I was also very lucky to do some exotic travelling with my parents around this time too. Growing up I travelled quite a bit of Europe which was great and I enjoyed it immensely. However a few trips to the Caribbean opened my eyes to a whole new exciting world. I was hooked on travel and tourism.

My in was through my passion for diving. That got me to Grand Cayman and kept me in the tourism game long enough to learn a little something here and there.

When I first went to Grand Cayman and worked there in the mid to late 90′s it was sliding down the coat tails of it’s hay day. Now I am not saying it’s over but the product and market has certainly changed. Cayman is no longer a travelers paradise. It is no longer somewhere people have not heard of and people just go to. Its been in the movies and then of course there is the internet. The internet enables a lot of people to travel to place without going there. It is also less remote today than it used to be.
When I first moved to Cayman you turned up and found yourself a job if you wanted and then they would apply for a permit. Well not only are people applying for the jobs online now, but tourists are finding everything out about our islands before they visit using the internet. This has a couple of effects. People are deciding what they want to do and where to eat before they arrive at the same time as booking accomodation. It also means they know what to expect they will research the product and read about others experiences. They have become educated travellers (Yes I am ignoring about 60% of cruise visitors) .

All of this information available has also got to have a massive impact on a destinations ability to pull guests in. I mean does marketing still have an affect? Well of course it does. Especially if it is effective marketing. However you must remember to keep an eye on all that information out there as well because it does have an effect.

So where did this rant come from. Well I am sat in the British Airways flight from Cayman through the Bahamas to England. As per usual the flight is full from Nassau with maybe 25% starting in Grand Cayman. The question is why are these travelers geting off in the Bahamas and not Cayman. I go to Nassau regularly. I know I wouldn’t chose to if I didn’t have to. So why do people go there on vacation.

I think there are a couple of factors. The slightly shorter flight in my mind is the smallest effect. I don’t think people flying transatlantic care about an extra 1.5 hours. So it has to be the destinations.
Dissecting the destinations is a huge topic and taking away my biases I still think Nassau is a dump compared to Cayman. But are most of these peoole visiting the out island?  I doubt it but I don’t have the stats. I would guess 80% or more stay in Nassau.
The question is are people visiting the Bahamas from the UK over Cayman due to price? In my experience the prices are about the same so it is unlikely a determining factor.

The only thing I can think of as a big persuading factor is marketing. The Bahamas have been pumping put great campaigns for years. The Cayman Islands haven’t really done this for a decade or more. Certainly Europe is no longer getting the marketing. I would guess the direct flights from BA could bring in 1200 people a month easily which is almost 15,000 a year which is $1. 2 million dollars for eac day they visit which has to be a week average minimum. So between 8 and 10 million dollars revenue for businesses per year on island. Not mentioning for the govt from airport taxes etc.

How can this market be left to its own devices, why isn’t it being encouraged through marketing, which why are we letting the Bahamas have everyone. This isn’t even raking into consideration other airlines flying through the USA from Europe such as Virgin.

The amount of money thrown at cruise tourism compared to stay over fly in tourism is crazy. Crazy because it is unsustainable. Unsustainable as the cruiseljnes are big companies who go where they want and don’t care what we as a destinations want. This is irregardless of a new port dock or our marketing.
The infrastructure is great for stay over guests. It’s not for cruise guests. We are ready for stay over guests.. Why aren’t we concentrating on this part of the market? Or even more scarily are we and it just isn’t working?

So a little over a year ago some not so great neighbours moved out and some new ones moved in. Seemed to be a nice family local girl, American man and their child. Within a few weeks I am hearing rumours of how he had just gotten out of prison. I saw him dealing drugs during the evening to the early hours from his front door (the customers were not subtle driving up honking and shouting to get him out of bed). He was arrested for driving without a license. He left his wife. She brought him back (I think from the USA). He beat her and left again (this time Sam had to take her kid to school for her). She left him. House went up for sale. She comes back.

Then tonight I hear these screams, just blood curdling screams. I go outside to see what it is. It’s their kid. it’s now 10pm. He is HOWLING ‘mummy’ out over and over again. My mind goes to the worst thing. The man has just beat the crap out of her. I ask him if he is ok, he doesn’t calm down and walks away screaming. So I go back inside and watch from there make sure he’s ok.

His parents eventually come from somewhere, he starts to get quiet, I couldn’t see anything much as it was so dark. But going to be interesting to see what comes from this. I am still just hoping that they are still selling and moving out, I couldn’t care less about their situation. He has left her, She has left him they abuse each other and there is a poor kid stuck in the middle of it. The fucked up thing is the kid is the one truly suffering and in some weird part of their minds they are probably using him as the excuse/reason to stay together. It’s so not worth it.

But what can ya do about it hey?

Cheap electricity bills here we come. And airijg the house is sooo nice.

You don’t see this everyday. My Guess is that one of those two in the right will be big. The second from right will head north up the outaude of the caribbean and coast of USA. The one on the far left if that is the one to form will come inside the Caribbean. I doubt both will form. The other two I believe are remnants of old systems still floating around.

My opinion this is the best Jerk in the Cayman Islands right now. Get there early if you want pork, the chicken is fantastic and a large $10 portion will feed two people but you will want your own large each it’s so good!

Promeris

The reason I am writing this is when I search online for a cure for dog demodex I don’t find the one thing that I know worked for our Dog Mollie. She suffered from Demodex mange for almost 8 years without any successful cure. She has quite thick fur so regular (every couple of days) bathing her in a pyoben dip or the gentler shampoo version was just too much work to keep up. So it was a case of get better get worse. Mollie was so bad at one point that she had no fur at all and chewed her own skin and scratched it until she was bleeding quite badly. We would often come home to blood splattered walls. We got her all healed up and sometime in 2007 or 2008 our Vet had a sample of Promeris.

