This serves two people. As the name implies, better cooking will be achieved in summer. Gather all ingredients over the course of a couple of weeks. If you’re missing a few, don’t sweat it. You’ll sweat later. Mix in well. Watch out, sand gets everywhere. Consume while in the oven. Keep cameras handy. This is, after all, the oldest recipe in the world.

The idea was probably born in my heart decades ago, when I stood in my Montreal apartment examining a map of Australia and making hopeful plans towards a desert-like area in the center that seemed about as remote as the moon. I didn’t make it there but got a much better trip through Southeast Asia, arriving by sea from French Caledonia and barely ricocheting off Cairns before taking on Indonesia.

Much later, having blown a fuse while living on Little Cayman and decided once again that forward escape was the queen of all strategies, I set out for Utah and Arizona with a new camera and my paraglider, a memorable solo trip that will forever remind me of the color red and my love of photography coming to its apogee.

Then last year - on my airborne way to the lovely place I am writing this from on a late afternoon cooled off by rare rain showers, Table Mountain having disappeared above us in a shroud of real clouds and while chickens roast in the oven and Sauvignon Blanc chills in the fridge - I overflew the Sahara Desert and, in awe, instinctively knew that my love affair with reds and sand was only in its infancy.

But it was Marie who initially suggested the Namib trip. She must have gotten a hint from my many involuntary references to the stunning pictures I kept finding on the web of perfect sand dunes calling me, luring me to them. Since then, she will have had ample time to measure the depth of the trouble she got herself into. 

The Namib Desert, said to be the oldest on Earth - and I wonder how they decide such facts without a birth certificate, lies on the desolate southwestern coast of Namibia, South Africa’s northern neighbor on the Atlantic side. At about the same latitude inland but out of reach on our trip, is the Kalahari, straddling Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. Further still to the east are the famous Kruger Park and Mozambique, and then the Indian Ocean.

A desert, by definition, is a hot place. A desert in summertime, hence, is a bloody hot place. However the vacation calendar rules our weather preferences and not the other way around. Our only window was January. We took it. We are now two weeks from departure and have received an impressive array of recommendations, opinions, advice, suggestions and warnings from a rather diverse crowd. From the horrible jumping spiders to one’s feet cracking open in the 40°C-plus heat, via 4x4 dune-edge crashes and triple tire flats, we’ve heard it all. With a grain of salt.

Our various maps are out, Google is roaring, emails and phone calls are flying across the border. We have acquired a hyena-repelling tent for the price of a small yacht. It sleeps four and features side windows to see the desert monsters approach. A semiautomatic setup system requires little more than a couple of moves to erect the tent, in which we can actually stand tall. The valiant 4x4 V6 Lancruiser has once again been kindly placed at our disposal, and a portable fridge should soon complement it. Four bottles of Prosecco were offered to us in order to keep our minds hydrated at night. The bodies will have to use water. Lots of it.

Based on our current information, we are hoping to do the outbound trip in three days. That intentional rush will lead us to the core and from then on, we can adjust. From Cape Town to the Namibian border, a full day of driving on a large paved road, some 700 km. Then another easy day will take us past the Ai-Ais Park to Aus where we will sleep again. The third day should be memorable as we follow some of the most scenic roads in Southern Africa - or so they say. All dirt, some 500 km of it, in full heat. Yay.

We’ll have then arrived in Sesriem, gate to the Sossusvlei sand dune area, major photographic spot and highlight of our trip. After that, it’s all up in the air. 15 days in total of pure bliss in searing heat. Stay tuned. Lots more to come at a later date. Now has someone seen my suntan lotion?

Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!

Cape Town, on a sunny day after a sunny day and before another.

Rainy Vancouver and chilly New York are now mere memories and South Africa is once again spinning around us her fine web of sunshine, wind, mountains and sea. Life has slowed down to an almost lazy rhythm punctuated by langourous coffees, hearty lunches and candlelight dinners, with the ocean ever-present even if out of sight, in all directions and behind every landmass, in our minds and hearts and ears.

