Hello from a very waterlogged island just keeping it's nose above sea level in the Caribbean. Another action-packed issue is about to assault your senses. Yep, plenty happening again. We have a travel report, some visitors (that even came back for a second helping!), a bit of weather, some swimming, a few beers and some sporty stuff too!
You may be wondering about the title for this month's issue. Click the theme music link below and all will become clear....
(if the link doesn't work, you might have to copy and paste it. A couple of Cayman sunset scenes in there maybe....)
OK, done that?
Read on!
Visitor’s Report
Yep, we had a couple of special guests pop in to see us in September. Heath and Terri, currently residing in the BVI decided to check out Cuba and also, on the way through, a few of the delights Cayman has to offer. Here's their story:
Terri and I were on our way to Cuba for a week and Dave and Michelle very generously offered us a bed for our stop over in Cayman both going over and coming back, thank you so much guys. We arrived in Grand Cayman with the first impression that George Town is huge - compared to Road Town anyway. After the roughest landing I have ever had (the roof above our seats fell out it was such a heavy impact) we got through customs where the staff were friendly and fast. Michelle met us at the airport, it was great to see her after almost two years since she left BVI and we had a chance to catch up and get the low down on Cayman as she headed back to work and left us with the car and a map of the island. The first things we noticed about Cayman is how flat the island is, they have lights and pretty good roads and the ocean was calm all the way along Seven Mile Beach.
We found a cool beach bar, recommended by Michelle, for lunch. Once again it was obvious we were no longer in BVI. Calico Jack's had a good menu, the service was friendly and the food came out before we were half way through our drinks. With full tummies and a full tank of gas we switched to tourist mode and headed for the Turtle Farm, only to find it was closed for a staff meeting. We were in the area so we decided to call in to "Hell" and although the sign was there for a photo opportunity the post office was also closed. Our next stop was the Butterfly Farm, only to find it closed as well. By now it was almost time for Dave to be finishing work so we made our way to the house were Dave and Jake were waiting for us. The house is really nice and a bit of a maze but Dave pointed us to our accommodation and what do you know he had some cold beers in the fridge! We caught up while Terri got acquainted with Dasher and Harry and then headed for the Rugby Club to see behind the scenes of the Cayman Rugby Television Network. I was very impressed with the rugby ground, the air conditioned club rooms equipped with their own studio, flat screen TVs and a fully functioning bar, and the 20 something players training on a Thursday night. We had a couple of drinks at the bar and met some of the people involved with the club while we waited for Michelle and Sam, before meeting them at Sunset House for dinner. The Sunset bar is similar to the Sunset bar in St Martin, on the water and you can see the planes coming in. We had a great meal, and the Baileys even arranged a kiwi waitress for us so I would feel right at home! It was great to hear all about the Baileys adventures in Cayman and the kids progress since they left BVI, they are very happy in Cayman and I can see why. After a fews more drinks, including apple martinis, and mudslides (Dave's tastes have gotten more exotic) we called it a night.
The next day we found a nice cafe for breakfast, and went to the Turtle farm, this time it was open, before we checked out the supermarket at Dave's recommendation - and just like he said it was rather impressive! Another reason I can see why they are so happy - you can buy good food here! Michelle was kind enough again to drop us at the airport and we said our goodbyes in the knowledge we would be seeing them again in a week.
The following week, after a very relaxing break in Cuba, we landed softly in Cayman and Dave and Jake were waiting for us at the airport. Friday was the Touch Rugby end of season dinner and the theme was Out of Africa. Dave and Michelle went as Zebras and Terri and I dressed as safari tourists. The dinner was great with some amazing costumes and good company. We got to share our table with a pretty convincing zulu warrior wearing a crocodile head necklace. Unfortunately I was suffering some of the effects of a dodgy sandwich from a roadside diner in Cuba so we called it a night early, but with plenty of bottles of wine on all the tables, being drunk with enthusiasm, it promised to be a large night in our absence. The following morning we had to catch an early flight back to Miami so we left Dave and Michelle sleeping and headed for the airport.
Thanks Dave and Michelle for the generosity, and letting us stay with you. It was great to see that you are well settled and enjoying life in Cayman.
