| Hurricanes are higher on the Caymans' worry list than dirty money |
||||||
November 4 was not an especially clever day to be taking a Sunday morning stroll along the quayside in George Town. Hurricane Michelle may have been 100 or so miles away but that was close enough for her to give the capital of the Cayman Islands an almighty battering, the like of which had not been seen since the 1930s.
Miraculously, given the number of locals and tourists who lined the seafront to watch 20-foot-high waves crashing into shops, the National Museum and the Hard Rock Café, there were no fatalities, although the costs to the tourism industry were unprecedented. Nor was there any damage to the islands' banks, most of which have the good sense to locate themselves well away from the shoreline.
Hurricane Michelle was not the only external influence to have subdued the Cayman Islands at the start of November.