The Good With The Bad

Sometimes you just have to make the best of it. We had a small weather window to make the 4 day passage from San Andres to Grand Cayman. After 7 weeks anchored in San Andres Harbour, we took it. All of our weather sources indicated that the first 30 to 48 hours looked manageable, but it would not be fun. The last half of the trip, once we made the turn westward at Serranilla Bank, was going to get better. Our weather forecasts were correct.

Due to some instances of piracy and suspicious boat activity along the coast of Nicaragua in recent years, it is advised that you stay 150 miles off the coast and east of the Serranilla Bank. We left San Andres and tried to make easterly progress into 15 to 25 knot winds and 5 to 10 foot seas from the north east. Sailboats are designed to work with the wind and not head straight into it. As predicted it was a bouncy and windy 36 hours. We made as much easterly distance as we could but decided to pass the Bank on the west side and did so with no problem. Clear of the Nicaraguan coast, we could head north and a bit west and that combined with diminished winds and sea state made for a lovely sail for the remaining distance to Grand Cayman.

We arrived in the Georgetown harbour just after dark. Checking into Cayman Island was a breeze and all the officials were super friendly. When you get close to the Port of Georgetown you radio the Port Security. They will provide you with the coordinates for a free mooring ball where we stayed for the night with our “Q” flag displayed. The “Q” flag is a solid yellow flag representing the letter Q in the code flag system. It is used to indicate a vessel newly arrived in port and under “quarantine” until  such time as it and the crew have cleared customs.

In the morning the Port Authority boat came along side and provided the customs documents we needed to complete. 30 minutes later they came by and picked us both up and shuttled us to the Customs dock. It’s the same dock the tenders from the 2 cruise ships in town that day use. It’s packed with people lining up for their tours. We waited a couple minutes for a customs officer to meet us and escort us through the crowd to the office. A few minutes with the officers and the usual questions our passports were stamped, we were escorted back to the shuttle and returned to our boat. That was easy. There is no cost involved if you check in during business hours, there is a $70 US fee if check in is after hours or Sunday. Some of the other countries we’ve been to could learn a thing or two from the Caymans on how to make this process seamless.

From the harbour we moved to Barcadere Marina. Its about a mile and a half from Georgetown Harbour by land, by sea its about 20 miles. The Marina is located deep in North Sound and you need to go up around and back down the island to get there. It’s a nice clean facility with a small pool, Georgetown Yacht Club and restaurant. It is however, undergoing some staffing challenges that make it near impossible to communicate with anyone, get confirmation of reservation request or even answer the VHF radio calls when entering the marina. It’s the first time we have run into this sort of situation. Its also one of the most expensive marinas we have stayed at so far. The combination of all of this has left us feeling a bit frustrated and disappointed by the lack of service.

Georgetown is a whole other world compared to where we have been. Very first world. Lots of development, expensive beachfront homes,( if you have $50,000,000 USD there is a nice waterfront estate available), fancy cars, pretty much what you would expect from a tax free, banking haven. Did I mention cruise ships. We have seen not less than two every day and as many as four.

The Cayman islands are a British Overseas Territory and made up of three islands, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. The British influence is everywhere. They drive on the left with right hand drive cars. Traffic circles far out number traffic lights. The Cayman Island dollar is tied to and on par with the Britsh Pound. There is no sales tax or income tax for citizens. The government gets is money by taxing corporations, a 2% tax on land sales and a 22% duty on just about everything brought onto the island. It can be very expensive to be here.

We rented a car with our two buddy boats for four days. Derick and Don took turns driving British style (on the wrong side of the road). We drove all over the island and found many beautiful beaches and some great restaurants too. We spent a day at the Queen Elizabeth Botanic Park where we enjoyed walking through all of the trails of their beautiful gardens. They have an amazing  Blue Iguana Conservation facility within the park. The Cayman’s are the only place on the planet where the Blue Iguana is found. They were nearly extinct until the conservation area was set up and a breeding program implemented. They have taken the numbers from a low of 15 to 20 animals to a total of just over 1000 now.

We are enjoying our time here, the weather is perfect 25-27 C and without the rain squalls like San Andres had, but its expensive. 1 Cayman Dollar = $1.75 Canadian. We will hang around the island for another week then Sandy and Marc are going to join us for the three day, 350 mile passage to Roatan.