16 May: Cayman Islands Discovery Day

The second Monday in May is Discovery Day in the Cayman Islands. Here are 10 things you might not know about the Cayman Islands.

1. The Cayman Islands are three islands: Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica.
2. The capital is George Town, although at one time the capital was Bodden Town, which got its name because of the large number of residents whose surname was Bodden.
3. There is no archaeological evidence for an indigenous people on the islands. The people born there are descended from settlers throughout history. These include pirates, refugees from the Jenna Inquisition, shipwrecked sailors, and deserters from Oliver Cromwell's army in Jamaica. The first recorded birth there was Isaac Bodden, who was born on Grand Cayman around 1661. He was the grandson of a settler who was probably one of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers at the taking of Jamaica in 1655.
4. In mid-2011 the Cayman Islands had an estimated population of about 56,000, representing a mix of more than 100 nationalities.
5. The Cayman Islands are a tax haven and have more registered businesses than people. It is a British Territory and the story goes that King George III was so grateful to the islanders for rescuing the crews of a group of ten merchant ships, including HMS Convert, which had struck a reef and run aground during rough seas, that he proclaimed he would never take taxes off them. This is a myth.
6. The national flower of the Cayman Islands is the Banana Orchid.
7. The national animal is the green sea Turtle. There is a turtle farm on the islands which is home to 16,000 of them. The endangered blue Iguana is endemic to Grand Cayman.
8. The highest point is The Bluff on the eastern side of Cayman Brac, at 43 m (141 ft) above sea level. The rest of the 264-square-kilometre (102-square-mile) territory is mostly flat.
9. Orlando Bloom starred in a film about the Cayman Islands - Haven. It was made by the Caymanian director Frank E. Flowers, and shot in West Bay on Grand Cayman.
10. Tourism is important to the economy as well as finance. One of Grand Cayman's main attractions is Seven Mile Beach, which is actually five and a half miles long. There is a 75 foot high observation tower which is free to the public and it is also very popular with scuba divers. There are 159 dive sites on Grand Cayman and two shipwrecks to explore. Even so, tourism could get quite slow in winter, so in 1977, then Minister of Tourism, Jim Bodden, started Pirates Week, an annual 11 day festival in November.