George Town, Grand Cayman

The Cayman Islands are small, only 69,000 people across three islands. It is a tender port, but the ship uses local tenders that are bigger than the ship’s tenders, so it goes pretty fast. Our tour group is split across two small buses, but we tour as a group with the two driver/guides, Carl and Ashton, each talking about their specialties.

The forecast is for rain for much of the day. Carl, our guide, kept calling it liquid sunshine throughout the day. Grand Cayman gets around 60 inches of rain per year, but in the past few years it’s been about 15% less, so they welcome the rain today.

We start our tour driving to Pedro St James Castle, which is the site where democracy started in the Cayman Islands. It has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times since its initial 1780 construction using slave labor. The current building was completed in 1998 as a reproduction of how it originally looked. It has a stone core with a single room on each level surrounded by a large porch.

Grand Cayman has a large swampy lagoon, and it’s a mosquito haven. That kept it unsettled at first except for pirates.

The kitchen is a separate small building just outside. It’s made from wattle with a roof, to let the wind blow through to cool it.

We then head to Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park which was opened in 1994 by the Queen. Carl talks about how the Cayman Islands historically have had the largest per capita number of men going to sea. The women stayed home.

The Rankine house is a typical example of a small Cayman house of the early 1900s.

There is a small medicinal garden outside the house and our guides talk about the uses of some of the plants in it. The Soursop and Noona fruits have compounds that are now being investigated for cancer treatment.

Ropes made from Silver Thatch Palm hold up well in salt water. This palm grows only on the Cayman Islands and was a source of income until the 1960s for the women of the island when they made rope from it.

Ashton is one of the few people on the Caymans that knows how to work with the silver palm, thatching roofs and making rope.

The botanical garden is home to the blue iguana which is endemic to Grand Cayman.

The rain let up the last 10 minutes of the visit and a few birds came out.

When we got back to Georgetown, the rain had let up and we took the opportunity to walk around for an hour or so before the rain started again.

Tribute to the women of the Cayman Islands who kept things running at home while the men went to sea.