Sunday Snorkeling Tour

Things are much quieter here this weekend. This afternoon we went on a snorkeling tour to three different beaches to see how the surge had affected them.

We started out in East End at a beach near Colliers Bay that we hadn't been to before. The water was murky and even with a lot of sea weed there weren't many fish around. After swimming out to the open water and not seeing anything we headed back in got in the car and drove across the north side of the Island to Cayman Kai.

The public beach at Cayman Kai was still in good shape but like all the beaches we have seen this past week, a lot of rocks had washed up with the surge. While walking along the beach we did have a humorous moment. Some American tourists had obviously just moved in to one of the beach front houses and I guess they weren't told all beaches on Cayman are public so when we walked by and right onto their "part" of the beach to get in the water they reacted huffily. Other people were coming in the same way and at some point they must have realized they did not in fact have a private beach. American concepts of private beach property don't apply down here and I found myself enjoying their discomfort, "sorry folks gonna have to mix with the locals whether you like it or not." Too bad for them, they will be in for a long week as the snorkeling at that beach is still some of the best we have seen on Cayman and many people know it.

We ended up at Beach Bay and it was the most changed. The surge blew in many of the rocks in the carefully created pool area. The snorkeling was almost dangerous with huge boulders and rebar sticking up throughout the swimming area. The waves now came in largely unobstructed so the current and water levels were not the easy pool like quality that existed pre-storm. The beach itself was packed with rocks and getting to the water was even more of a chore than it had been in the past.

It was great to get out and go snorkeling. It is really the best part about living down here.

On Friday we returned the kitties. It was tough but the right decision. We may get some cats in the spring but right now we aren't home enough and want to do some traveling this fall.

Our air conditioning is on the fritz so we are getting to know Cayman in August with just fans. Yesterday a huge storm blew through and the septic tank backed up filling our down stairs tub with some foul smelling liquid. A lot of bleach and cleaning later the tub is clean. It affected all the units on our complex and a truck was out last night to drain the tank some. We also are dealing with some kitchen sink issues so by golly its just like being homeowners again. Will be dealing with our landlord on this no doubt in the next couple of days.

Getting Back to a Normal Life

By Scott:

It is very strange going about the normal day to day activities after an experience like we just went through. Tuesday was basically a clean up day around the Island but by that afternoon the stores had reopened and everyone was getting back to their regular lives. We cancelled classes Tuesday to let everyone who had evacuated have enough time to get back on Island. Yesterday we went in early and basically unpacked the college. The TV appearance about our tourism program is back on for tomorrow and its back to budgets and textbook orders and academic advising and registration. I asked some of our students how they do it, come down from such an adrenaline rush, and they said after a while you just get used to it.

We had house guests Tuesday night as April and her family arrived on Island and still didn't have power at their new place. Rather than having them stay at the apartment in the college we offered our two guest rooms. The kitties are with us for one more day before going back to the Humane society tomorrow. After much thought we decided we really don't have the ability or time to take care of cats right now and will wait until the spring to get some so Dean, Nick, Princess and Josie will be headed back to go up for adoption.

With only a week and two days left in the quarter we will be having Friday and Saturday classes to make up missed time so this will be a working weekend. We do want to get out and do some snorkeling as well and some bike riding so it should be an active weekend.

All Clear and the Return of Andreas

At 4:30 p.m. the Cayman government officially issued the all clear. They had lifted the curfew two and a half hours earlier and all electric and water is back up and running. There are still high winds buffeting the island and rain will be a fact of life for the next couple of days but the storm itself has now moved on. Our neighbor Keith drove me over to the sports complex and I retrieved our car. With the battery reattached the engine started right up and our newly named Andreas (Katie always names our cars) ran just fine. From there, I drove over to the college using the main road that runs along the southern coast. The waves were huge and people were everywhere stopping to look. The surge had obviously come in because you can see flooding all along the coast. Hirst road also had some high water points and I had to drive in the wrong lane a couple of times to avoid it as I headed up to the college. Once there I confirmed that ICCI came through just fine and headed over to Elsa's to check on her and Mr. Keith. They are both well and we agreed to resume classes on Wednesday to give everyone who evacuated time to get back to the Island.

Everyone is out now clearing debris and talking with each other. The maximum winds were 64 miles an hour here and there are downed tree's and flooding in low lying areas but I didn't see anything major even in the complexes right along the coast. The radio is reporting no deaths and only minor injuries so it seems everyone rode it out in security. There is a heavy police presence which means the lesson of all the looting post-Ivan seems to have been learned. Tomorrow will be a day to get our house back to normal, take down the plywood off the patio and clean up. I think we will leave the plywood up on the upstairs window for the next several weeks in case we have to do this again. That is the hardest piece to attach and while it means darkness in the bedroom and not the prettiest outside aesthetic it makes sense with hurricane season just now starting. long term we need to get Hurricane shutters but that could take a while with our landlord so plywood will be our option for the remainder of this season.

The cats are doing fine and we dont know how much longer we will have them though we will be asking about adoption of Dean and Nick. We are making dinner now and will have a quiet evening and an early bed time. The first really peaceful sleep in five days.

Back on the air

No sooner had we written about how lucky we were to not have lost power then right at 10:00 a.m. we lost power. It was out until about 2:20 and has just come back on. In the interim around 10:45 we got a knock on our door. Keith and Kathleen were out cleaning up debris. The winds were still howling and there was a slight rain falling but the worst was clearly over. Throughout the neighborhood people were out on their porch or walking around. I went out to talk while Katie stayed in (not a good time of the month for her). About 11:15 I went for a walk and got the following pictures of the trees and wind. We only lost one tree in the neighborhood and no one lost any windows. Everyone was remarking how lucky we all are.

The curfew was officially lifted at 2:00 p.m. though they are encouraging people to not go out for long. We are doing a caravan for everyone to go get their cars here in a little while. Hope ours made it, if so Andreas it is.

Wind is still blowing pretty strong and you can see rain showers on their way. We are safe and all is well. Of course the weather channel is already talking about an area of concern off the coast of Africa. We have taken down the plywood from the front window to let some light in. You would be amazed how much you lose perspective in a boarded up house. Letting the light in was a pretty amazing thing. Will update after we check on the car. Thanks again for all your prayers they definitely made a difference and were a great comfort to us as well. There is flooding in Savannah and some other parts of the Island especially along the southern coast got hit harder than we did. The surge never got to us but did to some others so keep them in your thoughts and prayers and even as we ponder how lucky we were we sympathize with those who had to face this monster head on and not the glancing blow we took.

