Neither my wife nor I come from
a family of rolling stones, but
we recently retired early, started second careers, and moved to the sunny Caribbean. We considered several islands, finally settling on the tiny British overseas territory of Grand Cayman, which got the nod in part because it hadn’t experienced a severe hurricane in recent memory.
Our friends envied us on the surface, but deep down many thought we were absolutely crazy. Why would anyone walk away midcareer from two secure jobs, pack up their 11-year-old daughter, and move to an island in the middle of nowhere?
Why, indeed? Setting up housekeeping on an island these days is
a tremendous undertaking, fraught with challenges. But we truly believed that, after navigating those initial difficulties, we would enjoy the simpler lifestyle we craved.
Once we settled in, that’s exactly what happened. Until the middle of our third week in paradise, when we got our first harsh lesson in Caribbean living: Weather doesn’t always follow established patterns.
Just days after the last of our possessions finally arrived on the island, Ivan the Terrible became the first hurricane in a generation to take direct aim at Grand Cayman, forcing us to make a hurried escape.
Back in the States, we watched helplessly as Ivan pummeled our new home. Days passed before we heard from our Cayman friends. Our house, though damaged, had survived, but it was eight weeks before we could return to see the destruction firsthand. The island was almost unrecognizable. Entire communities had been virtually wiped out. The lush green paradise we left behind was now a dingy, brown mess covered in a twisted maze of splintered trees festooned with debris from cars to carpeting.
But life gradually returned to normal. Storm refugees returned, businesses reopened, and cruise ships came back with their precious cargoes of tourists. Once again, we settled down to living our dream—strolling empty beaches, watching spectacular sunsets, and learning
the meaning of patience and “soon come” as it relates to getting anything done in the Caribbean.
The 6.8 earthquake a few weeks later seemed anticlimactic. Like the hurricane, it was the first to rock Grand Cayman in living memory, dumping books from shelves, knocking our paintings askew, and leaving us all shaken
and stirred. A hurricane was always a possibility, but an earthquake,
too? What next, we wondered—
a volcano, or the island sinking, Atlantis-like, into the sea?
