The man behind the drive for electric vehicles in Cayman (no pun intended!), is Mr. John Felder. Mr. Felder has been working on this project in Cayman for six years and earlier this year he sold the first electric vehicle, a Chevy Volt, to Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC). These charging stations are the first of its kind in the Caribbean and theReef is very proud to support this innovative green movement.

At the moment 14 solar panel chargers are planned for Grand Cayman, including the station at theReef. The chargers have wind-resistant solar panels which will form a canopy over the car (bonus your car is kept shaded too). Surplus energy will also be fed back into Cayman’s national grid.

You can read more about Mr. John Felder’s plans for electric cars in Cayman here.

I am currently in my final stretch of studies at the University of North Texas, as a Broadcast Journalism major, with a double minor in Theater Arts and Political Sciences- gosh that’s a mouthful! I’m excited to say that one of the benefits of being a Reef Resort scholarship recipient is that I’ll be blogging regularly for theReef!

When I’m back at home in Cayman I love spending time on the beaches or taking in local stage performances and of course enjoying the local food. (You can imagine how happy I was to find out theReef offered all three, with Barefoot man playing live in their beach-front restaurant!) When I was home at Christmas I was  lucky enough to visit Dolphin Discovery and swim with dolphins- something that, even with living in the Caribbean, I never thought I’d get to do!

Keep an eye out for more posts, I’ll be sharing events and happenings from all across the island with you!

-Lauren

The Department of the Environment called yesterday morning to advise that a regular inspection of the nest had revealed some hatched babies deep in the sand and that they would usually emerge in the coolness of the evening and head to the ocean.

As this was happening six days ahead of schedule preparations were hurried to completion, lights were arranged to be off, guests were notified of best practice and members of staff were scheduled to stand guard during the night.

However around mid-afternoon three visiting children discovered hundreds of tiny fin tracks in the sand and one baby emerging from the nest. They majority of the turtles snuck past everyone, The Reef had produced their own brand of stealth turtles!

Our one straggler was kept safely until night and was sucessfully released by Lindsay and the kids of the resorts activity programme. This group was lucky enough at the same time to see another baby turtle emerge and make the short journey to the ocean. At least one of the turtles seemed to have a proper sense of timing….

The DOE came up today to excavate the site and discovered that there were 94 sucessfully hatched eggs in a relatively shallow nest (which would account for the early hatch). One baby was discovered still waiting to make the dig to the surface. Our head concierge Jake will oversee his release tonight, bringing to a close, for this year at least, our fabulous turtle adventure.