9:40 update

We have spoken with Kelly, the ICCI librarian in Miami and the folks who stayed at her place have lost power. That was going to be our backup if Lonny hadn't gotten all the plywood up and given us the OK on our place's structural soundness. Kelly's place is about a mile down the road from us. Our lights have flickered twice but no outage. We also spoke with Elsa and Keith by cell phone at around 9:00 a.m. They are riding it out at their home near the college. They are OK. They too have lost power but Keith has a generator up and running. The winds are really howling again now as we get to experience the back end of the storm. We already felt incredibly lucky but now hearing that others have lost power while we haven't, as of yet knock on wood, makes us feel all the more fortunate. Will be making a late breakfast now and trying to pass the time on the net or watching DVD's. Keep the prayers going because they are working. Katie and I are now adding our own for the rescue and police workers who even now are out and about on Cayman and for the folks now in the path of the storm. We all need to remember them in our thoughts as well.

Wind Track

This is the best representation I have found of the winds we are experiencing. We are the Island directly above the Hurricane. As you can see we are getting only tropical storm winds and were spared what passed right off the coast of Jamaica. Katie has gone back to sleep I suspect that tonight I will crash hard after an up and down night last night. The kitties are doing well this morning too, I expect new addition(s) to our household before they leave. Winds are still loud but somehow don't seem as threatening as the gray light of a cloudy day peeks in from under and over the plywood.

7:35 Monday Morning

We are both awake now after a brief nap from 5:30 to now. It is a virtual certainty at this point that by the grace of God Cayman has been spared what pounded Jamaica. The winds continue to be heavy, the best description I can give is from earlier it sounds like an airplane taking off, but right now the rain has stopped and there is no flooding in our parking lot so not even a threat at present to the home. The NOAA site says a storm surge of 5 to 7 feet which doesn't appear to have reached our home at all. The eye is directly south of us now and moving at a good 21 mph so in theory we should have already seen the surge and had to deal with any flooding. God Bless the poor people on the Yucatan, while we were spared they are in for a pounding. If you know of any organizations that provide supplies or relief for the people of Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic who got hit so much worse than we did and who don't have the economic or government infrastructure of Cayman, now would be a good time to make a donation. I know Katie and I will be making one as a show of thanks.

There will still be very high winds all morning and a lot more heavy rain throughout the day so we cant venture out until late and may not be able to go for our car until tomorrow though depending on conditions we may try later tonight. We never lost power the entire night and are hoping they turn the water back on soon after the storm completely passes. We will start moving everything in the house back to normal later this afternoon and then finally give you a picture tour that is not hurricane prep. Though as our neighbor Kathleen pointed out to us last night on her porch they call this Hurricane "season" and this wont be the last time we have to do this.

We feel incredibly lucky and very grateful for all your prayers. While this isn't over yet it is certainly safe to say that the worst has not happened and in every respect the best possible has. The Hurricane literally took the best possible path it could for us overnight and this morning. We will update throughout day and keep the computer on we will sign back in to windows live shortly.

4:50 a.m. Monday Morning

I woke up from a particularly loud wind gust and decided that I wanted to check the latest track. What a beautiful sight. The track has Dean south of us and moving quickly. I cant imagine what it must be like for one that is close. The sound right now is like airplanes taking off right outside our house as the wind howls. Katie must have a supernatural ability to sleep because she is sleeping right through this while I wake up with every loud howl. I peered out from under the plywood in the downstairs living room and the rain I could see on the parking lot is like sheets I have never before experienced. If this is tropical storm winds and rain I cant even imagine what hurricane force winds and rain are like. We are just about to start getting the worst of it here in about an hour and a half and at 20 miles an hour will feel it for most of the rest of the morning with the aftereffects lasting through Tuesday plus. We still have never lost power which speaks well for CUC. We are hanging in and hanging on, me a little more unable to sleep than Katie but still here, still dry and still able to get on net. God Bless and Be safe.

Scott and Katie

Monday 2:00 a.m. Status

Back on air much earlier than we anticipated. The sound of wind and rain woke me up at about 1:45 a.m. Since we had power I pulled the Internet receiver tower out of the tub to see if it was still receiving and with three bars I decided to try plugging in the computer and checking the NOAA website. The track continues to be south of us for the eye which is great news. We are in for a rough couple of hours but hopefully are escaping what pounded Jamaica. Someday I will be able to tell our children that their Mom can literally sleep through anything.

At 10:00 p.m. we closed up the computer and Internet tower and stowed them in the tub. We blasted the A/C to get the place as cold as possible for the expected power loss. We let Josie out for a little alone time with us but then put her back in with the kittens and finished an episode of Scrubs after which we turned out the lights and got some sleep. I woke up around Midnight but was able to go back to sleep until the most recent round of noise led me to wander downstairs and check on whether there was any flooding. Right now just a lot of wind and rain. Thank God for the plywood as there must be a lot of debris flying around out there. Anything not tied down or really heavy is on its way to Mexico.

Katie is on me to go back to sleep and put away the computer but I have way too much nervous energy. Unlike dealing with a Tornado such as the ones we have been through in Fort Worth this is not a hunker down in your bathtub until it passes over kind of thing. You can walk around your house etc. which just seems weird. So long as the roof holds, one room is no different than another. We are riding it out in the master bedroom upstairs on the back of the house which all our neighbors said was the safest room if the eye was south of Cayman as it is.

They did cut the water so we are flushing with the water we filled the tub with. The tub wouldn't hold water so we ended up bailing that water into our trashcans and buckets and will use it as our potable water until they get the water back on. We know that we haven't even begun to feel the real effects of the storm. That will come later this morning between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. with after effects well into the late afternoon. Don't know if Cayman has been spared but the early signs are all good.

With plywood up and no way to see out I cant give you any kind of description except for the sounds. The rain is constant and the wind must be strong as you can hear it pounding into the walls. Our antenna is still hanging on as I can hear it banging away outside our bedroom window. The radio stations are all still transmitting which is another good sign.

Signing off again and putting everything away again. Depending on power and my ability to sleep may try and get everything back on again later this morning.

We love you all, so far your prayers are doing phenomenal work so please keep them going.

God Bless and Be Safe.

