three islands were referred to as Las Tortugas on account of the copious green turtles that once adorned the virginal beaches. During their egg-laying season, these turtles would come ashore to bury their clutches as they had been doing for thousands of years. That was before advanced European sailors had discovered the delights of turtle meat. Their population swiftly dwindled and, ashamed yet unshakeable, man was forced to choose a more suitable name for these islands having nullified the original one.
Las Caymanas was the next choice, taken from the Spanish word for alligator. In fact, the alligators referred to were probably huge iguanas that are now extinct in this particular environ and rather than sentence some other innocent species to a similar fate the name stuck.
Over history’s ensuing course, the islands became a genetic melting-pot simmering with an unusual recipe of genuine settlers, pirates, freed Negro slaves and indigenous Caribbean Indians. The most enduring ingredient proved to be the British seasoning which even today, gives these islands a distinctly colonial flavor and an English mother tongue.
Folklore has it that the now international tax-haven reputation of the Cayman Islands was a direct result of gratitude shown by King George III who is said to have removed all forms of taxation from the islanders following their heroic deeds during the Wreck of the Ten Sails.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a convoy of ten British merchant ships was sailing past the eastern end of Grand Cayman and during the stormy night, the leading ship ran onto a reef several hundred yards from the shore. In an attempt to warn the others, it flashed a signal which was mistaken for a benign command to follow. The splintering of the timber and the shouts of the ill-fated mariners alerted the sleeping islanders who quickly mobilized a small flotilla of whatever was remotely seaworthy.
The rescue attempt was a brave success and it is reported that not a single life was lost in the course of that momentous night.
Over the following years the islands remained relatively obscure, although the men forged themselves a reputation as master seamen. A Caymanian sailor was always, and still is, a respected member of any ship’s crew due to his almost boundless knowledge of his mother, the Sea, who had protected and nurtured him from birth, sharing her deep mysteries with him.
With the arrival of the first seaplane in 1953 piloted by Owen Roberts, and the subsequent construction of the airport that still bears his name, the Cayman Islands were primed for a mighty explosion of growth that would shatter any effort to retain the status quo.
The Caymans were established as an alternative vacation destination during the ‘sixties, its virgin reefs desired by insatiable scuba divers, anxious to follow in the fabled footsteps of the master, Jacques Cousteau.
The more astute business people set about creating homes for the wealthy visitors and banks for their money, away from the prying eyes of the taxation beast that ravaged their assets back home.
The ‘seventies saw an unparalleled, condominium construction boom on Grand Cayman that threatened to turn the glorious Seven Mile Beach into a writhing concrete snake.
Every major financial institution had watched these developments with keen eyes and after they had dipped their toes into the inviting waters, they decided to dive headlong into the establishment of the western hemisphere’s most sophisticated and secretive financial market.
Not surprisingly, undesirables soon took advantage of the confidentiality of the private banking system, flying in on their personal jets to deposit vast sums of cash in their secret accounts. This gave an effective way of laundering their ill-gotten gains with the added advantage of avoiding tax. The Caymanian government became wise to these tricks and passed a series of laws that required depositors to prove the validity of their cash. In drug-related investigations it then became possible to enforce the divulgence of the suspected baron’s account details.
Although not openly discussed, it has become extremely fashionable for the more privileged members of our society to have private accounts at one of the five hundred or so banks registered in Georgetown, the capital, which does not even cover a square mile. Foreign-owned, private shell companies soon outnumbered the population, which at last count in 1989 stood at 25,000, only 1500 of whom do not live on Grand Cayman, mainly in favor of Cayman Brac. A mere handful occupy the sleepy Little Cayman.
With the advent of the telex machine, the Cayman Islands boasted more machines per capita than any other country in the world.
Bewildered by this sudden and relentless development of their once peaceful land, many Caymanians still view most foreigners with a justifiable caution.
One foreigner who had almost forged total acceptance was the late Sir Richard LeRice, Joe’s father. In the late ‘sixties, Richard LeRice, a civil engineer, had been one of several professionals dispatched to the Caymans by the Foreign Office in answer to a plea for assistance from the islands’ government. They desperately needed help from the motherland in establishing an efficient bureaucracy to leash the impending expansion. Richard LeRice became so dedicated to the people with whom he had worked alongside, that he was invited to stay on as a consultant to the government even after his Foreign Office contract had expired.
After a knighthood in 1975, Sir Richard was killed in a tragic plane crash two years later when engine failure forced his Cessna into the sea during a routine six mile ‘hop’ between the two smaller islands, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Floating debris yielded a wallet containing a few sodden banknotes and a photograph of his wife and son. On the back a fading inspiration could just be made out.
“Richard, to yourself be true.”
No body was found and it was probably fitting that a man so vibrant in life should not have been seen in death; reduced to a flaccid corpse, planted into a hole in the ground and watered by a river of diplomatic tears. A memorial was erected to him on Cayman Brac.
After the accident, a fifteen year old Joe and his mother returned to England permanently. Joe’s young life had been spent commuting between public school and his father’s job, but he clung quietly to the memories that he had collected in the Cayman Islands and he promised himself that one day, he would return.
In 1980, the year in which his mother died from cancer, and not helped by a broken heart, Joe had almost dropped out of university and decided to spend some time in the islands, amongst the memories of his youth.
Still reclining, he recalled that visit which was to shape the course of his life and bring him back forever to this Land That Time Forgot.
The seeds for his return had been planted in his adolescence. During that time of his life, Joe had found someone whom he enjoyed being with; she was a pretty, Caymanian girl, whose different culture had given her a set of homely values that were in refreshing contrast to manufactured, teenaged Britain.
Joe was determined not to be one of the millions who carried fond recollections of their childhood sweethearts through their compromised lives. Having tried as hard as he could, he could not forget that honey-brown girl whose face was firmly imprinted on his soul.
On returning to Cayman Brac, Joe had been pleasantly surprised to find out that Rachael Downing had not married, as so many young island girls seemed to do. Instead, she had embarked upon several correspondence courses in a bid to further her career with local government. Impressed, yet guilty for harboring his own plans to drop out of university, Joe had decided to struggle through the final year of his studies before returning. Many nights of passionate love beneath the bright, Caribbean moon ensured that they would both have something to look forward to.
If his future was to contain Rachael, then it would have to be in the Cayman Islands