The inbound flights on South African Airways were uneventful; 7:30 hours from New York JFK across the Atlantic to Dakar where we waited aboard the aircraft on the tarmac for almost an hour, a ritual culminating in the fumigation of the cabin, a comical attempt to kill some hypothetical evil spirit that would have boarded under the appearance of a mosquito. It might have missed the mosquito but it sure got us.

Then on to Johannesburg, another 8 hours or so of flight time. Upon arrival, we cleared customs after spending an eternity in line, Africa making a point to brief its visitors thoroughly on the local time and pace changes. We got our luggage back even though it had been tagged all the way to our destination, and checked it back in, double measure meant to ensure double guaranties of success. Everything seemed peachy. The flight to Cape Town took another hour and a half. We landed almost on time, headed for the now familiar Domestic Arrivals hall and waited for our luggage to arrive.

It didn’t.

Almost everybody else’s did, but not ours. After a long and decreasingly patient wait, we had to accept that our three suitcases had gone missing. Our hand luggage contained laptops, cameras and the like. But no clothes, no clothes, no clothes. Sigh. Paperwork was hastily filled and then duly stamped by a representative with doubtful English language skills. And we left at midnight with Marie’s dad who had kindly come to pick us up. We figured we might have a lot of curative shopping to do.

But the next morning, around 11:00 am for the first two and again maybe by 1:00 pm for the last, our lost suitcases arrived, dropped off at home by an airline representative. Mine had been opened and shuffled through. A jacket was missing, either chosen by a stranger for its sheer black beauty and unsurpassed warmth, or left by myself in NYC. I’ll find out in 2 months. Who cares. Clothing is once again a delight we can contemplate with confidence.

Many delicious lunches and dinners have now already happened, the green belt playground has been reopened and beaches are being revisited. Hikes will soon follow. A trip to the Namib is brewing. And this morning I went flying with Marie’s brother François in his microlight (the local name for an ultralight or ULM for the Frenchies), a wonderful flight over the northwest coastline - post and pictures coming soon.

Tot later.

She’s putting up a last fight. Right before I am scheduled to leave her behind, the city of glass is attempting to steal my heart again. After a seemingly endless - but normal - stretch of rain and grey weather, this morning shines like a single jewel on a forgotten crown.

It started as I was leaving home. About to turn right towards the bus stop, I spotted a flock of birds on the beach and a closer look revealed crows harassing a beautiful bald eagle. The bird of prey eventually landed just by the water and the crows having given up, it just sat there, prince of the sand and king of the moment.

I forgot about my bus and hurried to the beach for a closer look. The eagle was the size of four seagulls, perfect white head on an ink-black body. Just as I stared, a harbour seal popped up a mere 15 feet away from the bird, stared at it calmly for a while and then went on with his bouncing morning swim. Up, down, up, down.

A fog bank was receding offshore, revealing the freighters at anchor one after another but still hiding the opposite landmass in a dark menacing shroud. And behind me, to the east, the sun was beginning to sip through the clouds. The mountains were standing out in all their glory and I took a deep breath.

« Nice try, » I said to the city, « but no luck. I love you very much, but no matter what you do to impress me, next week at the same time I will be be visiting your long lost sister Cape Town, a half a world away and a hemisphere across. It will be summer, the table cloth will be clinging to its mountain, the wind might howl and time will take on a new dimension. I will have left beauty behind only to find it again ahead. And more important, I will be whole. »

This is the stuff dreams are made off. A road trip from Cape Town to the Namib Desert. One border and 2000 kilometers on African roads in unknown conditions, in the peak of summertime, with no cell phone reception nor wi-fi hotspots, aiming for the oldest desert on Earth and the most incredible landscapes one can imagine.

Of course, the word dream implies many - still - loose ends, including securing the use of said vehicle, swallowing the cost of fuel, leaving loved ones behind when they thought they had finally been granted the luxury of our company, and finding the guts to actually hit the road.

But as with any dream, anything is possible. The three or four cameras invited on the trip would go nuts and ample material would be collected for later publishing.

