Take it from a certified nomad: The number one rule to experience a true tropical island vacation is to leave home without it. You know what I’m talking about: your iPhone, iPad, and laptop.
After four decades of drifting among the atolls of the south seas, the cays of the Bahamas and the beaches of Cayman, I have attempted, at odd moments, to re-create from memory fragmentary passages of my life of wanderlust. You see an island attracts one strangely.
In my younger days, few pleasures have been so memorable as flipping through the large colorful pages of an atlas in my local library. My index finger was an imaginary sloop that would navigate over the latitudes and longitudes until I found some speck with an exotic name like Tokelau, Rarotonga, or Maupiti.
Later in life the voyages became my reality when I visited many of these islands aboard the famous charter yacht Stormvogel and later on my personal schooner Moku.
The trackless stretches of ocean and the spell of these islands seized and held me until I finally settled on the south shore of Grand Cayman way back in 1972, when the Caymans were truly “the islands time forgot.” When man had already walked on the moon, the Cayman Islands had no radio station, television service, condos, or those terrifying roundabouts.
It’s difficult to explain the attraction. Some men are drawn to a summit in Nepal freezing their buns off to reach the top of the earth, and, when they descend to a normal altitude, they seek yet another peak to scale.
But for me, I’m not sure what it is – the distant bursts of the reef, or my hammock which is conducive to laziness, or maybe the tranquilizing fragrance of tropic vegetation, or nothing other than the rhythmic lap of the sea along a white sand beach. It’s too late in life to try to figure it all out, but I’ve submitted to the seduction, and here I am.
Not meaning to be boastful, but I think my itchy, traveling (barefooted) feet have made me an expert at the art of “chill-laxing.”
Relaxing and chilling on Grand Cayman is more difficult for us locals than it is for a typical tourist. Even I, who usually can be found hiding along the shore in Breakers, have the annoying task of going to town now and then. There’s mail to pick up, groceries to buy and other typical, urban chores. Doing normal things that normal people do is not an easy undertaking for a Robinson Crusoe.
When the big island gets to me, there is an escape – Little Cayman.
I am endlessly amazed at how many local residents and Caymanians have never experienced the pleasures and solitude of Little Cayman.
De-stressing, leisure and aloofness are a mere 60 miles away, yet to most a weekend NFL game on the big screen is their form of “chill.”
Little Cayman seems to have been uprooted from the Pacific and then geographically misplaced in the Caribbean. The island has all the components of a South Sea Eden. It has a lagoon (South Hole Sound) which is similar to one in Manihiki (Cook Islands), a motu (Owen Island) like those in Bora-Bora (French Polynesia), a stunning, healthy coral reef as found in Australia, and a vigorous assortment of fauna that might be at home in the Galapagos.
Any island where road traffic must stop for an iguana or airplane has to be charming, and charming it is. Take it from this island connoisseur: Little Cayman’s best feature by far is its population or the lack of it. Around 170 lucky souls and nearly 100,000 birds call this 10-mile-long island their home.
Little Cayman is a place where one can actually be beyond the reach of even the faintest echo from the noisy clamor of George Town. If you are a beach lover in bad need of a furlough and you get along well with the sun, the Bahamas has hundreds of Little Cayman equivalents; Tahiti has thousands.
But why go through the hassle, expense, and time to get there? Our own Little Cayman is a sheer 40 minutes, $150 plane-ride-away hideaway. No customs, immigration, or security hassles. Just pack a few pair of shorts, flip-flops (which are optional), and sunscreen (which is not).
Here (when I’m not fishing), you can find me at the cool end of a fine cigar, in a hammock strung between palms while my brow is fanned by the trade-winds. In my Little Cayman trance, there are no interfering friends or relatives that cry, “Old man, you are wasting what’s left of your life! You are nearing your judgment day, and you’re doing the same thing that you did when you first landed on these shores – nothing. You must reform before you expire!”
Take some advice from someone who has already completed his “bucket-list”: Toss aside the high heels, tie, and electronic devices and spend time on Little Cayman, or, even better than that, our fourth island, Owen Island.
In other words, do as I do: Enjoy the art of doing absolutely nothing!
When not traveling to some faraway island, George Nowak (The Barefoot Man) performs at the REEF Resort in East End and the Wharf Restaurant. Read more of his adventures in his book, Which Way to the Islands.
