. July 2011 .
Hi there!
It's that time again. We've had a reasonably quiet month in July. The school holidays started. The weather has got hot...and wet. No trips this month. A few happenings on the local scene though with the usual healthy helping of sport to keep us busy.
So, away you go. See what we got up to in July.
Diving
A friend of ours invited us out for dive one Sunday morning. We got up early (for a Sunday) and headed out to a dive site next to the Tourist Attraction called Stingray City. Stingray City is a sandbar in the middle of the North Sound where tourists come and stand waist deep in water and play with the friendly stingrays. Yes, we've done it a few times now.
But this day we went to a spot a little way away from the actual sandbar. There was about 15 - 20 feet in depth at this place. Just enough to get down with the fish and shallow enough for the pictures to come out nice.
Check out the video at the end of this months blog!
The kids had turns driving the boat
Michelle and Sam went on this dive while Jake and Dave stayed up on the surface. Well, Dave stayed on the surface and Jake swam about trailing the divers and popping down to say hello from time to time.
There weren't too many stingrays hanging about (check out the video below and you'll see one though!). They usually loiter at the Sandbar awaiting the tourists armed with squid. The Stingrays are happy to get trodden on, picked up and kissed as long as they get they free lunch!
There were some cool little critters hanging about as well. This, we think, is an Arrow Head Crab.
Sam feeds some squid to the little guys
The Angelfish were out in force - always looking for a photo opportunity.More dive pics:
Touch Rugby
The Summer touch league continues. This last weekend was a Super Saturday where all the teams that play during the week come down and play several rounds of the competition. Most teams played about two games each this time. Michelle and Dave both play for a couple of teams so they got four games each.
Their main team won their first game and lost the second. Dave's other team drew one and lost one, while Michelle's other team won both of theirs reasonably comfortably.
On the burst!
And yes, it did rain a little during the day...RUGBY
The Caribbean champs for Women and also the Under 19 Men was held here earlier in the month. There where six teams in the Under 19 and four in the women's comp. It ran for a week with usually two games every night under lights at the local sports complex.Dave was involved everyday filming all of the games for Cayman Rugby TV (http://www.caymanrugbytv.com/ ). By the end of the week he was pretty tired of it all but they had plenty of viwers from around the world tuning in live to watch the games. At one stage there were over 1000 viewers tuned into one of the Under 19 games. A pretty good result for a bunch of amateurs.
The Under 19's ended up winning the tournament. They played Trinidad & Tobago in the final and it ended up and 8 all draw as Cayman scored a try in the corner right on full-time. Because it is U19, they aren't allowed to play extar time, so it went to a Penalty Kick-off. Cayman won that 4 - 2 and the crowd went wild!
Jake and Sam were also involved as Ball Boys/Girls for most of the games. Some games were a little less hectic than others...
The Cayman Women were the current holders going into the championships. But a few retirements and a number of new players meant that they were always going to be up against it, especially when facing the experienced Trinidad & Tobago side, which eventually took out the competition.Dave and a few other players did a little bit of training with the girls in the lead up to the Champs, but they really needed some genuine game time together, which is difficult on a small island. Hopefully in the coming months they'll get a few visiting teams in and maybe go on a tour themselves in preparation for 2012.
They did pretty good though and showed glimpses of brilliance while working hard against the bigger teams from around the region.
Supporting the home team!
Meanwhile, up in the Media box!Sailing
Sam and Jake went on a sailing camp for two weeks with the local sailing club. They've both done a bit of sailing and where quite keen to get back into it. They spent most of their time in the Picos and sailed to a few destinations around the island. They were sometimes solo, sometimes paired up and the occasional trip with three on board.
Jake seemed to enjoy capsizing his boat at will and was awarded the King of Capsize award at the end of the camp.
Sam and one of her friends were awarded the Deadly Duo award. Speaks for itself really.
On their last day Dave went out and the kids took turns taking him out for a sail. They were both very competent and spoke the lingo easily while explaining the finer points of sailing as they went.
(We hope to have a couple of pics in next month's issue.)
Beach Days
Beach Days
Not so many opportunites to go to the beach this month, but one day in particular the weather looked ok, albeit a bit cloudy, so we packed up all our gear and setup on the beach. Within 15 minutes the skies opened and it poured down - the four of us huddled under the (sun!) umbrella to keep dry. The rain lightened up and we put our chairs back in the sun, only to have to move a few minutes later - this went on for nearly two hours! You'd think we would have given up - but no - we kept thinking it would stop soon and we could top up our tans! The kids eventually realised that it was warmer in the sea and happily played in the rain. Meanwhile, Dave & Michelle and a couple of friends continued to huddle together and consume their refreshments...we found out later that there had been no rain the entire afternoon just a few miles down the beach where some other friends happened to be.
We made the opposite decision yesterday - after pulling into the beach and seeing it very cloudy and ominus, we decided to take the kids to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Just before we went into the movie a friend called to tell us it was beautiful at the beach, and they had their jetski there if we wanted to join them - mmmm....the tans are fading....
Weather Watch
Yep, Hurricane season is upon us. There has been a little bit of activity around the region and we are currently keeping our eyes on Tropical Storm Emily. Fingers crossed that she doesn't cause any trouble here or anywhere else.
Next Issue
- In August we are planning on heading off island for about 10 days (weather permitting!). We'll fill you in on the rebound!
- There will be some more Touch.
- Maybe we'll get to the beach.
- The kids continue their marathon summer holiday.
- Maybe some visitors.
Catch you at the end of August!!!!
Here's the video. Pretty cool!!!