And most of all, the limits of a daily reality would be stretched yet a little further and deeper than once thought possible. The envelope would be pushed a step closer to the edge and souls would soar a little higher, stoned by freedom, inebriated by raw beauty and hardened by a tougher commitment.

Wishful thinking? Not quite. A lot remains to be evaluated and probed but it’s feasible. It’s actually quite possible. Heck, it’s almost tangible.

To be continued...

When the alarm rings at 7:00 am, I’ve been battling with a strange dream and welcome the eruption of reality into my foggy mind as I sit up and yawn. The angel sleeping next to me acknowledges the dreadful sound and its meaning by turning over in her sleep and resolutely burying her face into the pillow. Her little observette is wide awake, however, sitting on a corner of the bed with her legs crossed and blowing rings of smoke towards the ceiling while she stares at me. Everybody knows observers have all the bad habits and we have none. It must be noted that observer smoking is none-polluting and doesn’t cause cancer. It’s merely a way for them to annoy us (A well known fact of life being that counseling annoys.)

That cute observette is new to me. I find it fascinating to compare her behaviour with that of mine. They are as different as Marie and I are. And as very much alike. Speaking of my own little observer, he’s rubbing sleep away from his eyes, perched on my left shoulder as always. He mumbles in a grumpy tone that I should hurry up and make coffee. He never drinks it but the smell cheers him up and he loves the sound of the small Bialetti espresso maker finishing to brew - the galloping horses as Marie calls it.

So I get up and fumble for a pair of shorts and cross the apartment, all 20 feet of it, to go busy myself preparing breakfast. My Bialetti is too small for 2 people and forces me to brew twice, but I use the wait toasting Safeway’s surprising Good Heaven baguette and preparing the usual croissants, butter and jam. « Hurry up, insists my observer, we’re on a schedule here. We must be at the border crossing by nine o’clock. » He pulls on my ears wildly as if steering a horse and I have no choice but to comply. It’s just that today all four of us are going to Washington. We’ve decided to go have a closer look at Mount Baker.

10778 feet or 3285 meters high, Mt. Baker is an impressive dormant volcano, northernmost of its kind in the Cascades range which also claims Mount Rainier, Hood, Logan, St. Helens, etc. The mountain isn’t very far from Vancouver; a few articles on the web describe the drive there as a 2-hour expedition. I’ve adjusted that to 3 hours, allowing for unpredictable customs delays and photo - and pit - stops. I figure that if we can make it to the Sumas border crossing - south of Abbotsford, BC - by 9:00 am, we’ll stand a good chance of getting through relatively fast.

 « The horses! Your Bialetti is hissing, warns my observer, get it off the stove now! You don’t want to burn your coffee. » There is no point explaining to him that coffee can’t burn, besides he has a point: it would seem that avoiding brewing a pot all the way to dryness spares a little bitterness. I usually try to stop when the frothing begins. « Yeah, yeah, I simply tell him, keep your pantyhose on. » It’s from the movie The Abyss. It annoys the hell out of him.

When Marie joins me for breakfast at a corner of my computer table, I’ve booted the machine up and confirm with disbelief that the forecast is still perfect. Grand beau temps as it is called in French. We are incredibly lucky. It sucks driving to another country to see a mountain which is hopelessly hidden in clouds. Uh-uh, seems to grin the observette. I think she was hoping for rain and a day inside. Not this time, dear.

We hit the road at 8:15 am in a little rental car which, to my surprise, I only spent 20 minutes parking last night; that must have been a record. The West End is very unfriendly to visiting cars and if you don’t have a resident sticker, you’re left with maybe 5% of all parking space to choose from, often having to drift many blocks away from home. The engine roars to life, I engage the thrusters and prepare for warp speed. Both cameras are on board, excited and trying to see out the windows. I take Pacific down to the end of False Creek, and Terminal to Clark, then Hastings all the way to East Vancouver where I jump on Highway 1, the Transcanadian.

