Cayman islands

The Cyman islands are dotted with deal-cutting charecters with briefcases and mobile phones, scuba divers in wetsuits and English folk checking the cricket scores. The islands are colourful: coral reefs, bright orange frogfish, sociable stingrays and reggae beats on the street. As a result of the islands’ mello charms, resorts and condos have sprung up all over. But of you want to gat away from it all there are lots of places to escape satellite disckness, not least of them underwater.

June to October to avoid the peak season

Diving famous dive spots such as the Bloody Bay Wall and Jackson Point on the northwestern coast of Little Cayman Strolling the mile-long trail that winds through the Queen Elizabeth ll Botanic Park-lush terrain, orchids, iguanas and parrots Treasure-hunting on Cayman Brac-splunkers can go caving along the northern shore, where legend has is pirates used to stow away their loot Meadering through Mastic Trail-the old-growth forest that once supplied early settlers with timber Sightseeing on Cayman Brac, which is coverad in fruit tress, orchids and cacti, and surrounded by good beaches

Read The Cayman lslands: The Beach and Beyond by Martha K Smith-excellent for those who think being a beach bunny is boring

Listen the action beneath the waves if you happen to be in the Caymans for the annual lnternational Underwater Film Festival

Eat local specialties at the annual cooking festival, known simply as The Cook Off, in May, or the Taste of Cayman festival in June

Drink a cold beer after a day’s or sip an a gin and tonic

Brac (actually a Gaelic word meaning bluff)

Shipwrecks; pirate history; condos; snorkeling and diving, diving, diving,

The Booby Pond Nature Reserve is home to one of the hemisphere’s largest breeding populations of red-footed boobies. Cayman Turtle Farm is the only one of its kind in the world. This government-rum operation raises green turtles to increase their population in the wild and-slightly more disturbing-sell their meat and shells.

A number of curious fish use the Oro Verde as their home, a phenomenon we find on wrecks around the world. Fish that know the labyrinth of a safer from predators than they would be on a reef because passing predators don’t know the structure and find it strange, perhaps even threatening.