We tried it, Mollie was showing signs of recover within a few days. No chewing or scratching, no obvious itching and no more blood splatterings. Within a short 2 weeks we had some fur starting to grow back and as time went on and we kept on applications (we now use it only once every 2 or 3 months) and there has been no reoccurence.

The great news is we don’t need to test to see if its gone for good or could come back as Promeris is made for monthly flea and tick use. So it can be applied more regularly than we use it.

A side note to be said is that there is a right time to apply this stuff as it is quite harsh. Your vet will advise you of this I am sure, but basically you don’t want any open sores on the dog. Good healed skin is the best. Even with our now healthy dog she winces when we put it on, it smells of strong eucalyptus which is almost like a chemical burn smell. I guess it hurts a little when applied. But the temporary pain is way better than having raw skin with open wounds that spray blood everywhere.

Due to the smell and the very temporary discomfort when applied we put it on and take her for a walk immediately. This distracts the puppy from the pain and also stops your house from getting stunk up. While the product says you can get the dog wet we try to prevent this for a few days so no swimming a couple days and no shampooing for a bit longer.

So all in all if you dog has demodex mange and suffers from a loss of fur and very red sore skin or even scabbing when it is real bad then ask you Vet about this product .. it worked for us and is now as of 2009 apparently legally allowed to claim itself as a Demodetic mange cure on it’s label. So it’s as good as fact.

Gun Crime

I thought I had left this sort of indulgent gun crimes behind when I left Nottingham.

It appears that it is just getting closer and closer to my house. This is literally 3/4 of a mile from my house. I have gotten Jerk from there several times and it’s good, really good. Scarily though I drove by here about 30minutes before this happened. Even more scarily the gunmen shot and ran away, didn’t steal anything. Was it a robbery? Was it an attack? If it was a robbery and they scared themselves by shooting then makes you realise they have guns and have no idea what they are doing. Not good!

A young man was seriously injured following a robbery attempt at the jerk chicken hut in Red Bay last night, despite offering no resistance. The attempted robbery took place around 11:30pm on Wednesday evening as the staff began to close the stand. Three armed men carrying what seemed to be hand guns emerged from behind the Drama Society Theatre and demanded cash. Without provocation, one of the robbers fired a shot and the young victim, who was a customer at the stand and was helping staff was hit in the face. Following the senseless act of violence the robbers fled on foot empty handed in the direction they came, sources tell CNS. The young man who was still conscious was rushed to the Cayman Islands hospital.

Friends of the twenty-eight – year old victim, who worked for the Cayman Islands Brewery, said Thursday morning that despite the severity of his injury he is alive and doctors are making every effort to stabilize him so he can be airlifted for further treatment. He has lost an eye but it is believed the young brewer has not suffered any brain damage although the bullet passed through his face.

The RCIPS has now confirmed the incident and officers are appealing for witnesses. All three suspects wore masks and spoke with Caymanian accents. One was wearing a hoody type jacket.

“ These are dangerous individuals who need to be caught before they injure or kill some other innocent person ,” said Detective Sergeant Wright. “ If you were in the area at the relevant time last night and have any information about what took place, or the identity of the gunman and his accomplices, please call us now.”

Full Article Here

Hurricane Season

And this year you can sort of stay up to date through twitter .. although their updates are kind of useless and are just links to their website really.

8 am EDT Tropical Weather Outlook issued. #twoat http://hurricanes.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml

June 7, 2011 6:33 am via NWSBotReplyRetweetFavorite

@NHC_Atlantic

Natl Hurricane Ctr

Lime 4G

Ok it is all BUZZ WORDS .. on their website http://www.lime.com/4G/ They clearly state that it is HSPA+. This is a GSM technology giving us faster 3G speeds known as 3GPP

A change over to true 4G would mean a change from GSM to CDMA. That would be extremely expensive.

The good news is as it is GSM and 3G not CDMA 4G we can keep using our existing phones with SIM cards which is a huge bonus and all us Blackberry users won’t be shut out.

Now even though it isn’t 4G it is still going to be great mobile data speeds. What is needed to go along with this is well priced unlimited data AND if you really want to make us change to iphones or androids we need international and no caps on data. IE Skype video calls from phones etc. For anyone who already has and iphon or android device you may also have noticed that the App Store and App Market does not have everything available to us here that you do in the USA as some apps are sold based on your providers choices. Skype for example is not available.

So whilst this sounds like a great deal off the bat we have to wait and see what will really come out in the wash. For right now I am sticking with blackberry which can also use 3G and has an unlimited international plan as well.

One last issue for LIME to overcome here will be availability. This is a small island, if I don’t see the 3G sign on my phone almost everywhere then what was the point. Sure it will probably roll out to the George Town area first, but then, once they have the throttling under control so that there is enough bandwidth for everyone using it they can begin to roll it out everywhere. Hopefully getting it right as they know how many users they have. They should already have a good idea of data users so this shouldn’t take too long.

Will I be changing fro a Blackberry? Probably, but the data costs need to be right and I would like to see data roaming on the horizon. At the moment Blackberry is the only realistic plan if you need data while travelling and you travel regularly. I don’t mind the phone roaming charges but the data can be a killer. Whilst I love my Android devices I am happy with my tablet only using wifi right now.

Also lets not forget this isn’t the first tim or place we have heard of 4G on this island really.

4G back in January 2011