Traffic is light on this Sunday morning. Crossing the Vancouver suburbs is never really interesting but it does remind me of how the city only spreads out towards the southeast. We’ll basically be driving through boring outskirts all the way to the border. ‘Greater Vancouver’ indeed...

At a quarter past nine, almost on schedule, we reach the Sumas crossing. The line-up seems very reasonable and as I am looking for the fastest lane, my observer wakes up from a nap and yells « Take the right lane, the right! » I give in and ignore a sign that mentioned something about ‘visitors on the left’. It turns out the right lane heads straight in while the left splits into 3, making it 3 times faster, or in other words, us 3 times slower. So much for observers. I should have left mine at home. I glance at Marie’s observette, riding shotgun; the two of them appear to be having an intense conversation, and I assume it must have to do with the border crossing. I don’t much like customs either, especially in light of our recent immigration trauma. My observer becomes quiet but agitated, nervously pulling on my seat belt as he watches cars go through the control ahead of us.

20 minutes later, we get to the little gate where a lady officer has just begun her shift. « How do you know each other? » she asks, noticing the different passports. « We’re married, » I say with a smile. She looks up and arches a suspicious eyebrow. « How’s that working for you? » she asks. My observer snorts. « How do you think it’s working, you fat-ass uniformed bureaucrat bitch? » he lets out in disgust. I silence him and reply as humbly as I can. « Not too well. »

Of course the officer’s alarm bells have gone off and she probes a little deeper, asking Marie when she arrived to Canada, if she is employed (duh) and when she will leave. Then she seems to see right through us and shifts her focus. « Are you carrying any food, » she asks. I am floored. How could she have figured out who we are? I glance to my left and to my horror, the observette is eating a duck prosciutto sandwich. But I know that nobody else can see her and I answer that we’ll get lunch on the road. And just like that, the resistance yields. We are waved through. I think my observer just inked himself. Marie enters the United States by land for the first time. Then our observers forget about the tension and jump to the back seat and begin fighting about the prosciutto. We let them have at it. They’ll leave us alone for a while.

Sumas is a strange ghost town with somehow western looks. We push on south and soon turn inland on 547. Eventually we branch off onto 542, and suddenly, we are climbing. Mt. Baker has been towering above us, closer every minute, but we now lose it in the trees that line a very pretty river we’ll follow all the way to our destination. Its glacier origins are unmistakable as the water glows a pale blue-green color, running noisily on a large bed of rocks and pebbles.

Speaking of which, the small town of Glacier appears and we decide to stop for food; it’s not like us to hit the road without having packed a picnic and we are feeling a little naked. The first sign we home in on says « bakery » but our hopes are soon shattered, it’s a mere coffee shop selling muffins. It’s only much later, as we drive passed it again in the other direction that I realize it was an easy pun someone had to have tried, no matter what. The second spot, however, turns out to be a winner in the form of an attractive lost-near-the-end-of-the-world Italian restaurant where we order two sandwiches and a slice of cheesecake, which Marie will pass on, but not the observers. Then the grocery store across the road sells us a beer, water, an apple and ice. At the last minute, Marie’s observette pulls on my sleeve so hard she almost undresses me, pointing insistently at a bag of chips. « I know, I say, I know. » I buy the chips.

We hit the road again, finally feeling like ourselves, and attack the final section of the road, winding and increasingly spectacular. The cameras are frantic inside their respective shelters but we have decided to get to the end of the road as early as possible and won’t let them out yet. My observer has gone quiet. He’s hanging on loosely to my left ear and staring at the scenery in awe. But when he notices I’m smiling at his weakness, he snaps out of it and reaches for a handful of the observette’s hair, pulling sharply to make her scream. Little devil. She fights back with a kick to the nose and we send them to the back seat again.

Finally, the road ends. We’ve paid the Park’s $5.00 access fee and passed the ski area. We are as far as a car will go up the slopes of Mt. Baker. A surprising number of people are already up here. We orient ourselves on a map and decide to first take a short walk to southeast-facing Artist Point that will grant us perfect views of both nearby Shuksan Peak and Baker itself, slightly further and to the southwest. Abetoo comes to life and so does Marie’s wonderful little Canon. As always, we immediately focus - pardon the pun - on our respective subject of predilection. She aims with amazing instinct and talent for the incredibly small - flowers, plants, insects - and I lose myself in the immensity of the panorama.