Cheers Heath and Terri.
Swimming
Burner Meet
The first meet of the new season took place in September. It was mainly sprint events of 25m or 50m distance. Both Sam and Jake took part and did well in there respective races with both coming away with at least a couple of medals each. Michelle was there too, even though she was suffering the after effects of the Summer Touch League End of Season festivities the night before.
800m sea swim
An 800m Sea swim was held earlier in the month. Unfortunately it was held on a Saturday afternoon, the same Saturday that the Touch Finals day was held. But Sam went along and represented the Baileys, and did pretty well coming in at a time of about 18 minutes.
Touch Finals Day
Michelle was back in action again after a lengthy injury break. Finals day saw the PFS Team (Michelle’s work team) vying for the playoffs. The first game of the day was a tight one and at half time, they were 1 nil down. The second half continued in a similar fashion with no score until the last minute when Dave slipped through for the equalizer, much to the delight of the PFS team and the disgust of the opposition.. Into extra time with drop offs. The teams each dropped a player off every minute. They were down to two a side (really tough too) when finally the opposition managed to get a break and out sprint the defence to score the winning try. PFS were a little disappointed with the result, but from the start of the season where they were losing most games by a significant margin the improvement was huge. And the team was enjoying their games as well as learning the game. PFS won their next game which ended their season on a successful note.
Three of the PFS Team... in cognito
Dave’s other team, Grizz’s Old Fellas dragged themselves away from their beer long enough to play their first game. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, they lost that game. Their final game of the season was against the Maidens (an all girl team, of which Michelle played for). Just before the game the heavens opened and everyone was drenched. Even the camera tripod on the roof of the club was washed off and onto the ground. Luckily the camera wasn’t attached at that stage of the proceedings.
Anyway, back to the game. It was a fairly even affair with Grizz’s Team having more fun than playing Touch. At one stage the secret code was called (just as the Maidens had the ball) and immediately the entire Grizz’s team collapsed on the ground writhing in agony and clutching their hamstrings. The Maidens didn’t know what to do. They thought the Grizz’s team had all been shot! The game carried on in good spirits but in the end someone had to win, and it was Grizz’s team who came away with a sneaky try to seal the win in the end.
The Old fellas (and fellessas)
Touch Dinner
As alluded to by Heath, the Annual Summer League Touch Dinner was held recently.
The theme of the night was “Out of Africa” and as is the norm, everybody was dressed in some time of ‘themed’ outfit. Michelle and Dave went as Zebras. There were Zulu warriors, People on Safari, The French Soccer Team (Think about that one…), Witch Doctors, Springboks, Tribesmen (and women), Leopards, Pharoahs, Hunters and several other get ups.
Unfortunately Heath was suffering the effects of some good old Cuban Cuisine and didn’t manage to last the night. It was great that they came and experienced some of what goes on in Cayman.
Michelle and Dave stayed on and promised to wake Heath and Terri in the morning at 6am to take them to the airport. The party carried on and they finally staggered in at …. some stage.
Dave awoke at 6:30 am and immediately raced down to wake Heath and Terri, only to find that they had (thankfully) not relied on Dave to wake them and had headed off to the airport. Back to bed for an hour or so before Dave went to coach the kids at the Rugby Club and Michelle went to the Lions pool for the kid’s swim meet. Neither Michelle or Dave enjoyed the morning that much, but a couple of ‘Patties’ helped them back into the land of the living.
More Touch Dinner pics:
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Don't forget to check out some of Dave's very professional camera work at: www.caymanrugbytv.com
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Michelle’s Trips away
Now that Michelle is back playing Touch she was invited to join the Cayman team to the US touch Nationals in Orlando. She initially wasn’t going to go, thinking she wasn’t fit enough and not sure how the knee would hold out, but after playing 4 games on Finals day with no knee issues, she thought she might as well go, and did her best over the following two weeks to get fitter.
Less than a week before the Touch trip she found out that she needed to go to New York for work. She was able to arrange it so that she would leave Cayman on the Sunday, have three nights in New York, then fly straight to Orlando. The challenge was fitting everything in one suitcase – work clothes, light and heavy casual clothes and sports clothes – as well as leaving room for shopping (most important!). Work went ok and she even managed to get a bit of time to go shopping in New York.
