Tsunami

Japan / USA / Europe - 17-Oct-23 -

The Pentagon code-named their activities at the Gulf War in the early 1990s "Operation Desert Storm." I code-named my grand tour of the southern half of the USA in summer 1991 "Operation Caribbean Storm," because my ultimate destination of this trip was the Cayman Islands. 

What a surprise ... 30 years after my operation Little Cayman is nominated for a WHS! 

I visited the Cayman Islands mainly for scuba diving at Little Cayman. The Cayman Islands was (and still is probably) famous among divers for its underwater wall that goes straight down for two thousand meters. What it means is that the Islands are the tops of an steep underwater mountain range. 

After driving from Los Angeles to Miami I flew to Grand Cayman, the main island of the three islands that comprise the Cayman Islands. The other two, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, are close to each other in location, but they are 100 km east of Grand Cayman. I stayed in the city of George Town, the main city of Grand Cayman as well as the Cayman Islands. 

Because it's such a distant past, although I remember the water was crystal clear, my memory of the dive tour isn't. Even though Little Cayman is 100 km away, I'm pretty sure my dive boat left from somewhere in Grand Cayman. So it must have been a speed boat. In order to make the most of the wall, you need to go down pretty deep, but I don't think my dive group went down too deep. 

I'm surprised to read in Wiki "With a GDP per capita of $91,392, the Cayman Islands has the highest standard of living in the Caribbean, and one of the highest in the world," as I remember Grand Cayman being more like Baja California. Well, things could have changed in 30 years.  The only sign of wealth I remember is what I heard: David Letterman had a house there. 

I rented a car and drove around Grand Cayman. The Seven Mile Beach is well-known, but if anyone goes to the Caymans, I would recommend a day of lazing around at the Rum Point Beach, which is in my assessment second only in its beauty to the Whitehaven Beach in the Great Barrier Reef WHS.

After I wrote the last sentence above, I am shocked to read in a few recent reviews of the Rum Point in Tripadvisor that the Rum Point is no longer what it used to be... due to human factors.  How sad is that. That is why we need the WH convention.