Scott and Katie

Sunday final update

Its approaching 10 p.m. and we expect them to cut the power soon so we are unplugging the computer and packing it away. We are both tired enough that we are hoping we might actually sleep for a little while tonight. Nothing much new to add from the last several posts. We have put down towels and old sheets across the bottom of the patio doors and the front door, a last defense against the expected flooding. We are watching Scrubs episodes on the portable DVD and will use the computer's battery tomorrow during the storm to watch some episodes and pass the time. You can hear some of the howling wind as it moves our antenna around outside the bedroom window. Don't hold much hope we will still have an antenna tomorrow afternoon. We will call my Mother and Father and Katie's parents when the storm passes and they will call everyone else to let you all know. Signing off now until the storm is over and we get back power. We will write a journal while the computer is off and God willing will have some great entries when this is all over.

God Bless, Be safe and Goodnight.

Love Scott and Katie

Nameless No More

The kitty above has been named Dean, for obvious reasons but also because he is the wild one of the bunch. His almost twin brother has been named Nick, because we needed something to go with Dean and Nick just fit :). Their sister has been named Princess, since we live just off Princess street and she is definitely more timid and prissy than her brothers. You can tell Dean because he is looking at the camera in the shot with Josie, and in the one with the two "twins", Dean is on the left and Nick is on the right.

Sunday 8:40 update

The winds have really picked up. We spent about an hour on the front porch of Kathleen and Keith as it got dark and watched the last three planes take off. The news says that they are down to only 1500 tourists now so the shelters wont be as full of them as it was looking earlier.

The whole neighborhood was out watching the clouds roll in a huge band winding from north to south. There were conversations across streets and everyone seemed to know this was the last time we will be out for the next 12-15 hours. Everyone is ready and resigned to what is about to happen. The storm is the size of Texas and no matter what we are going to be pounded and pounded for a good long while. We are completely done with preparations and our neighbors have given us really good words of encouragement. They are a good grounding for us; our imagination has tended to run away today with things like panicking over the small rain shower early in the afternoon. They reminded us everyone has done everything we can do and now it is in God's hands.

We have gotten to talk tonight on windows live with a lot of family and thank you all for your prayers and good wishes. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We will continue to post until we lose power or feel like we have to disconnect.

Goodbye, God Bless, and Be Safe.

Scott and Katie

6:55 p.m. Curfew and Water Cutoff Announced

The government has announced a 10:00 p.m. curfew and the water authority first announced they would be cutting of water at 6:30 p.m. now that has been moved back to 9:00 pm. CUC the utility company is hoping to keep service up throughout but we will see. We are filling our upstairs tub now. Its tough because the calcium deposits have frozen the handle so only the shower works. We can't fill the downstairs one as in Ivan the sewage backed up and caused the downstairs tubs to overflow. We will stop up the downstairs toilet and tub before going to bed.

There is a palpable sense in our complex that things are improving. I spoke with Selkirk the owner of the complex and you could see the relief in his face as he mentioned the track pushing it south. But, in the same breath he said that things can change in an instant and we have to be prepared for the worst. Right now Cayman would only get a glancing blow with tropical storm winds but we will see.

I went outside to look at the clouds and you can see the circular motion so the outer bands have arrived. The sun is setting and the cloud movement is mesmerizing. The wind is strong but not difficult yet so a lot of people are outside to watch the sun go down. Almost as if to say good bye and hope to see you some time tomorrow after the storm passes. Everyone says be safe and God Bless that is the goodbye refrain of tonight.

So from here on out it's Be safe and God Bless to you all, will keep updating throughout night.

Love, Scott and Katie.

5:40 update

We are total newbies at this. Our place is completely put up, the furniture on cans and nothing loose. You can see the furniture up in the living room in the picture above with the boarded up window behind them. This is fast becoming an obvious overreaction this early. At 4:15 we went over to Kathleen and Keith's and they are all boarded up and we actually had to climb over a board that they have up over the door because it faces the road and opens in rather than out like the middle units. But once you get inside their house it looks completely normal. They haven't put away anything, taken down anything from their walls or moved their furniture or anything inside. It was very reassuring to see two people who went through the harrowing experience of Ivan being so calm. We drank some cranberry lime tea and talked about the Humane Society and just normal stuff. They laughed when we told them about what we had done to our place but said it was normal for people the first time to do what we are doing and it is better to overreact than under react.

The winds are blowing but no rain since the little shower at 1 p.m. The funny thing is because we are so boarded up we cant see anything so all we have is what our imagination tells us unless we want to open our door which isn't going to be an option soon. When we get our own place we want to get the hurricane shutters like our neighbors who have plastic in the shutter to see out in the middle. At least they can see what is going on.

We found out that over 108 flights have left the island in the last day but that they are having to move some 7000 tourists to shelters that they cant get off the Island. Reaffirms that we made the right decision not wasting our time at the airport yesterday or this morning waiting in long lines for planes we weren't going to get on when we have a safe place to ride it out and needed to get it prepared. We have seen the best in people, apparently at the airport they are seeing the opposite. The folks at the airport are fighting in line, literally throwing luggage at each other and generally displaying the worst of human traits as they wait to pack the flights with the few precious seats in each plane.

The important storm tracks will come after the storm is past Jamaica so hopefully the mountains in Western Jamaica will deflect it even further south. Keep an eye on the NOAA site it is the best one for updates.

Love to everyone,

Scott and Katie.

Best news yet

The latest track from NOAA is just out and posted below. Grand Cayman is the third Island from the right outlined in red. Keep praying it moves farther south. We are going over to Kathleen and Keith's for a little while to eat some snack food and maybe drink some adult beverages. Will be back by 5:00 p.m. to update assuming we have Internet. Love to you all.

Scott and Katie

3:00 p.m. update

Its encouraging that in 24 hours this will all be over one way or the other. The news continues to be a southward drift of the eye. Lets all pray that continues.

We have truly seen the best in people in the last three days as our neighbors and friends have banded together. It started on Thursday when a small but concerted group of people got an entire college wrapped up and moved into three rooms. It continued on Friday with a donation of 46 pieces of plywood to cover all the windows when there was no way the college could afford to purchase it or the labor that followed. We saw it yesterday in Lonny and his men riding to our rescue when we had no idea how to put up the plywood at our place and didn't have enough anyway. We have seen it in our neighbors Keith and Kathleen who told us where to move our car, who drove us to get gasoline and additional groceries today when we were vehicle less and we see it in every place where people are banding together to help each other get ready.

If there is one thing that has made us totally at peace with our decision to come to Cayman and work at ICCI it is the way everyone on this Island has banded together to help each other get through this. What an extraordinary thing to see. It is as strong a reminder as we could get that community is very important here and that the decision to come here was the right one.

