isn’t much to do on the island; I’m told it’s a nicer place for tourists (and corporations!) than for the people who live there.
10 The Cayman Islands have the dubious honor of having experienced the most hurricanes in history.. Hurricane Ivan almost completely destroyed the unprotected island in 2004; within two years, the people of the Cayman Islands had rebuilt their country.