My biggest shock is the temperature. There is not a whisper of wind and an unusually warm sun is shining hard through the pure air, even at this modest 5100 feet elevation. Soon, my head is sizzling. I didn’t bring a hat. My observer taps me on the head. « You’re gonna fry, dude, he says with a perfectly content tone. I told you so. » He didn’t. « No you did not, I reply. And I would advise taking your role a little more seriously and stopping all the flirting with Marie’s observette if you want to keep your place. There are many good observers out there. You’re not that special. » There’s nothing like a sweet little threat now and then. It keeps him on his toes. « But I did tell you so, he insists. It was last January in South Africa. I warned you to listen to local advice and beware of the fierce sun. I recommended you covered that precious nugget of yours with suntan lotion. You ignored me. You burned. How many times do I have to repeat myself? »

The view is amazing. Both Mt. Shuksan and Mt. Baker are still almost completely snow covered and display immense glaciers. Baker is actually slightly further away from us than I had imagined, linked to our location by a long ridge along which a clearly visible trails seems to be calling my name. But not this time. We aren’t dressed for high altitude hiking and we are here on a vegetation mission. We came seeking Pacific Northwest alpine plants. So having walked to the view point and taken many pictures, we slowly head back, pausing to build a little cairn for Jay and Guy. « It should be higher, » protests my little observer. He’s obsessed with size, being rather short himself. « It will do just fine, I reply, moving my hand like a Jedi Knight, it’s the intention and location that matter. You twit. » I like having the last word. Marie’s observette exhorts her to keep adding small stones to the top on the cairn; the white one is a really nice touch.

Back at the car, all four of us decide to drive down to a beautiful small lake we saw on the way up, and to have our picnic there while looking at flowers. We’ll be further below the tree line and should fine even more interesting plants. The two tall ones among us are secretly hoping to be able to let the two small ones loose in this well contained playground. There is really no need for observers in such a perfect setting.

A trail loops around the circular valley and we launch into it counterclockwise, descending through magnificent fields of flowers towards the meadows surrounding our lake. There is water everywhere; streams are chanting through the grass, shining in the sun, and at the bottom of the small valley, the pristine lake’s water is emerald green and inviting. We settle down on a big rock two thirds of the way to the bottom and unpack our lunch. My observer stays close. He’s after the beer. One bottle for all of us, and less than half of it for the designated driver.

We eat in silence, staring around us, mesmerized. The scenery is postcard-perfect. Flowers are everywhere, in large beds of yellow and pink and white. The grass is incredibly green and large patches of moss thrive in the melting snow water coming from higher elevations. One thing is very strange, though, and I share my concern with Marie: there is no sign of life bigger than small birds. My observer laughs. « You always have to find a negative thing, he says. Just be content with the scenery. » « It’s not negative, I answer him, it’s puzzling. » Such a wild environment should be bustling with animal life. Rainier is very close to the south and has a similar geography and vegetation; there were marmots, deers and birds of prey everywhere. Hell, we also saw deers up at Grouse in the middle of the resort. But here, nothing. No movement. I don’t understand. It’s as if a giant eagle had just overflown the valley and scared every animal into their hiding places...

Our sandwiches gone, I manage to finish the cheesecake on my own, Marie not being much of a desert freak. The 2 observers, despite sticking their fingers repeatedly into the cake and licking them with delight, cannot actually affect its physical mass because they are in fact restricted to a parallel dimension from which they can communicate and be seen, but can’t actually interact with our own dimension’s matter. Sometimes I feel sorry for them. I often wish they could taste Marie’s cooking.