Windy now but no rain. We have put all the furniture on cans and will post pictures later if possible. We are eating lunch late. Everything is upstairs and the very final preparations are all that is left and those wont happen until late tonight. We love you all.

Scott and Katie

First time jitters

Well that little band of rain has passed through pretty quickly and it is actually sunny out again. Our neighbors went inside for a few minutes and are back outside again now doing work. Fortunately we don't have much stuff and nothing outside while our neighbors with their elaborate yards and patios have much to do in their final preparations. They don't seem to be fazed by the winds and the rain was just a temporary annoyance. We are newbies and everything is fazing us. The latest NOAA track and the announcement on the Cayman Compass website is that the track is more favorable moving south so if that continues things wont be as bad as it looked yesterday. The difference between 80 mile an hour winds and 140 miles is pretty substantial and if it will just move south a little more (and not move north in its track at all) we will feel a little more secure.

Sorry for the false alarm. Will keep updating as long as Internet stays on.

Love you all.

Scott and Katie

1:00 p.m.

Starting to rain and wind has picked up a lot now. We are moving everything upstairs and making final preparations. If we lose internet we will try and get messages out as best we can. Thanks for all the e-mails of encouragement and conversations we have had this morning with family. We love you all.

Scott and Katie

Still nameless kittens

On a good note, we have the cutest kittens ever with us!

And so it begins....

While waiting for Scott to figure out what kind of oil we need for the generator, I asked Keith, "So when should we expect the outer bands of the storm to hit?" He looked at me funny, looked around a bit, then said in his Eastern London accent, "You're seeing it right now."

The winds have definitely picked up and all the palm trees are swaying around. It is a bit disconcerting since the eye of Dean is still 400 miles away. We made a trip to get gasoline and oil for the generator. The first gas station was already out of gas but we were able to find gas at the second station we went to with Kathleen. That station was out of oil so we will not be able to use our generator but have worked out a barter agreement with Kathleen and Keith that we will bring our gas and cook with them after the storm has passed.

Hurley's, the closest grocery store, was going to be open until 3 today but it has decided to only stay open till noon as we are already seeing the effects of the storm.

I asked our neighbor, Kathleen, whether or not we needed to hunker down in the bathroom during the storm (like one would during a tornado) or if it would be safe to be walking around the house since she had indicated that they were not going to raise any of their furniture until the water actually started coming into the house. It was reassuring to hear her say that, since we had boarded up the house, we would be safe walking around, unless our roof went.

The internet has started to slow down so we aren't sure how much longer we will have an internet connection. We haven't seen five bars since yesterday and are now moving between three and four bars (three is the minimum you need for a connection). We are now going to do the last of the preparations and will try to update the blog at least one more time.

It is sad that we were never able to do the grand tour of the house before Dean, but here are some pictures of the outside of the house now that it is all boarded up. Top to Bottom: The front of our unit (the complex has two of these units facing each other), the front of our place (we are the window/door on the left), and the back of our place (you can see the top of our patio doors and our upstairs window). Being one of the middle two units helps with everything (i.e. flooding and wind); our unit only got three inches of flooding in Ivan while some of them got almost a foot.

Sunday Morning Good News

This morning we got the good news that the National Hurricane Center tracking has Dean drifting further south and now moving at 18 mph up one mile in speed. Cayman is now officially under a Hurricane warning after being on a Hurricane watch yesterday. This morning we will finish all of the small preparations in the condo for the storm. This afternoon we will put all the furniture we can on cans of beans and other canned goods that we bought cheap yesterday not to be part of our hurricane food but just to serve as something to elevate the furniture. I helped our neighbor Keith put up some plywood yesterday and will help him again this morning to finish his place. It sounded like it rained over night but with the plywood up you cant see out so we cant be sure. It is sunny now with a little wind. One thing about the plywood being up is that our house is very dark (Katie reminds me that it is like my den of darkness that I used to keep in Fort Worth with all my blinds shut though this is much darker). It will also make this place hot and steamy when we lose power so the battery operated fan we have will become extremely important.

We don't want to get too excited by the change in track because it has changed so much in the last 24 hours and could move again when it hopefully now skirts Jamaica rather than hitting it head on. There is another sound that is happening a lot this morning, the sound of planes taking off. We are about three miles from the airport and can see them lifting off from our parking lot. Katie and I have talked about going down and standing in the long lines at the airport to try and leave. It would be hard to get on a plane (not to mention outrageously expensive though money wasn't the deciding factor) but together we decided we were staying. This isn't like the US where you can drive away from the coast after you get your house ready. If we leave it could be a long time before we get back in. From the Ivan experience we have heard that the people who left had a hard time finding out anything and the not knowing was worse than the knowing. We are reasonably confident of our safety so while the absolute safest course would be to leave we are calculating that we have done all we could to make this place secure, it is on high ground and we have moved our car to high ground.

Radio Cayman has an 8:00 a.m. update that we are listening to now. Dean is 490 miles from us now. Maximum winds are 145 miles per hour. Hurricane force winds are extending out 60 miles and Tropical storm winds out 205 miles. We should get 10-12 inches of rain. Little Cayman about 80 miles from here is being completely evacuated. They will be instituting a curfew tonight. The police seem to be out making their presence known. There was a lot of looting post-Ivan so obviously the government wants to do a better job this time. There should be a new track around 10 this morning so keep checking the NOAA website. Will update throughout the day on our status.

Josie and the Kittens

I was awakened this morning by high-pitched meows. One of the kittens, the bravest and most adventuresome, had ventured out from the cage and was frightened. He had made it all the way to the bathroom mat and was in panic mode. Josie was watching him from afar so he was still safe but he didn't realize where he was or how to get back. We aren't sure how good a cat's eyes are at that young; are they still mostly blind at 4-5 weeks (if they are even that old)?

After holding him for a while and getting him to calm down, he climbed down my leg and made his way back to his mom and brother, who was also out exploring. It is interesting that I love the boy kitties because they are so much more fun, make you laugh more often, and get into all sorts of trouble; the two brothers will play, awkwardly, while their sister calmly sleeps or curls up next to her surrogate mother. Scott on the other hand prefers the calm, togetherness of the girls.

After a bit more exploring, this time closer to mom, the brothers decided to curl up with their sister.

Late night wrap up

As darkness fell the sound of drills and saws slowly wound down. There is a strange calm about people around us almost a sense of false bravado behind which is real concern that this one is going to be Ivan all over again or perhaps even worse. We weren't here for Ivan and so that makes it all the more scary for us. We have no sense that hey I survived Ivan, I can survive this.

