Month: April 2017

After our crustacean visitor earlier in the week we went out crab spotting in the woods near us. We found loads and some were twice the size of our friend. So we wonder how big land crabs got and how common they are.

As for the latter 90% of the island is swampy forest so we reckons 100s of thousands to millions.

How big?

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​​This big!this chap was nearly a foot wide I caught him on the way home from work tonight. I expect he is quite big but I bet they get bigger. Good eating apparently!

But we let him go to live another day. 

WARNING THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS A SMIDGE OF NAME DROPPING.

I did try to warn you so now you only have yourself to blame…

Tonight I attended a function at Government House the home of the Governor of the Cayman Islands.

On arrival the guests were greeted at the door by the Deputy Governor His Excellency Franz Manderson. We passed through the livingroom to the garden terrace overlooking The Governors Beach.

A bar was set up in the garden serving drinks. While we mingled canapes were served.

We were treated to a stunning sunset and a green flash!

But perhaps the most startling aspect of the whole evening, for me, was the fact that from the moment I arrived and walked up the drive I was struck by an overwhwlming sense of familiarity about the whole place.

A British Colonial bungalow. Not all that different from the one I lived in for a while as a child!

The house was very similar to the house we had on Jalan Richie in Ampang (Malaysia). the layout of the house was near identical to one of my childhood homes.

I felt quite at home!

 

We haven’t seen many spiders since we got here. But we have a few of these little beggars…

Land crabs!  When it rains they come out to play. This little fella was about six to eight inches across. Oh and scorpions…

The last three or four days it has been much more humid here. Normally it is hot and dry but the humidity has shot up and there has only been a slight breeze.

After several days it was starting to get a little oppressive.

Then on Wednesday the clouds burst and it rained and rained and rained. Proper torrential rain. The lightening was amazing and thunder truly awesome. I love a good storm! The garden filled up with about 4 inches of water the roads were flooded and everything just steamed.

We have had a couple of really wet days since. Rainy season runs from mid to late April to early June. So I guess it must be rainy season now!

On my work email we just had our first Storm/Hurricane Alert fully two and a half months early! The weather trackers are following a deepening depression / storm in the mid Atlantic.At this point it poses no threat but to even have a storm identified this early is very unusual.**

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This is a Cayman Brown Racer Snake that Jim caught today.

Obviously you can tell from the proximity of my bare feet it was a terrifying ordeal.

If you catch them they become very docile and let you handle them quite calmly. So after showing it to the cats, who were bemused, to Nana who is phobic and to Poppy who was intrigued but happy to be a few feet away we released it once more into the garden and it went along its merry way.

We have had a lovely couple of weeks with mum and dad visiting. We have spent a lot of time on the beach. Dad has found a place up in West Bay called Alfresco that he really likes. A lovely little local restaurant right on the beach serving tasty grub. They have taken the kids up there a couple of times.

We wandered up to Rum Point for a swim and a paddle been to Spots to see sea turtles and had an immense lunch at Grand Old House. Not a bad time on the whole.

When you are 11 going on 12 and live in the Caribbean you have to make your own entertainment as there is literally nothing to do!

I guess you can make swings out of old bits of rope.

Or make do with balancing on old bits of wood (while pretending I am  gymnast).

I suppose I can go swimming or dig in the sand.

I mean it’s a hard life when there is nothing to entertain you and you have to make up your own games!

Sometime when I am swimming I might spot interesting things like a squid or a ray and that can be a bit of a distraction for a while.

When the weather is nice I can go rock pooling I suppose.  

Occasionally, if I have been good, I might get a treat! I might get to play with a paddle board or have my hair braided or even get treated to a milkshake.

But on the whole I to have to make my own entertainment!

I suppose I am just about coping though… It’s a tough life but a girl has to do what a girl has to do.