A NY dog!
She then flew to Orlando and since the others didn’t arrive until the next day, she spent the first afternoon shopping in an outlet mall – it was a marathon effort as she stayed until closing – 11pm! The next day she decided to go to Hollywood Studios until the others arrived – she found it very strange being there by herself and going to all the kids shows with no kids in tow, but she made the most of it and went on all rides/shows except one as the queue was too long. The roller coaster ride and the Tower of Terror were great rides and she managed to go on them twice
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The rest of the team arrived late in the day and did try to meet Michelle at the park but were not able to get in – someone had stuffed up their tickets – so they decided to go shopping instead. They got to a mall at about 8.30pm only to find it due to close at 9pm! So they ended up finding a bar for the rest of the evening.
The Cayman Pirates
The next day they had four games – they played really well and surprised many people – they won three of them, with the fourth being lost against a very tough team. That night they were keen to try Epcot, so after sorting out the tickets, they got there about 7pm – first they went on the Space shuttle simulator ride – was very cool but very real feeling. Next they waited in a queue for 45minutes for the racing car-ride only to have it close when they got to the front (probably due to the rain) – what bad luck! They then went to find some food and the restaurants they chose were full (one you had to book 6 months in advance for!) – they ended up finding fish and chips and ate it outside in the rain, while watching the light/fireworks extravaganza. After that people were shattered and decided to go home – Michelle and three others decided to make the most of their tickets and stayed – they went on all the other rides/shows (including Nemo, and Michael Jackson 3D movie) and even managed to get two rides on the racing car ride. They finished at 11.30pm and went home to rest for finals day!
The first game of the day was at about 10am – the team took a little while to get going (not sure why?!) and were down at half time. They caught up in the second half and it was drawn at full time. Went into drop offs, and unfortunately, one of their girls managed to sneak past ours and we lost. This team ended up in the finals so it wasn’t so bad but they did feel it should have been them. They only had one other game to play – they decided to just have fun and ended up winning 9-1 an they even cut the second half short.
That afternoon they had a team lunch (once they found a decent steakhouse), managed half an hour in the nearest Sports Authority, then went back for the prizegiving only to find we had missed most of it (I guess they weren’t on Caribbean time!).
Later that night we went to the after match function, with free beer, drinking games, a good band, dancing and then on to downtown Orlando – got back about 3am – phew! Had a little sleep-in the next day, then packed up, managed a quick visit to Target on the way to Tampa, to fly home. It was a fun tournament overall with a great bunch of people.
More pics from Michelle's trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=213760&id=766998601&l=667008dfe6
Sailing
Sam now does sailing on a Friday afternoon as one of her afterschool clubs. She’s really enjoying it and it’s a good excuse for Dave to pop down on a Friday after work for a quiet one or two as well.
Weather Report
This year has been very busy on the Hurricane front in the Caribbean. Unfortunately the BVI got hit last month but it sounds as though they managed to survive it OK.
Cayman has been lucky so far with the worst being Tropical Storm Nicole which is only just passing through. Torrential rain for days meant lots of water lying about. The National Weather Service warned of flooding in low-lying areas. We are still trying to work out what isn’t a low lying area since the highest point on the island is about 40 ft above sea level. So there isn’t a lot of scope for drainage here, but having said that, our house seems to fare OK with the water somehow running off our property and away to a vacant lot next to Maples.
And from the local newspaper: "Rain started falling Sunday night, when the weather system was still known as Invest 96L. By 7am Monday, more than four inches of rain had fallen and another 4.5 inches fell by 7am Tuesday."And it didn't stop there. It's now thursday and still raining, although it seems as though it's lifting a little.The schools were closed for two days this week because of the weather and kids enjoyed that.
The cooler weather doesn’t hurt, but people are getting sick of the rain by now. Even a game of Rugby vs a visiting Aussie side (Epping) was abandoned because the pitch was under water. They decided the result with a few Boat Races, which was appropriate given the weather.
Next Month:
Sporty stuff...
Some Seven's Rugby maybe...
Some other stuff..
Maybe another theme song... any requests?
Hopefully some dry weather!
