The Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, sit by roughly 19º Latitude North and 80º Longitude West in the Caribbean Sea, tucked below the large landmass of Cuba and just to the west of tiny Jamaica. Composed of three islands, the country has a population of roughly 50,000 souls, 90 percent of whom live in and around the capital of Georgetown on the main island, Grand Cayman. The two others, called the Sister Islands, lie 90 miles to the east. They are small and almost identically shaped, about 12 miles long and 2 miles wide in their center. The Brac is the most populated with a little over a thousand inhabitants. Little Cayman, until now, has resisted growth and only claims around 200 permanent residents, all of which are very fond of their home, and usually a touch strange too. Island life isn’t for everybody, and if the mythical fever doesn’t strike soon after arrival to kick you off, you can assume you are « different ». And fit for the rock.

While Grand Cayman earned a reputation as an offshore banking paradise, the Sister Islands have remained very modest, even though completely different one from another. In the Brac, not much pleasure to be had. One works and survives. And drinks, but that’s common to all three islands. There are only 2 major resorts, but an decent size modern airport. Brackers have an odd reputation. It’s all been done, there, and crime is an issue.

Little Cayman, on the other hand, is the jewel of the family. She’s unspoiled, quiet, mostly wild and all about fun. Six resorts make up most of the island’s civilized infrastructure. A single road circles it, not entirely paved. Electricity is provided by loud diesel-powered generators. There is no supply of fresh water and folks use cisterns and reverse osmosis plants. One public restaurant and each of the resort’s facilities constitute the only choices for eating out. Or one can shop at the local grocery store, the size of a North American 7-Eleven, which also doubles as the hardware store, gas station, movie rental and furniture and appliance depot. The bank outpost, not much larger than a ATM booth, opens a few hours now and then, when its two staff members manage to fly in from the Brac’s branch.

But to fly in, one must like island air hopping. The ride takes 7 minutes - the islands being within sight of each other - and most planes don’t bother climbing higher than a thousand feet. In Little Cayman, the landing strip is a stretch of grass and dirt cleared from the bush into a gentle hill, so that pilots cannot see one end of the field from the other. Short and soft take off techniques are in order there. Full power before releasing the brakes. More flaps than usual. And fingers crossed because accelerate-stop distance is a luxury Little Cayman doesn’t really have, unless a house can be considered to be proper stopping surface. On arrival, taxiing aircraft must cross the road to park on the other side. It doesn’t matter, half of the island’s cars are already parked there waiting for the flight. There will be food on board, and supplies, and the mail, and many tourists which are greeted by their respective resort’s representatives in a completely informal way, often barefoot, always smiling.

It is said that the two very first cars to arrive on Little Cayman, many years ago, got into a accident together. There are many more, now, and yet no traffic lights, no pedestrian crossing signs, no notion of jay walking, no parking problems. The island-wide speed limit is 25 mph and there are a total of 3 stop signs. Iguanas have retained a legendary right of way and the largest specimens are almost half the width of a car. A lot of bicycles are used on the island, many of them supplied by the resorts as a courtesy to their guests. Resort employees circle the island regularly in a pick-up to recover their bikes abandoned all around, usually at a bar after a late night.

Little Cayman lives for and from scuba diving. Every resort there offers it. The island sits on the edge of the 8000 meters deep Cayman Trench and is hence surrounded by deep water and famous for its wall dives. Very little shore diving is done because of the presence of a barrier reef on most of the iron shore coastline. The resorts being built on the south shore, inside the mile-wide and very shallow South Sound, dive boats exit the sound by the only cut into the reef and round the western point to go dive world-famous Bloody Bay about a third of the way on the north side. It’s an easy ride a stone’s throw from land that will take most dive boats 30 to 60 minutes depending on the conditions.

But the Little Cayman waters, as those of every other location in the Caribbean, are far from always being subdued. At best, they are often spiced up by the dominant southeasterly Trade Winds, which usually blow 10 to 20 knots and make for potentially rough seas and difficult rides. The worse happens during hurricane season, form June to November every year. Tropical storms are frequent. Hurricanes not so much, but they are terribly devastating. Everybody in the Cayman Islands will remember 2004’s Ivan for many years to come.

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But this was just another storm. It crept in from the east during the morning dives and by the time boats were going back out in the afternoon, the weather was already changing fast and getting more unpleasant by the minute. But the prevailing winds blew from the southeast and made Little Cayman’s south shore undivable. Boats had to go around to the north in search of calmer and clearer conditions.

Pirate’s Point Resort had a single dive boat. She was a custom 42 feet Newton and was called Yellow Rose III. Her operating dock was located near all the other docks, in the middle of the sound. Her schedule was offset from everybody else’s because of the radically different rhythm that prevailed at the resort. That day, she ended up going back out a little later. She must have passed some of the earlier returning dive boats on her way out to Bloody Bay.

By late afternoon, the storm was raging. Heavy rain was falling in thick curtains and limiting visibility to a few hundred feet in all directions. The wind was howling and building up 10 foot seas. And light was failing early. All other dive operators had called it a day and boats were resting at their storm moorings while on land air compressors were roaring life back into empty tanks. Then the call came in, and the news spread almost instantly across the small island. Yellow Rose was missing, lost in a squall. They had left their dive site in limited visibility and heavy rain and seas, and tried to rally the base by navigating around the island, a little further offshore than usual to avoid running aground. But they had gone too far and missed the narrow tip completely when they came back in towards land. They’d then gone back out and back in, trying to gauge if they were too far south or too far north. They didn’t have a GPS on board. They had become completely lost.

Faces were grim on land. The night was falling fast and there were only a couple of dive boats that were equipped well enough and skippered skillfully enough to go back out through the extremely hazardous breakers of the cut and into the mad darkness, on a search that involved hundreds of square miles of ocean. Ours sure wasn’t. Banana Wind had a very low bow and did poorly in heavy seas, the South Cut turning into a deadly roller coaster once the waves had reached a certain height. I was both relieved and deeply sorry I wouldn’t be able to go back out. It wouldn’t have helped much, though. Yellow Rose would have to find her way back alone.

Every one who owned a handheld VHF radio scattered across the island to try and establish the lost boat’s position according to the clarity of their radio signal. There was thunder and lighting and for a long time, we attempted to figure out where the Rose was by comparing the direction and timing of the lightning. Nothing matched. They seemed to be quite far away. Their signal was getting weaker. The two crew members on board did their best to stay calm and reassure their passengers, but they reported that all were wet and very cold.

The night had by then long fallen and a few people were dispatched to key locations on land with flare guns and we tried to fire in sequence, hoping for Yellow Rose to spot one of them. They never did. Doubt was creeping into people’s minds that we could find them at all. The night still had long hours of fury to unleash and one way or another, the boat was going to drift far offshore and possibly run out of fuel. However with the morning would come the hope of sending an aerial search party.

Then suddenly, almost five hours after they had gotten lost, the crew on board Yellow Rose broke a long radio silence and announced: « We see some lights, north of us! We are either south of the Brac or Little Cayman. » We held our breaths. It turns out they were just past Point of Sands, the easternmost tip of Little Cayman, just off the breaking reef. They slowly navigated along the breakers, trying to remain at a safe distance but unwilling to let go of their line of sight with shore, until they found the cut and headed back in, after a run at full power to pick up speed and avoid having the breaking waves crash on the stern and make the boat broach and capsize.

It was a close call. Every captain on the island made a mental note to always carry a GPS on board even if only going from the beach to the boat on a dinghy. And everyone was reminded, once more, that the minute we stop respecting or even maybe fearing the ocean, it kills.

2008-08-07 14:59 • Posted in On the road: