Empty House and First Week of Class

After a straight month almost of having guests this week it was just us and the cats once we put Mel, Stephanie and Johnathan on their plane home Monday. With this being the first week of class both of us have been very busy. the college enrollment is up to over 180 students so there is never a slow minute at work. We are both also teaching and Kathleen is taking another course toward her Masters so the days are pretty full. We have also both been negligent in keeping up with exercising so yet again we are re-starting our training regimen. We are going to see "Annie" this Saturday being put on by the Cayman Drama Society with our friends from France, Thierry and Marie-Claude. The cats seem to have taken the now empty house in stride though Ginger has shown her anger at the presence of suit cases by acting out in little ways that remind us she is upset whenever a suitcase appears.

Week of Playing Tourist

With Stephanie, Mel and Mel's boyfriend Jonathan in town this week it has been several days of playing tourist while also trying to finish out the Winter quarter and get ready for the start of the spring quarter on Monday. Mel and Jonathan have been diving which has really gotten us fired up to get certified and learn how to dive. Stephanie has spent a lot of quality time working on her tan and watching "Bones" on DVD. We all went out to East end last night for dinner at Portofino and tomorrow night we are treating them to Grand Old House. We have been out to Rum Point and up to Cemetery beach as well as several sunsets on seven mile beach. They head home Monday afternoon and then two weeks later we head to Texas for Easter.

Katie, Melanie and Stephanie

Some shots from this past weekend.

Hiking the Mastic Trail

Yesterday we got up early and drove to the north side of the Island to hike the two mile long Mastic trail. Since we did not have two cars that meant a 4 mile round trip walk. The trail is well known for the Cayman Parrots who live in a section of the trail and for the various flora and fauna common to these islands. We started hiking around 8 a.m. and had decided that we would turn back by no later than 9:30 since we didn't want to be on the trail after 11 a.m. when it gets really hot. The trail was very rocky and we only made it about a mile and a half in before it was time to turn around. We did see several parrots (one of which is pictured at left) and some other varieties of birds. We also got to see the different varieties of tree's and plants as well as getting in a nice hike. There weren't any iguanas out which was the one disappointing thing, so we will go to the Botanic gardens at some point to show them the island dragons. In the afternoon we went up to Queen's Monument to snorkel and then to a new site called Barefoot beach where we saw a yellow stingray, something we hadn't see before.

Katie's sisters in town

Katie's sisters Melanie and Stephanie arrived yesterday and are in town for the next ten days. We will be showing them around the Island and will post updates and pictures. This afternoon they went snorkeling and diving at Eden Rock and this evening we had sushi, which seems to have become our Welcome to Cayman meal. Tomorrow we are hiking the Mastic trail and it should be an eventful weekend.

What Kevin saw "Under the Sea"

Kevin and the Stingrays

Today our twice delayed trip to the Sting Ray Sand Bar finally happened and Kevin got to swim with the rays. Here are some shots from the trip. The shot at left was taken at the Coral Gardens snorkel site as a ray came to see what was happening.

Kevin in East End and Northside

Here are some shots of Kevin this afternoon at the blow hole in East End (bottom), the Wreck of the Ten Sail monument (top right) and with the blue iguana's at the botanic park (top left). We circled the eastern side of the Island showed him the Districts of East End and Northside. We went swimming out at Rum Point before heading back to East End for dinner at Portofino restaurant which overlooks a wreck out on the East End reef.

Kevin at Wreck of the Callie

We went for an early Sunday snorkel to Wreck of the Callie which is in about 25 feet of water in George Town Harbor. Here are a few shots of Kevin at the wreck. The ship behind him in the picture above and to the right is the pirate ship that every year in November during Pirate's week "invades" George Town. This afternoon we are headed to the east and north end of the Island to show Kevin some of the traditional Cayman sites and see the blue iguana's.

Cemetary Reef

Some more shots of Kevin today snorkeling at Cemetary Reef. We headed up there this afternoon to get in some more swimming and beach time. Tonight is a rest night and tomorrow we plan to head up to rum point and the northside of the Island. Hopefully by Monday we will see a decrease in the winds so that we can do a sandbar trip to see the sting rays.

Kevin's First Day

Scott's brother Kevin arrived last night and we took him out for sushi as a welcome to Cayman dinner. Afterwards we headed over to Seven Mile Beach to watch the sunset. This morning we headed out early to Smith's cove for his first snorkeling trip of the visit (his picture is at left). We also snorkeled at Eden Rock giving him a full morning of getting used to swimming in the Caribbean. We saw a new fish called a scrawled file fish. We were supposed to do the Sting Ray sand bar but the high winds on the Island today caused the maritime patrol to close the sand bar. We are hopeful that it might open this afternoon to let us do the tour or we will try tomorrow or Monday.

Our next two years

As many of you know, our contracts with the college expire at the end of August. We have been spending a lot of time recently thinking about the next couple of years and whether we would stay here, move back to Texas or move somewhere else. In light of the on going economic issues in the US and the likelihood of our finding jobs in similar pay brackets and after much discussion and thought about our future, we have decided to seek a renewal of our contracts with the college for an additional two years (through August of 2011). There is obviously no guarantee the board will extend our contracts (though we are reasonably confidant they will) or that our work permits will be extended by immigration (though again we are fairly sure it wont be an issue). Staying an extra two years will mean that when we start trying to have kids that will happen down here (more on that in later posts). It also means not seeing family as often as we would like though we will try to get back to the States for holidays and our doors are always open for visitors. Speaking of which, we are looking forward to all the visitors we will be having this month and will post pictures and updates.

Land of the White Butterfly

Grand Cayman has been a land of white butterflies for the past several weeks. This invasion is a first for us to see. We don't know if this is because the weather is cooler this year than last but we don't recall seeing anything like the number of butterflies that are out. You cant drive down a road without seeing literally hundreds.

Miami Seminar

This past week was our Winter quarter Miami seminar and we both flew up to Miami to work the seminar and get some much needed shopping done. Scott who taught the seminar flew up on Wednesday while Katie came up Friday afternoon. Wednesday was a national holiday in the Cayman Islands (Ash Wednesday) so the seminar ran from Wednesday afternoon through Sunday morning. It was the first time Scott had taught the full seminar so it made for a long weekend. We stayed at a Courtyard by Marriott just across from Dolphin Mall which made the shopping very convenient. For field trips, the seminar students went out to an Indian Reservation, volunteered a morning at a homeless shelter and met with the Miami Dade Public School Board for presentations on Urban schools. The rest of the seminar was spent in class sessions at the hotel in a meeting room. Saturday night we completed that days sessions at 5 in the evening and we took advantage of the early finish to the day to go to something called a Cinebistro where you order a full meal and watch a movie (we saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was quite good). The seminar ended Sunday at noon and we spent the rest of the day running errands and shopping. We flew back Monday morning and are looking forward to seeing Scott's brother Kevin this Friday for a visit.