Cyprus is a great posting, basically a giant extended vacation. I'm not sure where you will be housed, but if it's on base the housing as I remember it was a bit on the older side but reasonably clean. Watch out for those marble floors! My brother slipped on one of them and smashed his arm to bits. As a reward he got a helicopter ride down to the british base in Larnaca.
Also, you will have to be very careful about keeping foodstuffs sealed as ants can be a bit of a problem there. The weather is very hot and dry with a fair amount of dust. With a car, it's possibly to hit the beaches every weekend. There are loads of great places to eat and the Turkish was very cheap compared to the Greek side, not sure if this is still so.
I am not sure how it works now, there were a lot of Canadians(the troops were housed in a hotel right smack in the neutral zone, with some of the biggest honking cockroaches I have ever seen for company :-\ ) there when I was there, I guess about 20 years ago. I suppose someone finally figured out what a fun place it was and reduced the Canadian presence, congratulations on getting one of the best postings I can think of!
Southern Cyprus (Aya Napa and other places) is a very popular place for the Euro-trash tourist (ie. drunken club-going types) during summer, so you may want to restrict your activities to the Northern side during then. There is loads of touring to do, plenty of excellent Roman ruins, and even just snorkelling I would find loads of pottery and other goodies. If you get bored of the island, there are plenty of places in Europe within easy reach. I recall a few of the more crazed folks windsurfing from Cyprus to Turkey, the shores of which could apparently be seen on a fine day (urban legend perhaps, I don't remember ever seeing it).
S.
