What the Caribbean Used to Be

By Laurie Carter & Bruce Kemp
Photos by Laurie Carter

Locals say there are two kinds of visitors to Little Cayman – relaxers and divers. On our whirlwind one-day excursion, we didn’t get a chance to be either, but we fell in love with the island just the same. Moments after our Cayman Airways Twin Otter rolled to a dusty stop near the wide-veranda’d bungalow that serves as Little Cayman’s air terminal, we were folded into the tiny community.

Maxine McCoy-Moore, who manages Sam McCoy's Diving and Fishing Lodge (yes, they’re related – Sam is her dad), sells insurance and owns the tour company that would guide us around the island, was horrified that our early start from Grand Cayman precluded breakfast. She instantly fired up her cell phone, in the only action we saw that day that flew in the face of Little Cayman’s laid-back image, and arranged for the lodge cook to rustle up some eggs and bacon.

Satisfied with the arrangements, she bundled us into an elderly Chrysler Town & Country van, which was among the most character-filled of any tour vehicle I’ve travelled in – anywhere. The headliner had long-since vanished, the springs and shocks may also have been missing in action, because we bottomed at each pothole, and the sliding side door remained open because there was no air conditioning.

Perched on the driver’s armrest was a curious and engaging third grader named Arrowe who was clearly the apple of his mother’s eye and tour guide in training. Arrowe wasn’t the least bit shy and chattered easily about his school on Little Cayman. His class encompassed Kindergarten to grade six, we learned, but Arrowe was off that day, ostensibly nursing a cold, though we wondered if our visit hadn’t also contributed to his absence.

With a few minutes to spare before breakfast, Maxine started the tour, driving along Guy Banks Road which parallels the landing strip in a configuration reminiscent of a divided highway except there, the far lanes were for aircraft. We popped in to Diver’s Paradise, but found the office closed for the day. A hand-lettered sign posted on the door announced that the owner was giving birth.

We carried on along the sandy road past Cayman-style bungalows of pastel horizontal clapboard and the shopping centre with its general store and bank that, paradoxically, given the Cayman Islands’ reputation as a financial hub, only opens on Mondays and Thursdays.

Maxine proudly pointed out the hurricane shelter – a foursquare structure occupying the highest ground in the centre of the island – that shelters islanders in storms up to Category 3. After that everybody has to evacuate to Cayman Brac. Most of the time, though, it serves as the community’s public works department.

This is home base for a resident nurse, one EMT and the doctor’s bi-weekly visits. The Royal Cayman Islands police are represented here by an English husband and wife team who don’t see a lot of action. Maxine grins, “We don’t have crime but a lot of drugs wash ashore.”

World’s apart from the modern sophistication of Grand Cayman, and even more laid back than it’s Sister Island, Cayman Brac, this island was once such a mosquito hell that practically nobody wanted to live here – the only real draw being a phosphate mine mid-island. But when the pests were pretty much eradicated by an Englishman named Ray Von Culin, who is accorded local hero status – the door to tourism swung open.

Even so, electricity wasn’t available until 1990, and people used generators, which remain a handy backup for the annual hurricane season.

When we arrived at McCoy’s, Arrowe jumped out of the van and immediately scooted up the broad trunk of one of the many spreading sea grape trees that shaded the courtyard and sprouted hammocks (many occupied by dozing relaxers) like abundant fruit. The lodge was small and homey and served up a great breakfast.

Back on the road, Maxine guided us along sandy country lanes alternately lined by mangroves and sea grapes and we slowed for a duck crossing sign. She pulled to a stop and we unfolded ourselves from the van to walk a short distance through the trees to Tarpon Lake, ringed with skeletal red mangroves, its water has taken on a rusty hue from the fallen trunks.

During Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, seawater washed over the shore and into the lake, killing the vegetation that used to lower the concentration of salt in the brackish water that attracted Tarpon – and fishermen. Maxine rattled off the exact dates of the hurricanes she remembers – Allan, Mitch, Michelle, Gilbert and Ivan – the killer storm that had made a direct hit on Grand Cayman just months before, but caused relatively little damage on Little Cayman.

At the far of the island, Maxine pulled to a stop and we again decanted ourselves, this time at the most pristine stretch of beach I have ever seen – Robinson Crusoe pristine. The map called it Sandy Point, “but the real name is Point o’ Sand,” Maxine declared.

Walking along the white band separating the fringe of hurricane decapitated palms from the turquoise sea; I found not a lonely footprint, but a tendril of weathered fish net. One solitary sign of human presence on what could otherwise have been an utterly deserted island. I would gladly have spent the day right there but, ironically, time pressed.

The road ribbonned inland through more mangrove thickets and past small wetland ponds. The earthy smell of standing water and decaying vegetation – like water left too long in a vase of flowers – spilled into the van through the open door and windows as we passed. Circling back near the airstrip, we stopped for a photo op with the Iguana Crossing sign and I noticed that the only public restaurant is named the Hungry Iguana. Our own close encounter was yet to come.

Maxine made a leave-the-engine running stop at a guesthouse to collect a few bunches of grapes before driving to a deserted intersection of country tracks. Cautioning everyone to move slowly and quietly, she and Arrowe approached the underbrush at the side of the road and laid out a few of the grapes. Soon we heard rustling in the dry leaves followed by the appearance of a low-slung prehistoric creature with a body about the size of a cat and a length-doubling tail dragging a curved trail across the sand.

Armed with the grapes, we enticed several more of the so-ugly-they-were-cute beasties to pose for our madly clicking digitals and I trained my telephoto on one particularly large but exceedingly cautious old grandfather who refused to leave the protective undergrowth.

It was magic.

If there had been more time, we would have borrowed a bike and explored the back lanes ourselves, but the sun was not far over the yardarm when, our tour of the island hot spots complete, Maxine deposited us at Pirate’s Point Resort. Amid the cluster of 10 buff-coloured clapboard bungalows, shaded by willow-like Australian pines and ancient sea grapes, we were greeted buy Gay Morse, author of the laugh-out-loud funny book: So, You Want to Live on an Island.

Like most of the resort’s guests, Gay came to Pirate’s Point for the diving. Little Cayman is unusual in that offers not only the requisite coral reef but also one of the best wall-diving sites anywhere. World–renowned Bloody Bay Wall begins in a mere 20 to 40 feet of water making it accessible even to novices. Other diving highlights include the project at Little Cayman Beach Resort where guests are helping scientists by recording observations of sea turtles. Three species of marine turtles actively nest in the Cayman Islands: green, hawksbill and loggerhead. This was the point in the visit when I was most disappointed not to be staying longer.

All too soon we had to pack up and make the five-minute drive to the airport. We sat on the terminal veranda watching our plane bank over the end of the island and float downward, spewing dust clouds the length of the runway before wheeling 90-degrees and coming to a full and final stop on the grass verge. Passengers hunched low to duck out the hatch and descend the three suspended steps to the ground while baggage handlers emptied the tail section then turned to us and waved – our boarding call.

Our taste of Little Cayman was like being given one square of chocolate from a jumbo bar – just enough to know you want a whole lot more.

Cutlines:
153: Relaxers enjoy Little Cayman hammocks that sprout from the sea grape trees like abundant fruit.
123: Arrowe scales a sea grape tree.
134: On Little Cayman, Iguanas have the right of way.
145: This cagey old iguana refused to leave the sheltering underbrush.