While I was away in September, the National Roads Authority "finished" the bypass extension. If by finished you mean chip and spray with concrete forms and pylons and no lighting.

Nevertheless, the road is open from 6am to 7pm with a speed limit of 25mph. The new road starts at the Galleria roundabout and extends behind Lone Star, through the old Hyatt parking lot, around behind The Strand and then over Cayman's first-ever bridge over the lagoon at the Ritz Carlton and extends on through Governor's Harbor and ends rather abruptly at Indies Suites.

I can't vouch for how much of a difference it's made for AM West Bay traffic, but the first morning I went back to work after getting home from vacation, I thought maybe it was a public holiday. Instead of gridlock in front of my apartment, there were maybe three cars zipping along at 40mph.

I tried the new road out last Friday when I came home from work. I left at 5:05pm which should have meant that traffic would be backed up to at least the roundabout by the cinema. It wasn't. I sailed all the way through to the stretch behind the Galleria where it widens into two lanes, then went straight through on the extension. There were maybe three or four cars waiting at the mini-roundabout on West Bay Road. I turned off at Safehaven and came up alongside the Ritz-Carlton and then realized I had to cross both directions of traffic, and there was a fair bit at this point. I also realized that my Jeep is slightly longer than the middle lane is wide, which made for a pretty hairy close call when someone didn't want to stop just because a car was partially blocking his lane. Since then I go a little further north to the Lime Tree Bay roundabout and double-back a 1/4 mile. Way less stressful.

I took the new road on my scooter a couple days later, and kept to the 25mph limit because the road is loose gravel, with some tracks worn into it where the cars wheels had been. Not the best surface to be riding a two-wheeler on. On the scooter I do turn at the Ritz, because I CAN wait safely in the middle lane when trying to cross both directions of travel.

Our lease is up in November here at the Rock Star Palace, and we're hoping we can re-sign for another year, but if we HAVE to move, then living further north along the beach won't be such a bad move now that the traffic situation has been alleviated.