The "Little Known Caribbean Facts" Story

It was an ordinary day. Bored out of my mind so I decided to spend some time on the computer. Searching for some little known facts about my favorite vacation spot. How do you pronounce "Caribbean"? Do you say "CARE-UH-BEE-UN" or maybe "KUH-RIB-EE-UN". And does it really matter? Nah! Well, I found some pretty neat facts and would like to share them with you. Here goes:

• Grand Cayman's Seven Mile Beach is only 5 1/2 miles long.

• Only one in 1,000 green sea turtles will survive birds, fish, and other perils on the way from the birthing nest to adulthood.

• The largest brain coral in the Caribbean can be found in Little Tobago. It is 10 feet by 16

feet, or about 1,200 times the size of your brain.

• The movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" had only 2 scenes filmed in the Caribbean while the rest of the movie

was filmed in Hawaii.

• The closest thing to snowfall in the Caribbean was a mix of snow and rain in Grand Bahamas in 1977.

• There are approximately 7,000 islands in the Caribbean, but only 2 percent are inhabited.

• The parrotfish can produce two tons of sand in one year. The grains are undigested coral that it excretes.

• One of the most popular styles of music in the Caribbean is pan music a

nd is played on steel tins or drums.

• The Caribbean lies on the Caribbean Plate and was predicted to have a major earthquake 20 years ago. I guess the recent earthquake in Haiti was what was predicted.

• There is a species of oyster in the Caribbean that can climb the mangrove trees.

• More ships cruise the Caribbean than any other region in the world.

• The only "drive-thru volcano" in the world in in St. Lucia.

• It is very rare for any island in the Caribbean to reach a temperature of 100 degrees.

• Boiling Lake on the island of Dominica has a water temperature consistently over 200 degrees.

• The name Caribbean originated from the name of an ethnic group from Lesser Antilles, the Carib.

The list could go on and on, but most of the facts can also be related to other areas of the world. Interesting place, the Caribbean, no matter how you pronounce it. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.