In preparing to move out here my biggest fear was hurricanes and the fact that we were coming out in hurricane season.

Eight weeks after arriving the most leathal and powerful storm to hit the Caribbean in over a decade arrived. A real monster, a beast of a storm.

So far we have been hugely lucky and Hurricane Matthew did not turn towards us. But even as I say this I feel terribly guilty and aware that our fortune has meant genuine misfortune and disaster for others and there is more to come.

Watching the news and how the storm has ravaged Haiti you get the mearest incling as to how truely terrifying living through a direct hit from a hurricane must be.

Life here in Grand Cayman is returning to normal and there is a palpable sense of just how close a call we have had.

We are still feeling the effects of Matthew. The skies are still overcast. We have had inches of rain with more to come. It has been cool, almost cold. Perhaps the most obvious sign has been that the usually calm sea has been very rough. The normally crystalline water has been turned milky by the amount of churned up sand it is carrying.

The other sign has been in people’s faces. Genuine fear and worry etched there for all to see.

The scars left by Ivan may have healed on the surface but psychological they are still raw. You can see it in people’s eyes, they look like they are going to run or burst into tears at any moment. Talking to a couple of my staff about it the other day they actually began to shake. Their hands went first and it slowly spread up their arms until you could see it in their shoulders and in the supreme effort it took to control it.

For the last week there has been no other topic of conversation. People have been near manic with stress and worry. Mobile phones have been seriptiously  kept on, browsers linked to the weather channels as the track of the storm has been followed by all, day and night.

After a week of worry no  one can quite believe the storm has chosen to go another way. No one is ready to let their guard down and to believe that we might actually be in the clear.

This time…

People keep saying to me it’s good to get your first one out of the way early. But what they are really saying is, ‘This time we seem to have gotten lucky.’

‘This time.’