We caught a bit of the evening news when we were at Elsa's securing our ride to go park our vehicle and the news was pointing out something we had seen, even though the supermarkets and hardware stores were chaotic it was organized chaos and people are appearing to be calm. The sense that we are all in this together is quite strong and you see a lot of people going out of their way to help others just as Lonny went out of his way to help us this morning. The lessons of Ivan have definitely been learned as everyone is getting ready. The traffic today was much heavier than we have seen in a while and it seemed like the whole Island was out and about. Yet as the evening wore on there is a sense we are all just in full on waiting mode. For us it is even stronger since we have no car anymore and while we have our bikes as the weather worsens tomorrow we will really just be hunkering down here and watching the clock.

We have taken all the paintings off the walls and moved everything into cabinets so there are no loose items downstairs except our hurricane tubs which we will close up and move last. We have one full tub of food, one with 11 gallons of water and a third with items like batteries, bleach, flashlights, radio, tools, gloves, boots, tarps etc. We will also move the generator last up the stairs. When Katie's parents visited last month they brought a hurricane kit from Costco which will be invaluable as well. We wrote out a list of things for tomorrow that we want to do as the day progresses. We expect to have power and Internet until late and will blog as much as we can until we feel we have to unplug everything and pack it up. As the storm approaches though, the connection may be slow as we have wireless Internet not a land line. There are three towers on the Island and who knows if Westar keeps them up and running or pulls them down well ahead of the storm.

Katie couldn't bear the thought of the cats being downstairs tonight and convinced me that they needed to get to know the upstairs before the freight train blows through tomorrow night and scares them all to pieces. It was really just an excuse to get them closer to us so she can play with them but that's OK its a nice distraction.

Tonight we made our steak and corn on the cob. We actually watched a few episodes of Scrubs on the portable DVD player to get our minds off what is happening. Tomorrow we eat the chicken from our freezer. If we are going to lose use of the refrigerator and freezer for a while we need to empty it out so big meals tomorrow for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

What we have realized today is that we are really invested in this place. We believe in why we are here and we feel encouraged by the changes we have helped bring about at the college and the people we have gotten to work with. Both of us realize we now view this as our home and we cant just leave it even with what we now face.

The last 60 hours (really since Noon Thursday) getting the college ready have seemed like a month, its hard to remember what we were doing Wednesday that we thought was so important. The waiting part is a double edged sword. It gives us more than enough time to prepare here and at the college but it also is mentally draining because you cant keep yourself psyched up and prepared all the time. The truth is we are scared and this is not an adventure or exciting or anything that three days ago, a lifetime ago, we might have thought. We want it over but we want it not to happen at all, one of life's little ironies.

Saturday Evening Update: The Shelter Opens for Refugees

As night begins to fall here we have taken a couple of significant steps. After another visit to the college to check on the status of boarding windows (about 80% done and hopefully they are back tomorrow to finish), we drove around looking for a spot to put the car as the likely flooding at our place would destroy the engine (the salt water).

We found a couple of good spots and ultimately picked the Truman Bodden Sports Complex in George Town. You can easily find all the high ground now as the cars are all parked there in mass. We thought we would drive the car over tomorrow but when we spoke with an officer at the sports complex he said it would fill up tonight. We were very encouraged by the fact that all of the police and civic vehicles are parked in the field there at the complex. The field is about three feet higher than the parking lot but the lot was quickly filling up and the officer there told us the lot didn't get any flooding from Ivan. There are trees but at some point you just pick your poison and if trees are being uprooted our little car is going flying all on its own.

We drove back to Elsa and Keith's (they arrived back on Island yesterday) and secured a ride from Elsa. She followed us back to the complex where we parked, disconnected the battery and put it in the back. The car is locked up and as secure as we can make it, if the little guy is meant to survive he will. Katie wants to call the car Andreas. If he survives, Andreas it is; if he dies, his name is Money down the drain.

We also welcomed four refugee's from Cayman Brac into our home to ride out the storm. Josie and her three adopted children will be with us for the next couple of days. Our neighbor Kathleen is a worker with the humane society and they need foster homes for their cats during the storm so with the news that Kira, who is allergic to cats, would not be on Island and needing a place to stay, we volunteered. Josie apparently lost her babies and is now a surrogate mother to three as of now unnamed kittens all about 4 or 5 weeks old. They are in our downstairs bathroom for now but will come up stairs tomorrow in case of flooding. Katie is absolutely atwitter about the kitties. We keep telling ourselves we have to be brave for the cats now so they don't get scared.

The latest track again has Dean moving a little south but it has slowed to 17 miles an hour so good and bad news. We want it to track further south and move faster so the effects aren't as long lasting. By comparison Ivan was five miles off the coast and moving at 3 miles an hour. Tomorrow will be the big day for tracking as the hurricane should hit Jamaica around 2 p.m. and being over land and hitting the mountains there could affect its course. We may update late tonight and certainly by early tomorrow. Will be going to sleep early today since unlikely to get much sleep tomorrow or for next several days as we have been warned that the sound of the hurricane is overwhelming, and then post hurricane, the generators are extremely loud.

The hardest part about all of this, right now, is the waiting. In no other natural disaster do you have so much prior knowledge, which is a blessing and a curse.

Early Saturday Afternoon update

The plywood is in place (thanks to our new best friend Lonny) so we are now getting the house ready. We have moved all of our stuff upstairs and are going to pack up and then put trash bags over important things like the laptop, I-home etc. The problem is not the wind as long as we stay in, its the flooding so we want everything off the ground. After some house rearranging this morning, we ran over to the college to check on progress there and then Katie biked back here so now both our bikes are at the new residence and safely stored in the upstairs bedroom. I went to the hardware store to get some sealant foam that Lonny recommended to use on doors as the water rises and we also stopped at Fosters and got some marinating sauce as well as treating ourselves to some cake and soda. We are having steak, corn on the cob and the cake for dessert tonight, morbidly we joke about our last supper with electricity for a while. Our neighbor Keith says it was six weeks after Ivan before electricity was restored in this neighborhood. The government is better prepared but who knows what will happen this time. The track is back to right at us and it has slowed which is bad news too. Today is a beautiful day in Cayman, hot and humid but the waters are clear and the sky has just a few clouds, you would never know something was up (except if you go to a hardware store or supermarket where it is organized chaos).

