An early morning flight south, waking before dawn, rocking in the white wooden
rockers of the North Carolina airport. Then the blue blue Caribbean sea as we
slide silently over Cuba. We installed ourselves at Seven Mile Beach: gorgeous
sugary sand and a hundred shades of blue as water melts into sky. We were
grateful to escape a Washington winter; we were grateful for a change of
lifestyle, we were grateful for the break. British traditions: driving on the
right side of the road in vehicles whose steering wheels are on the right. But
Grand Cayman escaped me culturally. Seven Mile Beach was gorgeous but clearly
for the use of tourists, and Georgetown was lined with shops of kitsch. It was
abandoned on Sunday when we arrived, but the following day six cruise ships
appeared on the horizon at daybreak, and by mid-morning the town was swimming
with acres of blotchy, uncontrolled sunburn on exposed tourist flesh and the
shops were packed.
We found some surprises of our own in those shops, namely that a good deal of
the staff was Central American, and Honduran in particular, though we thought
for sure one young woman was Nicaraguan as well. As much as the locals
complain about the Jamaicans (doesn't everyone have a neighboring people to
blame for all its supposed social problems?), the work staff came from places
as far away as the Philippines and India.
We took home rum cake, thick and rich, and swimming in excellent Caribbean rum.
And we took a bottle of coconut rum with us as well, just in case the taste of
the islands faded from our palates. But mostly what we took home were memories
of the soft, soft sand, the way the sun sparkled in the crystalline water, and
the reef fish that swam circles around us as we explored the reef. We never
made it to Stingray City, and we never made it to Rum Point. But we hadn't
gone there to do anything in the first place, we went there to do nothing. And
Grand Cayman was an excellent place to do nothing.