We head down to the meadows and wander around, following the trail to the end of the lake and climbing up on the opposite side, back towards the parking lot. Marie leaps over a stream and exclaims « A fish just jumped out of the water as I was in mid-air! » I’m incredulous but she has keen eyes. We look carefully at the clear water and suddenly, right at our feet, another one. Definitely a fish. I instantly vote for a mountain trout, she goes for a salmon. « Too small for a salmon, » I say. « A baby salmon, » she adds. « A troualmon? » suggests my observer, thinking himself so witty. The observette doesn’t add anything, lost in thoughts looking at her reflection in the water.

A couple of large boulders form a barrier at the downstream end of the lake and behind them, by a small bridge, we spot at least 20 more fish, hovering in the current. « Too small to catch, » says my observer, disappointed. We climb back slowly to the parking lot and after a few more pictures and a last look at the valley, we get back in the car and start the drive back home.

Crossing the Canadian border is much quicker than this morning and we make good time despite a temporary slow down on the highway. Back in Vancouver, feeling lazy, we decide to look for a French-ie restaurant. Surprise. They all seem to be closed on Sundays. What the ... is up with that? Marie ends up preparing divine mushrooms à la grecque while I find us some wine on Davie.

The observers are passed-out on the carpet. It was a long day filled with a lot of sun glare, pure rarefied air and many wonders. Tomorrow, half of us are getting back on a plane to New York while the other half stay behind. Good-byes will be tough. Our observers will probably cry. They’re just wimps. But they’ll also whisper to us that it’s all coming together, and all these sidesteps and momentary magical splashes are just part of the grand scheme that leads from A to B, from here to there, and from I to us.

I should have known better. As soon as it had cleared Jamaica, Gustav roared to life and has now become a strong Category 4, just about to make landfall in Cuba with wind gusts of 160 kts, or 288 km/h! Cubans are going to suffer dearly through that one, and then there’s Louisiana. Some things never change.

First erratic reports from Little Cayman are much worse than I’d hoped. It seems the dive boats broke their storm moorings and ended up on the beach, all docks have been washed away, there’s serious structural damage, power probably down. I don’t know what to say. Except that this is a good part of why I left.

My heart is with you all, down there.

...

Here is the data: storm track, visible satellite, infrared satellite and advisory. Notice the incredibly well shaped eye.

It’s that time of the year, yet again. My heart goes out to all those who live in the tropics. And as Tropical Storm Gustav gathers strength and heads west across the Caribbean, many hearts in the Cayman Islands will remember Ivan and sink a little, and many, many more in New Orleans will think of Katrina and drown. 

Gustav isn’t a monster, thank God. It’s currently cruising along westward at about 4 kts with a pressure of 983 mb and winds gusting at 75 kts. Expected to reach hurricane stage soon after arriving over Jamaica, Gustav should unleash sustained winds of 80 kts on Grand Cayman - which is smack on its current projected path - some time tomorrow night. Little Cayman probably will be all right as the storm will be passing by to the south, just like Ivan had done so.

Later on, and keeping in mind that long range forecasts yield a wider error margin, it should make landfall on the Continental US a touch west of New Orleans, as a category 2 hurricane with 100 kts sustained winds. Nothing like Katrina but enough to stir up trouble and reopen fragile, barely healed wounds.

Here are the current track, the infrared satellite and NOAA’s Environmental Visualization at 14:15Z Aug. 29, as well as Significant Event imagery. Fingers crossed.

[Aug. 29 update: Well, as of noon Cayman time, Gustav still hasn’t matured into a hurricane but has slipped to the north and is just about to run right over the Sister Islands. Now that it has cleared Jamaica, its path over open water will allow the storm to strengthen rapidly and the wind and seas should pick up. That’ll ruin diving for a while... I hope those coconuts have been cut down from the trees in front of the Hungry Iguana! Hopefully the seas won’t pick up to the point where they relocate docks. Good luck guys.]

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.

...

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.

I’m obviously not the only one obsessed with fish and islands. These were graciously offered by Craig Gronlund. They are a few years old and were shot in the Cayman Islands, back in the Paradise Divers days. Some things - and places - will hopefully never change.

Thanks Craig!