I used to think my enduring memory of Cayman would be the sound of the free range roosters. This may change Sunday night and Monday morning but right now the sound of Cayman is drills and saws as everyone boards up.

Will update this evening.

10:45 am update - the cavalry arrives

Lonny has just arrived and brought with him much relief for Scott. We thought that Lonny was going to be able to get here around 7 am and help us get ready but he has had many different obligations to help with different places since he does contract work that we were a bit down the line. Scott puts a lot of stock in what Lonny says since he knows his stuff so Scott was getting very worried the later he was. We didn't have enough plywood and no way of putting it up ourselves and so we needed him to come or else we would be completely screwed.

When Lonny showed up a a trailer of plywood, like gold around here right now, and four extra men, you could tell a whole ton of bricks had just lifted off Scott's shoulders.

Scott had decided that if Lonny said it was safe, we would ride the storm out here. Lonny indicated that once we get all of the windows boarded up and everything elevated off the floor downstairs, we would be fine.

Right now I can hear the electric drill getting all of those wonderful pieces of plywood up over our windows. (We know that after everything calms down from Dean, we will be buying an electric drill, oh, and hurricane shutters.....) When you go outside today, you hear drills and saws all over the island; everyone is getting ready.

I am glad that Lonny brought some relief for Scott because his whole outlook had crashed when he saw how fortified our neighbors' houses were becoming and realized that we had nothing to protect our place. Now, at least, he has been smiling and seems more ready to face what is coming now that we know our house will be protected, we will have a safe place to stay, and we have a plan to get our car to safety.

This morning we thought we had good news regarding the path of Dean since it had moved south of us just a bit, but, after checking just now, it is back to coming right over the island. It has already reached a Category 4, and it is predicted that it will become a Category 5 before hitting the island. The hope is that it will lose some of the intensity before it actually hits us but we will keep you guys updated as the weekend progresses.

Keep us in your prayers.

Saturday Morning Status

The hurricane is now projected to be a category five when it crosses near Jamaica to the south and east of us. Should be a four or a five when it gets to us Monday. The arrival time keeps changing now it looks like four or five a.m. It continues to drift south and that is a good thing according to our neighbors. We want it to pass south because of the wind directions and where our windows are. The problem is that it is slowing down. Ivan buzz sawed Cayman for 36 hours, if this one slows down and stays on line with the Island it could do the same. We will meet with Lonny in a little while and find out about our windows. Will update as we find things out. Today will be a long day of preparations.

8:00 p.m. update

This evening things are looking up from a personal perspective even as the news continues to be bad. We bought a cell phone and have charged it so we can use it in an emergency. I spoke with Lonny Tibbetts, one of our instructors who is a contractor and he is coming over tomorrow morning early with some men to help us with the windows and hopefully with solutions to our lack of plywood and inability to do something about the upstairs window. I also spoke with our neighbors Keith and Kathleen (nice coincidence) who rode out Ivan here. They said that the structures are fine and the windows are fine (boarded up) but there will be flooding. They suggested moving our car on Sunday to higher ground and when they move theirs we will do same and carpool back. They also suggested getting Katie's bike from the college in case we have to be without a vehicle for a while either because of flooding or because there is no gasoline. They also have a good generator and 15 gallons of gasoline so our fears of using the generator without supervision can be set aside. They also said that the neighborhood basically watched after everyone post Ivan and that it would be the same. Based on what Lonny can do and our discussion with the neighbors we may ride it out here.

Tomorrow early we go to the college and get Katie's bike, then back here to meet Lonny and board up windows etc. Then we help our neighbors do their windows and batten down the hatches. Will do another update as information arises or by tomorrow mid morning.

Friday 4:00 p.m. Update

The news this afternoon continues to be bad. At 12:00 noon they broke into all the radio stations and announced that the eye is now headed for Grand Cayman and if there are no changes in direction, (and there have been three in just the last 24 hours) we get hit straight on by it Monday morning. The buildings all around are starting to get boarded up. We spent the whole morning and early afternoon at the college wrapping everything in garbage bags and moving everything to the two inner rooms. We did line up plywood for the college and tomorrow morning some workers are supposed to come nail it up.

We are now home and starting our own preparation. We have discovered to our dismay that the plywood left for us doesn't fit the downstairs windows so not only do we have an upstairs issue but also a downstairs one too. We will spend the rest of the day getting what we can together for the kit to be ready and as best we can the house. We are also going over to check out the librarians residence and see how secure it is. She is being evacuated by her husbands company so we would have the place. She also has hurricane shutters but at present no plywood for her patio doors. We are now reconsidering the college because it will be boarded up. If it does hit at category four which was what Ivan was then wherever we are will not be safe so we are trying to make safest decision possible.

We haven't gotten a cell phone yet and while that hasn't been an issue up until now, it means that at present we don't have ways of getting in touch with people here. Our little car is not going to stand a chance of there is any significant flooding so our biggest worry (besides getting through this) is that we will be trapped with no way of communicating with anyone.

As I type this Katie is talking with her sister Mel on windows live so Internet seems to be fine. We will keep updating throughout weekend until they turn off the power sometime Sunday before it arrives. Thanks for the e-mails with encouragement. Lets all hope that there is yet another change of track and it moves somewhere north or south of here and all we deal with is a tropical storm force winds and rain. Those on windows live watch for us and we can talk etc.

The waiting time

At first this was something to laugh off; then it was a little exciting, the prospect of an adventure looming, but now with the stark reality staring us in the face its just scary. The entire mood of the Island has changed and you can see the concern in everyone's face. Everything really began to get serious when we got to work around noon. Students started calling about classes this evening because they were leaving work to buy supplies and ply wood. When Katie called workplaces today she got answering machines and we all started looking around and realizing everything at the college that wasn't ready. Then the TV appearance for tomorrow was cancelled as the morning show will just be on weather preparations and all the little signs came crashing down on us that this is really happening.

We prepared an ad hoc hurricane plan with 33 different tasks to complete for the college. The plan is from three people who have never been through a hurricane and one who has been through several so who knows if we covered everything. We immediately started implementing the plan as best we could. I went to A.L Thompson hardware to get supplies for the college and a store that had been empty two hours earlier when Katie and I stopped for our supplies was now packed. The supermarket next door had a full parking lot in the middle of the day as well. Katie began moving all the student files into the records room filing cabinets all but one (which was donated Tuesday) of which have damage from Ivan. We cant use any of the bottom drawers because of flooding concerns so moving files in and securing them was a good eight hour long task While Katie did that I began moving computers, chairs, supplies, books and everything else to inside rooms without windows. We have no plywood for the college windows and so I spent part of the evening trying to run that down but so far no luck.

Dr. Cummings and April are not on Island yet and even though they are scheduled to arrive tomorrow there is a good chance the government will not allow in coming flights with people just empty planes for evacuation and besides we don't have food for them. Our business manager is also off island so the college is understaffed as it is.

Tomorrow we will go in early and spend the morning moving everything in the college to safe locations. Hopefully the construction company I spoke with tonight that rebuilt the college will get plywood out to board up at least some of the windows by Saturday evening. In any event at 2 p.m. we are leaving and worrying about our own place. The new house is great but apparently not in the best neighborhood for flooding. Something that we probably should have been a little more curious about two weeks ago. The house is raised but the neighborhood around isn't so there is a chance with severe flooding we could be trapped.

The strange thing is the current weather, sunny and nice. You would never know from looking at the sky what was headed this way. This really is just a period of waiting and watching and constantly checking the net and the radio for updates.

We are debating whether to ride out the storm at a shelter, here at our new home or at the residence of our librarian. We have plywood and nails for the two downstairs windows but nothing right now for the upstairs one and that is what we will spend tomorrow afternoon working on. If we get sufficient covering for the windows we will ride it out here. We don't want to ride it out at the college because the roof leaks, it is in a worse flood plain than our place (of course the whole Island is a flood plain not being much above sea level anywhere), and there is no way to cover all the windows so flying objects would be a tremendous concern. All of the students we talked tonight were glad we don't still live at the college. Even as they warned us about Selkirk drive they said it was better than the college.

The storm looks like it will come through Monday morning. The track is for the eye to be south of the Island. It should be a category four while it passes us at around 8 a.m. Monday then lessening as it heads for the Yucatan Peninsula and then into the Gulf of Mexico. We will keep updating the blog through Sunday afternoon and early evening until we have to move everything or go to a public shelter. If the storm looks like it will track right for the island we are looking at flights but right now there are literally no flights off the island on line so that must mean only evacuation flights. We will make some calls in the morning and see.

Not to be dramatic but keep a good thought for us. This isn't fun.

Hurricane Watch

Well looks like Dean is picking up speed and tracking to cross south of Cayman Monday morning. Katie and I went to the supermarket this morning to get a full load of groceries for our hurricane kit. This afternoon it is over to the hardware store for nails and the home center for some tarps and additional plastic tubs for storage. The mood here has definitely changed in the last 24 hours and you could tell at the supermarket they were putting in the front the big hurricane items like water and canned goods. No price gouging yet so we were lucky. We also gassed up the car and will fill up our gasoline can for the generator.

Several evacuation charters are already being lined up but the college really doesn't have a plan in place. Katie and I are still trying to determine where the safest place to ride it out is, at our new home which is about a mile from the water or to the college which is about three miles in. It is more about what is on higher ground not where is closer to the water.

Will update tonight on our status.

Visit from Leader of Govt Business and Storm Watch

By Scott:

This evening the Leader of Government Business, the honorable Kurt Tibbetts, the Caymanian version of the Prime Minister, was a guest lecturer in our Business Management course. After two cancellations we were beginning to think he was not ever going to come but this evening we got confirmation around 7 p.m. that he would be at the college for the 7:50 class. He arrived driving his own vehicle and it was a stark reminder that on an Island with only 40,000 people even the highest elected government official is accessible.

I was already in a suit from a presentation earlier in the day to Kiwanis so there was no need to run home and get more formal clothes. Interestingly the Leader was in a short sleeve polo style shirt as was the instructor Joey Ebanks who is the manager of the huge turtle farm and very well connected politically (hence his ability to get the LOGB out as a guest lecturer). I still struggle with the dress code here. I want to show respect but at the same time when you are the only person in a suit you stick out like a sore thumb. The lesson of tonight is ask ahead of time and if the speaker is in short sleeves then I come in a sport coat and shirt with no tie, formal enough to show respect but not so formal as to stick out. The lecture and a question and answer session which followed lasted over two hours and went well. I had a chance to talk with the LOGB after the session and thank him for coming to ICCI and speaking with our students. We are hopeful that this is one of many new positive events happening to increase ICCI's profile and stature over the course of the next several weeks.

The other big news here is the changing path of Tropical Storm soon to be Hurricane Dean. The storm now looks like it will enter the Western Caribbean late next week as a category three or even category four hurricane and pass somewhere south of Cayman. That in and of itself will cause problems and the closer to Grand Cayman it is, the worse things will be. Tomorrow Katie and I are going to the store and buying several days worth of canned goods to fill out our hurricane kit. Hurricane fever hasn't quite hit yet but it will by the weekend if the forecast shows it is headed this way and we want to stock up before the shelves get emptied out.

Not looking forward to nailing up the wood over windows and riding out a storm but if that is to be then it is to be. Everyone tells us you really cant know what to expect until you actually go through it. Hopefully we wont have to learn.

Tracking the first big storm of the hurricane season

All the news here is on Tropical Storm Dean. The first real storm of Hurricane season 2007. From now to the end of October every storm will be watched carefully. We expect to see some part of it by the weekend and whether that will be the full storm or just some of the bands from it remains to be seen. It is strange watching the tracking reports and checking every couple of hours to see if the storm has turned etc. Right now it looks like it will move off toward the Bahamas and all we will get is a lot of rain. Either way we have our Hurricane kit up and ready. To follow the action check out the National Hurricane Center Web page at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml.

I attended a luncheon on hurricane preparedness last week and today made a presentation to the Cayman Islands Insurance Association and all the talk was about this storm. It is really a different mindset down here with everyone going about their normal lives but constantly checking the weather reports. All of the radio stations have hourly updates. I guess that for the next two months we just have to keep one eye on the weather as a fact of life. The downside of living in a tropical island.

New Place

By Scott:

After a long afternoon and evening of cleaning and unpacking we are all moved in to our new place. After making due in a small apartment for a year in Fort Worth and then an even smaller apartment at the college this place feels like a castle.

The master bedroom is on the second floor at the top of the stairs and has a a full bath attached. It is almost as big as our college apartment was. Across a small walkway is a guest room that overlooks the living room downstairs. You enter the condo through the living room then into a dining area before you get to the kitchen. As for that kitchen it is huge and Katie is very excited about the opportunity to ply her cooking magic in a full kitchen. There is even a second guestroom behind the kitchen and down stairs bathroom that we will use for storage or for long term guests. We have more space than we know what to do with for the first time in our marriage. Katie will post pictures and give virtual tour soon.

Outside a huge storm is blowing through. I don't even want to think about what must be happening back at the college apartment with the leak. We left out the coolers and sheets so hopefully tomorrow we wont find too much of a mess. We did leave our bikes at the apartment and intend to tag team bike them over here tomorrow, Katie in the morning when we have to go open the college up for a seminar class meeting early and me in the afternoon when Katie has a session with her students. Meanwhile no leak or flood issues here.

Our new physical address is either 2 Eggret Walk Red Bay Grand Cayman (which is the address on our lease) or 24 Princess Way, Red Bay, Grand Cayman according to our electric bill. Physical addresses are subject to lots of interpretations down here. No postage comes to your physical address so each company just sort of operates on its own with no consistency. Our mail will still be the Savannah post office that we gave out since its still closer to go there than it is to go to the airport post office which is the next closest. So just keep using the Grand Cayman KY 1-1500, Cayman Islands mailing address. We never did get a box from my mother but have gotten letters so those at least get to us in good shape.

The freedom of having a car and now our own place away from the college is really exhilarating. I think that if we had gotten a car when we first got here we might not have been so anxious to move away from the college but the living there and feeling trapped there because we had no vehicle was overwhelming. The other big thing surprisingly was not having a refrigerator or microwave in the apartment. Every meal we had to walk into the college and get things or if we wanted to watch a movie with popcorn walk in to pop it. That gets old quick and pushed us to move out much sooner as we had really planned to stay rent free in the apartment until December.

Moving Day

By Scott:

Moving day is here. We start this afternoon as we have to proctor an exam this morning. Katie and I actually began our move last night when Katie took over a load in Clay's truck while I had to wait on some students at the college. We will take a load over shortly and our next entry will be done at the new place. last night we treated ourselves to Sushi at a restaurant called the Thai Orchid on Seven Mile Beach Road. The sushi was great and we have definitely found our Valentines Day place. The new car is working out but we are hearing a squealing and will be taking it back in next week to have them check on the fan belts. There was also a mix up with the log showing it as a 2003 and the dealership saying it was a 2004. The dealership is having to clear it up with the licensing bureau and meanwhile we are waiting to get the final insurance certificate for them to clear it up. We really don't care if its 2003 or 2004 as it will have little to no re-sale value when we go to sell it but we don't want to get in trouble when we take it in for licensing and inspections.

There are three weeks left in the Summer Quarter. We are already deep into Fall registration and knock on wood the numbers this year will exceed last years at the pace we are on. The newspaper article seems to have been well received and yesterday I met with the general manager of the Marriott resort who wants to send some of his employees to ICCI. We have gotten a few key donations like a copier, which was incredibly needed. we also have gotten a new white board for one of the classes and a fire proof cabinet. All of that has helped us begin to see tangible changes as well the intangibles of higher numbers. Katie and I are convinced that the road to getting ICCI back to its pre-Ivan numbers is visible we just have to keep pushing the rock down the road.

New Car and Newspaper debut

We picked up our car this morning a 2005 Daihatsu Charade. The interview on Monday has now become an article to be published Thursday but already on line at the link below.

http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews.cgi?ID=1024168

Next week Scott is back on television to talk about our Caribcert program along with the President of the University College. Three days to our move.

Tourism reception, movie night and sunday afternoon away

By Scott:

Friday evening Katie and I went with Dr. Cummings and Kira our business manager to a reception at the Marriott resort put on by the Ministry of Tourism for its college scholars. It was a chance to network with some of the big wigs in the tourism industry and also promote ICCI. We were told Friday afternoon that we could have a table for handouts etc. I dont think they expected us to get something together that quick. Fortunately, the college had just gotten a copier donated so we were able to print up brochures that Katie had already put together along with some written materials. We have found that the government treats ICCI like a red headed step child and goes out of its way sometimes to keep us from programs or if they have to invite us making it last minute in the hopes we wont attend. With four of us in attendance and a table they couldnt ignore us and it was funny watching at least two speakers obviously have to depart from their prepared remarks which were only going to mention the government founded University College and add in a reference to us. It was a small victory for the little college that could but a satisfying one.

The food at the reception was incredible and we did get to network with some important people. I spoke with the general manager of the resort and am making an appointment to meet with him next week to do a presentation on the college and partnership opportunities. Its amazing the number of people who dont even know about ICCI which is sad when you consider ICCI was the first college on the Island and is justifiably entitled to claim itself as the birthplace of college education in Cayman. The nice thing is that for the most part when they do find out about us and how they can send their employees to school at night and not lose them during the work day, they are very interested in hearing about us.

After dropping off Dr. Cummings at home we headed out with Kira and Clay to see the late showing of The Bourne Ultimatum at the Marquee. Great movie. We got in around Midnight and fell asleep after a long week and a long Friday night.

Saturday consisted of a bike ride to Bodden Town, a shopping trip into George Town, and 4 or so episodes of Scrubs in the evening. This afternoon we biked over to Kira's place in Spotts. Her complex is right next to Spotts beach with a breaker just about 100 or 150 feet from the shore. The wave activity was really strong and we snorkeled out almost to the rocks to look at all the schools of fish that were in the area. We made dinner with Kira and Clay and had an enjoyable afternoon away from the college. This evening Katie is grading papers for her class tomorrow and I am catching up on my reading for my graduate course. One week to our move and on either Tuesday or Wednesday we pick up our car.

Television Debut and New Car

By Scott:

This morning I made my Cayman television debut appearing on the morning talk show Daybreak. We did a five minute live segment where Dr. Cummings and I were interviewed to talk about the upcoming 37th Anniversary of the college, our new marketing campaign and the new staff. I was very nervous but it seemed to go well. The five minutes flew by and it seemed to be over before it had even begun. Our marketing campaign is in full swing and this afternoon I got a call from the Cayman Compass one of the two daily newspapers on the Island and they want to come out and do an interview Monday afternoon. The only bad part about the TV interview was the 5:30 wake up call after leaving work at 11 the night before.

Later in the morning, Katie and I put a deposit on our new car and we pick it up next Tuesday or Wednesday. We bought it from Budget out of their fleet cars. Its a 2004 Daihatsu Charade, about the size of a Geo Metro. We got the insurance and unlike the US you don't pay monthly premiums you pay it all up front. So today was an expensive day.

Tomorrow night we are going to a reception for the tourism ministry. We are counting the days to our move next Saturday.